Chinese tech titan NetEase acquires Detroit: Become Human dev Quantic Dream

pcgamer.com:

NetEase, the Chinese games and tech company best known in the west for partnering with Blizzard(opens in new tab) to bring games like World of Warcraft and Diablo to China, has bought French studio Quantic Dream for an undisclosed amount.

NetEase isn't quite as omnipresent as more-recognisable Chinese titan Tencent, but its recent business efforts have seen it inching westward for a while now. In May this year, the company founded its first US-based studio(opens in new tab) in the form of Jackalope Games. The purchase of Quantic Dream—which makes the company NetEase's first European studio—follows on from a 2019 investment(opens in new tab) that NetEase made in the developer which made NetEase a minority stakeholder.

Quantic Dream, of course, is best known for its startlingly lifelike recreation of David Bowie in 1999's Omikron: The Nomad Soul(opens in new tab). Oh, and games like Detroit: Become Human and Heavy Rain, I suppose. In a statement to VentureBeat(opens in new tab), Quantic Dream founder and CEO David Cage said the company had considered a lot of options for investments and partnerships—including the possibility of taking the company public—but eventually settled on a NetEase acquisition to preserve Quantic Dream's «editorial independence», and because of the pre-existing relationship between the two companies.

Cage attributes the timing of the acquisition to the recent wave of consolidation(opens in new tab) that's overtaken the games industry. «Our industry is undergoing a profound mutation through a wave of acquisitions,» Cage told VentureBeat, meaning that the «central position in the industry» of Quantic Dream and other developers «are now more correctly valued». In other words, it sounds like there's now