Moa, the creator of Hatoful Boyfriend, has stated on Twitter that she has not received a single payment from Epic Games since her game appeared on the platform two years ago. She explains that Mediatonic used to own distribution rights for Hatoful Boyfriend, which would give her royalty fees. However, since Epic Games bought Mediatonic after Fall Guys’s success, she has not gotten any payments from the game’s sales. Epic Games has responded and stated that it is looking into it.
You can read Moa’s full statement below:
Though Moa has tried to contact Epic Games’s accounting to try and sort this out, she has not been able to get a response until Epic Games reached out to her on Twitter. In a follow-up Tweet, she explains that this isn’t a matter of life or death. She can get by without the royalties from Hatoful Boyfriend. However, she wanted to ask what was going on since Epic Games was the one to suddenly remove the game from the PlayStation Store and mobile e-shops.
Hatoful Boyfriend is a doujin otome visual novel that came out in 2011. Its biggest draw is that all of the characters you can romance are sentient birds, who are now the apex lifeforms on the planet. It generally received positive reviews and was popular due to word-of-mouth marketing. The idea of a dating sim, but the romance options are all giant talking birds (that look like real birds), was novel at the time.
Hatoful Boyfriend is available for the PS4, Windows PC, OS X, and mobile devices. You can actually get the game via Steam, as well.
