Playdead buys independence from investors

Playdead has bought itself back from its shareholders, Next-Gen.biz reports.

The Danish developer worked in conjunction with investment banking consultant GP Bullhound to regain its independence going into its next project.

"We are really happy about how it turned out even though the cost was higher than we had hoped," said CEO Dino Patti. "The process was very educational and this is a big step on our way to become fully independent."

Playdead's debut game, Limbo, was self-funded at first, but Patti and game director Arnt Jensen turned to investors as the project expanded.

In an interview with GamesIndustry.biz last month, Patti suggested that the studio was eager to free itself from investor control.

"We're aiming to be even more independent than we were before, and that's expensive," he said. "What I'm hinting at, really, is that we're investor-backed. So in that sense we're trying to become more independent.

"In that sense...people who pay for the projects are the ones controlling it. We're really aiming to use our own money, we're our best investors. We're the ones who know what we want. We want to control micro-decisions. We'll probably want to sanity check them with people but we want to have control."

"For us, if we can somehow keep the creative control and the IP, then we'd probably collaborate with someone. But if they would take our freedom and creative control, we would never say yes to it. That's not where we come from."

To read the full interview with Patti, click here.