In a bid to develop their very own third-party publishing line, Quantic Dream has hired industry veteran Sebastien Motte to help run the company as it moves away from its partnership with PlayStation.
Beforehand, the Paris-based video game developer best known for Heavy Rain, Beyond: Two Souls and Detroit: Become Human revealed that it received an investment from Chinese gaming giant NetEase, allowing the developer to expand way beyond Sony and its previous ties to PlayStation. As evidenced by this, the three titles above – Heavy Rain, Beyond: Two Souls and Detroit: Become Human – are now available to pre-order on PC, exclusively on the Epic Games Store.
This investment also provided Quantic Dream with the means to pursue another endeavor entirely – that is, third-party publishing.
“Quantic Dream has been an independent, triple-A developer for the past 22 years,” Motte said, in an exclusive with Venturebeat. “With the NetEase investment, we are fully independent again. We are able to self-fund future development on multiple projects. And more importantly, with better digital distribution channels, there is an opportunity to become more independent and self publish.”
Sebastien Motte has been in the industry for more than a decade. His most recent work was with Mintonic, where he served as a business development and strategy consultant. Of course, he was better known for his work in business development at Unity, as well as other roles in Microsoft’s game studios for the better part of 16 years.
"By being able to self-publish our titles moving forward, we have put together an expert publishing team from different companies," Motte said in the interview. "That is why I am in the picture. We also would like to offer our services to other independent studios that have strong backing and would like to have a strong direct-to-consumer relationship."
With regards to the third-party publishing plans, Motte has stated to expect “one or two” third-party games in a year, in addition to projects coming directly from Quantic Dream. It won’t be surprising if the third-party titles are narrative-driven games as well, as Quantic Dream specializes in that kind of experience. Of course, the best thing about this is the fact that the company is now multi-platform, allowing players outside of PS4 owners to enjoy their works.
