‘Publishers are now calling us’ – How Life is Strange has transformed Dontnod

Dontnod says its perception in the industry has been transformed on the back of hit episodic game Life is Strange.

The company was in financial trouble after its disappointing first game, 2013’s Remember Me, and was rescued when Square Enix invested in Life is Strange.

The title was a huge critical and commercial success, and now publishers are banging on the studio’s door, says its CEO.

‘It has transformed the way we are seen,” Oskar Guilbert told MCV @ Gamescom. Before Life is Strange, I had to go out and find a publisher for our next project. Now the situation is different, it is much easier. Now publishers are calling us, asking us if we’re doing anything new for them to sign, saying: ‘We’d like to work with you’. It is always difficult, but it is easier than it was two or three years ago.”

Guilbert says that the studio will continue to use publishers, although it does want to have a bigger controlling stake in its IP going forward.

We don’t know about marketing and distribution, it is not what we are specialists in. So we need a publisher for that,” he said. But also, on the financial side, we are more financially comfortable now, but we are still not comfortable enough to afford a full project. As a strategy we want to control more, and have a bigger part, of the IPs we produce in the future. That’s our goal.”

Dontnod’s next game is Vampyr from Focus Home Interactive.