Official Statement: Regarding Unpaid Promotional Fees and Aerosoft's Breach of Contract
To our valued players, the Asian creator community, and all our partners:
I am deeply sorry for letting everyone down. This is Shiko Sama from Aurora Studio. As I write this, I am standing at the NR Numazu Station South Exit—a location I spent years recreating to 100% perfection in our game, OMSI 2 Add-on Project Numazu. I am not here today to celebrate our game’s launch.
I am here to offer my deepest apologies to hololive's Juufuutei Raden, Numazu local VTuber Nishiura Meme, Taiwanese streamer AJay, and all the Asian players who supported us.
Aurora Studio is currently unable to pay the €10,000+ PR and promotional fees we owe to these creators.
Please hear me out. This is not because we are absconding with the funds, nor is it because the game failed to sell. It is because our German publisher, Aerosoft, has unilaterally torn up our contract and maliciously withheld the hard-earned money that rightfully belongs to these Asian creators.
Here is the truth behind this cross-border corporate bullying:
A Betrayal in Black and White: Clause 2 of our publishing contract explicitly states: "Marketing and PR costs for the product will be covered by Aerosoft." Yet, after our partnered streamers generated over 200,000 views and 706 direct sales, Aerosoft unilaterally froze the budget and refused to settle the invoice.
Scapegoating a 13-Year-Old Engine: The game experienced a 17.5% refund rate because Aerosoft is still using the outdated, 32-bit engine of OMSI 2 from 2013. It cannot handle the high-fidelity modern Japanese streets we built, causing Out of Memory (OOM) crashes. Instead of addressing their technological obsolescence, they blamed our Asian marketing strategy.
Vampiric Double Exploitation: Riding on the massive promotion from top-tier Asian VTubers, Aerosoft pocketed a 40% revenue cut from our Numazu DLC and sold countless copies of the OMSI 2 base game. They made a fortune, yet refuse to pay the PR fees. They even rejected our plea to advance the payment against our future royalties.
The Ultimate "Reply All" Humiliation: When we fought to get our Asian partners paid, Aerosoft CEO Mr. Winfried sent his payment refusal email and hit "Reply All"—dragging Cover Corp's overseas representatives, Japanese local VTubers, Taiwanese VTubers, and myself into the same thread to professionally humiliate me in front of my partners.
"This is not just unpaid wages. This is a blatant trampling and contempt by legacy Western capital against the Asian ACG economy and indie creators."
Because of this malicious financial cut-off, not only are we unable to pay the idols, but the development funds for our upcoming title, Revenant of Tsushima, have been completely severed.
A Desperate Plea to Our Community: Do not attack any of the streamers or VTubers involved. They are innocent victims who executed their jobs flawlessly. If you are angry, please share this statement on X (Twitter), Threads, and Reddit. Tag @Aerosoft and let the world see the true face of this publisher.
Support Aurora Studio & Learn the Truth:
Official Website:https://aurora-studio.org
Support us on Patreon:https://member.aurora-studio.org
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