NetEase Acquires Quantic Vision For An Undisclosed Sum of Money
After three years as a minority investor in the French studio, NetEase acquired Detroit Become Human and Heavy raindeveloper Quantic dream for an undisclosed sum.
Quantic Dream Co-CEO David Cage spoke to GamesBeat about how “editorial independence” was crucial to the company’s decision to sell to NetEase.
Cage stated to GamesBeat that although we had several acquisition talks over the past 25 years, none of them guaranteed our editorial independence. Therefore, Cage said that they decided to continue their independent studio and pass on any potential opportunities. Through a series of acquisitions, publishers and studios, our industry is experiencing a profound transformation. This represents a paradigm shift for studios as our central position and contribution to the value chain is now better valued. Several past offers have been made to us that met our expectations.
The studio claims to operate independently and release its games on all platforms. While most of its output was PlayStation exclusive at launch in the past decade, due to publishing agreements with Sony, Heavy Rain and Beyond were all available for PC ports.
Quantic Dream was recently under scrutiny after reports of harassment and discrimination in the company. This was not helped by the court cases between the studio, newspapers and the newspaper that published statements about the working conditions. GamesBeat asked Cage about the current state of affairs. Cage was reportedly asked by a senior executive, “I’m not under oath, can I lie?” during the court case regarding the same working conditions.
“On our part, we realized that we had to make more effort to express who and what we stand for, so everyone inside and outside Quantic Dream can understand how these must translate to maintain our benevolent studio culture.”
