When people think of Quantic Dream, many immediately relate them to Sony. You wouldn’t be too far off. They’ve effectively served as a second-party developer to Sony for the last decade. Heavy Rain, Beyond: Two Souls, and Detroit: Become Human were all PlayStation-exclusive games published by Sony before eventually coming to PC in 2019 as Quantic Dream started to dip its toes in self-publishing. Starting this year, however, Quantic Dream will begin publishing all of its own games as an entirely independent studio.
The Quantic Dream self-publishing announcement comes as the studio celebrates its 23rd birthday this year. Since its founding in May of 1997, Quantic dream has developed five games. The studio attributes the success of its latest release, Detroit: Become Human, as well as the self-published releases of its games on PC, as a key part in the ability to “realize the vision” and begin self-publishing.
And so, for the first time in 23 years of working with prestigious publishers, we are now in a position to self-publish.
For the first time in 23 years, Quantic Dream will operate as an independent studio with the ability to make its own creative and marketing decisions “in total independence.” It’s no secret that Quantic Dream President David Cage hasn’t been too thrilled with some of the marketability changes made to the studio’s games in the past, specifically for The Nomad Soul and Fahrenheit (Indigo Prophecy in North America). While it appears that the partnership with Sony has been a little more kind to the studio’s overall independence and freedom, it’s clearly found additional success by self-publishing its games on the PC platform.
More than just publishing its own games, however, Quantic Dream also wants to step into a position to help other developers and creators. “It will also allow us to help other developers, by providing investment and development support, so that they can fully express their talents. We want to support creators of original projects and help them, in turn, to achieve their vision and offer quality, ground-breaking experiences.” It’s not yet clear if this is just a goal for the company moving forward or if they have already found projects they want to support.
Quantic Dream remains committed “to its roots” as it takes this step. It still plans to use games as an interactive medium of artistic expression that include “values of humanism, solidarity, and inclusiveness.” It wants to continue to make games that are “different,” which is certainly supported by the studio striking out on its own.
As of October last year, Detroit: Become Human had sold more than 3.2 million units on the PS4 alone. That doesn’t include the PC release in December or the additional months of sales since October. Heavy Rain and Beyond: Two Souls were both among the PS3s bestselling games, and have since had PS4 and PC versions released, adding to those numbers. As it begins self-publishing, it’s unknown if Quantic Dream will branch out beyond the PlayStation and PC platforms int the future, or if its past games will make the jump to Xbox.
[Source: Quantic Dream]
