NetEase invests in Hermey the Elf (Off-Topic)

by narcogen , Andover, Massachusetts, Tuesday, January 29, 2019, 16:52 (2128 days ago) @ Cody Miller

Even if you own your own business, you are not completely independent.

You are literally "all lives mattering" this phrase now. Yes, ALL lives matter. Yes, NO ONE is "completely independent". After all, you know, gravity.

"Independent" can mean a lot of things. Nobody is suggesting it ever means "completely independent" in the sense of having no other entities that influence, control, or affect you.

In this case it refers to company ownership or to particular publishing and partnership agreements that restrict the choices that a company's management may make, specifically with regard to intellectual property ownership and development platforms.

In particular, Bungie from 2001-2010 and Quantic from 2010-2018 were restricted in similar, but not identical ways.

Bungie was owned by a platform owner (Microsoft) and so restricted to developing titles approved by that ownership, for platforms owned by their owner.

Quantic's games (Heavy Rain, Beyond: Two Souls and David Cage: Become Human) were published by Sony as platform exclusives.

These restrictions are similar, but not identical.

Both companies chose to announce their "independence" from those restrictions in similar ways. Quantic's video refers to themselves as "independent" while Bungie, having already declared their independence in 2010, chose to make "self-publishing" the descriptor for their latest change.

Both situations, it appear, were enabled by investments in their companies by NetEase. Presumably NetEase receives consideration for these investments.

That was what Obama meant with his famous ‘you didn’t build that’ comment. Your ability to even create and distribute a game at all is reliant upon many things which you do not own or did not create.

Yes, but in this case "reliant on" is a much weaker definition than "independent from" which I am using strictly in either an ownership or exclusivity agreement sense, mostly because discussing such transactions in a more general sense is unproductive.