Quantic Dream expands into third-party publishing

Unity and Microsoft alumni Sebastian Motte has joined Quantic Dream to lead its newly established third-party publishing arm. Taking up the post of director of third-party studios, Motte will report to CEO David Cage as the studio looks beyond Sony’s PlayStation platform for publishing opportunities.

“Quantic Dream has been an independent, triple-A developer for the past 22 years,” Motte told 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.”

“By being able to self-publish our titles moving forward, we have put together an expert publishing team from different companies,” Motte added. “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.”

Motte most recently worked as Mintonic’s business development and strategy consultant, and before that, served in Unity’s business development team. He also worked across a number of business development and other roles in Microsoft’s game studios.

“There is more room for independent developers to find their connections directly with players through digital distribution platforms. With the emergence of cloud gaming platforms, there will be more ability for developers and publishers to own their own destinies and manage their relationships with gamers. It’s exciting times.”

Looking ahead, Motte intimates Quantic will look to publish “one or two” third-party games a year, as well as Quantic Dream’s own in-house projects.

Last year the studio lost a court case after reports emerged of an alleged culture of toxicity and inappropriate behaviour at the studio, with three major French news outlets revealing, among other things, a host of Photoshopped images of employees in degrading positions – such as having their faces placed on pornographic actors, or on figures wearing Nazi uniforms.

One employee quit the firm as a result of these images – which were freely viewable by anyone at the studio – and successfully took their case to court, enacting the prise d’acte section of French employment law.