The authors of Life Is Strange plan to enter the stock market
The French team Dontnod Entertainment, known for the games Remember Me and Life Is Strange, announced the registration of documents for the launch of the IPO. The studio’s management plans to raise money to develop cooperation with publishers and launch more ambitious games into production.
This is reported by afjv. The same information is confirmed by the newspaper Le Figaro. Both publications share a detailed story about what is the reason for Dontnod’s desire to enter the stock exchange.
The studio’s practice of working with publishers differs from the generally accepted one in AAA development. Traditionally, the publisher is responsible for all production costs and shares only part of the income with the studio,” the materials say. Dontnod is ready to invest in the development itself.
“By financing a small part of the development ourselves, we take on financial risk, but this allows us to receive large deductions if the game becomes successful,” says Oskar Gilbert, president of the studio. It is according to this model that the current game is being developed Dontnod — a third-person role-playing project Vampyr.
Vampyr
But if the studio wants to take on a more ambitious project, it needs to invest more in development itself.
To do this, the developers plan to raise funds.
At the same time, the studio’s management assures that it is not ready to abandon the model in which the publisher pays for all development. “We want to achieve a balance between these approaches,” Oscar notes.
Dontnod’s caution can be understood. In 2014, the company underwent a reorganization after the commercial failure of the sci-fi action movie Remember Me. The studio failed to recapture its budget of €20 million.
Remember Me
After that, the company decided to take up the development of smaller-scale projects focused on the plot.
The result of the change of focus was an episodic adventure game Life Is Strange. Thanks to the success of the romantic story about a girl who is able to return to the past, the turnover of Dontnod in 2017 alone amounted to €9.7 million, and the profit reached €2.1 million.
Whether Vampyr is waiting for comparable success is still a big question. The first reviews of Western journalists on the game can not even be called restrainedly good. Rock, Paper, Shotgun and PCGamesN publications were critical of the project after a two-hour acquaintance.
Anyway, now Dontnod has launched two more projects into production. She plans to announce one of them this year. The company is working on it together with BANDAI NAMCO. The ResetEra forum, which was the first to draw attention to the Dontnod story in the French media, also presented an approximate plan for the release of the company’s titles.
Dontnod Projects Sources:
