A NetEase veteran has decided to invest in games. He has invested in the creators of Star Wars: Fate of the Old Republic
Simon Zhu is a former President of Global Investments and Partnerships at NetEase. In an interview with Bloomberg, he revealed that at the end of 2025, he founded a holding company called GreaterThan Group, which plans to actively invest money in gaming studios.
Star Wars: Fate of the Old Republic
During the conversation, Zhu mentioned that GreaterThan Group has already completed several deals. The most notable among them are the investments in Casey Hudson's Arcanaut Studios, which is working on Star Wars: Fate of the Old Republic.
Additionally, GreaterThan Group has funded BulletFarm Studio. This studio was launched a few years ago by David Vonderhaar, one of the developers of Call of Duty.
An interesting note: both Hudson and Vonderhaar previously collaborated with NetEase itself but lost its support at some point. This was particularly a significant blow for Hudson — NetEase was an investor in his previous studio, Humanoid Origin, which was forced to close its doors after the partnership ended.
Zhu did not disclose how much money the holding provided to Arcanaut Studios and BulletFarm. Instead, he shared that GreaterThan Group has approximately $40 million in its accounts. Additionally, he has commitments from investors amounting to $60 million. While he did not name the investors, he noted that they are successful entrepreneurs from the gaming and tech industries.
Zhu hopes that GreaterThan Group will avoid the fate of the Swedish holding company Embracer Group, which had been investing in and acquiring developers worldwide for years but eventually encountered financial issues that led to mass layoffs and asset sales. According to the NetEase veteran, the situation in the game development sector is gradually improving, so he remains optimistic.