The video game industry is many things, but most importantly of all, it’s a business. And as such, just because a team of video game developers makes a video game doesn’t necessarily mean that they own the IP to it. Sometimes it’s a collaboration deal, and thus the publisher owns the rights to it. Such is the case with the team at Remedy Entertainment, who made the Alan Wake and Quantum Break games, but aren’t able to make a sequel for either because the IP are owned by Microsoft.
In an interview with GameIndustry.biz, new CEO Tero Virtala noted that the team wanted to make sequels for both, but weren’t allowed to.
“Considering our history… Alan Wake was really interesting but it was a collaboration with Microsoft. Due to certain reasons, it never got a sequel. Quantum Break, also, we put a lot of effort into creating the world, the characters, the stories, but still it was Microsoft IP. They decided not to take it further. If we owned the IP, it’s fully in our hands to decide how we create it, how we develop, what are the creative decisions that we take? And then maybe one day in the future, if it proves to be successful, it’s again in our hands to decide what will be done. That was important for us.”
And although the inability to make these sequels has affected them, they are learning from this, and are making sure all titles they make from now on are theirs.
“But maybe the biggest lessons were on the business and production side. We can create excellent games, but the type of games we do with an immersive world and characters, memorable stories – those are typically building blocks in any entertainment business for franchises that could live for a long time. And now for the second time being in a position where we had done all that groundwork and then there was not a possibility to continue those stories… we didn’t want to face that again.”
They’re making a new game right now called Control, and they promise it’ll live up to the expectations put on them.
