Netease acquires No More Heroes, Shadows of the Damned developer, Grasshopper Manufacture
Summary
Microsoft and Mojang use Netease to ensure that Minecraft Pocket Edition has a home in the various alternate app stores available in China. Grasshopper Manufacture has entered its 23rd year of existence and let’s be honest, is quite fascinating as to how they’ve made it nearly a quarter of a century with either niche, art titles like Killer7 or games that never landed properly like Lollipop Chainsaw, which saw the Japanese studio try to make a splash overseas with Shadows of the Damned, only to be hindered by EA. The studio is best known for No More Heroes and its quirky leader, Goichi Suda (SUDA51), who only recently returned to directing games for them after a hiatus since the failure of Shadows of the Damned. We hope to give the studio creative freedom and sufficient resource support in order to empower said studio to create even more sensational works for gamers worldwide.” The buyout means that Grasshopper will provide Netease with three new titles over the next ten years, with Netease ensuring consumers that they’ll have the creative freedom to do what they need to, as well as providing ‘technology’ to aid in their development. All of this is presumed to be part of what’s going on in the industry, as everyone begins to head under various branches of publishers in an effort to provide the best services to users.