This is the transfer window news of the day in the video game industry. After several months of speculation, NetEase Games has just announced the acquisition of the French development studio Quantic Dreamcreator of narrative blockbusters like Detroit: Become Human, Heavy Rain and soon Star Wars Eclipse.
This is certainly a major decision for the Chinese giant, which continues to invest in the console video game market, following having marked its domination on mobile in Asia. The studio made the news official on its official website, in a communiqué going back to the origins of this agreement.
NetEase met la main sur Quantic Dream
In light of a major structural change, Quantic Dream does not fail to return to its many past as an independent developer since its creation in 1997. This acquisition by NetEase Games would thus make it possible to accomplish the new ambitions of this Parisian team, thus ensuring the financing of their future projects and developing their publishing activities:
We met NetEase regarding 4 years ago and offered them to join us as a minority shareholder in January 2019. During this time, we learned a lot regarding each other. We started working together on small and large projects, we collaborated with pleasure and discussed a lot regarding our sector and our vision for the future. This is how we discovered that we shared the same desire: to create audacious and highly qualitative works that leave an impression.
To continue to evolve and dream big as we embark on “our next 25 years”, we are very pleased to announce that we will join NetEase Games, which becomes a 100% shareholder of Quantic Dream. We maintain our independence on our editorial line, the artistic direction of projects and the management of the studio. Our teams, which are fully associated with this operation and which benefit directly financially, are of course fully preserved and will continue to grow and strengthen.
This is an important new purchase for NetEase which has multiplied similar agreements in recent years. In October 2021, the group formalized the acquisition of Grasshopper Manufacture, the studio headed by game designer Goichi Suda, alias Suda51. Finally, the recruitment of Toshihiro Nagoshi, the former artistic director of SEGA, materialized with the opening of the Nagoshi Studio last January.
