In a recent development, Finnish developer Remedy Entertainment has repurchased the rights to the game Control. They bought it from publisher 505 Games for €17 million. This deal includes the original 2019 action game, its upcoming sequel, and the newly revealed multiplayer spin-off titled Condor.
Update: This originally came from a report from GamesIndustry.biz. However, The developer has confirmed the deal since we published this article. 505 Games will keep the rights to publish the original Control until December 31, 2024. After that, Remedy will fully control the publishing and distribution of the franchise.
Following the success of Control and Alan Wake 2, Remedy has made a good of money. Remedy can move forward with a sequel to Control with no restrictions. The sequel and original Control game are based on the Alan Wake universe. This way, they can own this huge IP outright.
By regaining the rights to the Control franchise, Remedy now has more control over the future of the series. This could allow the developer to consider new possibilities for intellectual property. They won’t need to ask for permission or run things by a bigger publisher. So they can independently release future parts or explore different ways to make money beyond just selling the game.
The decision also reflects the growing importance of developers owning intellectual property in the gaming industry. Having the rights to a successful franchise enables developers to keep a larger portion of the profits and potentially have more creative influence over the series. We don’t really need to spell that out since we’ve seen huge names like J.K. Rowling make a lot of money for owning the Harry Potter IP.
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