Just spitballing here... but, I kinda doubt this will end well.
Do you remember the HAWK debacle?
Oh the drama. An outsider would think the flightsim would was populated mainly by teenage girls.
Hawk was before my time. I am waiting for more info before taking sides.
However, that said, regardless of the real issue, it seems to me the the Razbam dev is acting very unprofessionally. Even if completely in the right (which I am increasingly doubtful of).
The beginning of the story is slowly appearing to clarify. It looks like maybe Razbam had broken some IP conditions of it's contract with ED and maybe ED has an enforcement clause and is withholding payments to the vendor until they get back in compliance or in some other way correct the situation.
Ed only makes part of it's money off the consumer product. A big chuck comes from their work with various militaries providing trainers, so anyone jacking with that, I can understand them not having a sense of humor about. There are always things you can fault ED about, but in this situation, IMHO, ED has been acting restrained and professional.
That isn't to say they are not playing hardball, but you have a fiduciary duty to your stockholders to protect your IP and markets, and if you have to strap on you 6-shooters to protect those, you do what you gotta do.
But it is still too early to grasp the whole story and I'm not going to form a hard opinion until more comes out. However, Razbam better be 100% in the right here and ED 100% in the wrong, because anything less I'd have to assume at least this devs career is over, and maybe Razbam is toast. This is what lawyers are for and running to an internet forum to pull your pants down and show your bum is not how professionals handle contract disputes. If I were MSFS or X-plane, I'd be very hesitant to work with Razbam at this point. Even if they are 100% in the right, this behavior is unprofessional AF, but good entertainment.
Red meat for the Floggit crowd.
So yeah, the Hawk, this and Oleg's Normandy thing are examples of the downside of the 3rd party developer model. There are never perfect solutions in life, only trade-offs.
I don't care too much because jets are for gurls.
I think this will pretty get you up to date on the latest of what we know: