Clair Obscur devs want a 'fair solution' with 'L'Académie Clair-Obscur' comic author

Olivier Gay says his contract predates Expedition 33's reveal by three months Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 has been a massively successful debut for developer Sandfall Interactive. It also hasn't been without controversy. In December, the Indie Game Awards revoked two of its awards for its inclusion of AI-generated assets at launch. (They were quickly patched out.) Now, a French author is claiming the developer is forcing him to stop selling his newly released graphic novel, titled L' Académie Clair-Obscur. In a series of posts on X on Friday, author Olivier Gay claimed he "received a lawyer's letter" from Sandfall, "which orders me to stop selling my comic published by Drakoo titled Académie Clair-Obscur, supposedly riding on the game's undeniable success" (via machine translation). According to Gay, he pitched his graphic novel to Drakoo in 2019 and has a contract from March 2024 with the current title of the graphic novel. (Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 was revealed in June 2024.) Though his graphic novel "has nothing to do with [Sandfall's] story," Gay is acquiescing because "I neither have the energy nor the money to engage in a legal battle, especially against French studios tha