DONTNOD to go public soon to co-publish their games, in talks with a major publisher for 2 new IPs

Started by Legend, Apr 18, 2018, 04:01 PM

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Legend

DONTNOD to go public soon to co-publish their games, in talks with a major publisher for 2 new IPs | ResetEra

 
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From Le Figaro
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One of the flagships of the French video game industry will soon take their first steps on the stock market. Parisian studio DONTNOD, responsible for the worldwide success Life is Strange (3 million sales), recorded Tuesday evening to the AMF ("Autorité des Marchés Financiers", French Authority of Financial Markets) the legal documents for their future introduction on Euronext Growth, the European stock exchange market for small and medium companies. This is the first step before the introduction on the stock markets. … DONTNOD have 165 employees and work with world's leading publishers, such as the Japanese Capcom (Remember Me, 2013), Square Enix (Life is Strange, 2015 and the sequel in development), Bandai Namco (a future game still to be revealed this year), or the French Focus Home Interactive (Vampyr, scheduled for June of this year). A fourth game, still secret, is currently in development. DONTNOD also announce being in discussion with a leading industry publisher to launch the production of two other titles. … If, traditionally, the publisher takes care of all development costs and remunerates the studio with a part of the profits, DONTNOD wish to do more co-productions. "By financing a small part of the development ourselves, we take a financial risk, but this allows us to generate larger royalties if the game is successful" said Oskar Guilbert, president of the studio. The game Vampyr is built on this economic model. But if DONTNOD aim to launch co-productions of greater magnitude, they need cash. Hence the desire to enter the stock market. "We are not abandoning the classic model of fully funding games by a publisher," says Oskar Guilbert. "We want to achieve a smart balance between the two models." The idea of going into the stock market has been in the heads of the leaders for several years. "But the company had to first reach a certain maturity," continues the president. In 2017, the studio generated a turnover of 9.7 million euros, up 33%, for an operating profit of 2.4 million euros. Their net profit is 2.1 million euros. "It has been a lot of work to get there," says Oskar Guilbert, whose company was placed in juridicial reorganization in 2014 after the commercial failure of their first blockbuster, Remember Me (20 million euros of budget). Since then, the studio has refocused on smaller projects, with a focus on storytelling and rich stories. "We want to maintain this quality of production and continue on this path," says its president.Click to expand...