Quantic Dream Announces Detroit: Become Human, Beyond: Two Souls, & Heavy Rain for Steam

Quantic Dream revealed the upcoming Steam Release of its games Detroit: Become Human, Beyond: Two Souls, and Heavy Rain coming "soon."

[Obscure_Observer]

Sony is expanding their PC approach beyond (no pun intended) Epic Store realm.

Steam official pages:

Heavy Rain
https://store.steampowered....

Beyond: Two Souls
https://store.steampowered....

Detroit: Become Human
https://store.steampowered....

[Abriael]

Quantic Dream is self-publishing and doing this entirely independently from Sony. Sony is not involved at all.

[Sciurus_vulgaris]

Detroit: Become Human and Beyond: Two Souls are owned by Sony. Therefore,Quantic Dream needs Sony's permission to release the titles on steam and PC.

https://trademarks.justia.c...
https://trademarks.justia.c...

[Abriael]

@Sciurus_vulgaris: neither is owned by Sony. Registering a trademark (trademarks are related only to titles and have nothing to do with game or IP ownership) is completely unrelated from owning the rights of a game.

Sony had the publishing license on the games as a second party for a period. That license has expired, so now Quantic Dream is free to do whatever they want with them, and they are.

Incidentally, they have announced a few months ago that now they're taking the independent route, so expect their games on all platforms from now on.

[hulk_bash1987]

A trademark is a way a company or individual exercises legal ownership of an intellectual property. And as of right now Sony does still own the trademarks for those two QD developed games.

https://breakinggames.com/p...

[Abriael]

@hulk_bash1987 "Breaking Games" isn't trademark law. That's a massive oversimplification of trademark law. Trademarks do not in any shape or form give you ownership on an IP. It gives you ownership of a name. period.

Since trademarks are completely separate by publishing contracts, Sony's publishing contract on a game can have expired (and it has, the publisher of the games on PC is Quantic Dream itself) but the trademark still not have expired.

Quantic Dream has full ownership of the IPs. In fact, you won't see Sony named absolutely anywhere in any listing for PC. If Sony was involved, you'd see them listed right there.

[Imalwaysright]

hulk_bash1987

The intellectual property being the title of the game. Trademarks only protect names or logos. The game itself and everything in it: code, story, characters, art, etc are protected by copyrights.

[hulk_bash1987]

Sony does own the trademarks and therefore have ownership over some portion of the ip. So they wouldve had to agree or had some type of legal or mutual agreement in place for QD to release them on platforms outside of Playstation.

[Abriael]

@hulk_bash1987: Sony's influence on the title is determined exclusively by their publishing contract. That's all the legal agreement you need.

If the trademark had any value over this, you'd see trademark notices and Sony plastered all over the listings.

Bottomline, this has literally nothing to do with Sony's approach related to PC gaming as Obscure_Observer tried to imply.

[hulk_bash1987]

Regardless of the ownership debate. Sony has been more liberal with their exclusives recently. QDs games, Death Stranding and most importantly HZD.

[Abriael]

Horizon Zero Dawn is likely an experiment done because Kojima Productions optimized the engine at basically no additional cost for Sony.

The release on PC of Death Stranding was likely a condition from Kojima himself since the beginning. This has nothing to do with Sony.

[hulk_bash1987]

Horizon is definetly and experiement. Its Sony testing the water, to see how big of an audience their games might have on PC. It was pretty much out right stated that they want to get their games out to as many people as possible. Which will potentially open people up to buying PS hardware.

[ZwVw]

Bro, you're getting licencing and copyright confused. Beyond and Detroit are both Sony properties, who Sony is granting licensing permission for QT to publish on PC. This is nothing new. Companies like MS, Square and Sega do this all the time.

Besides, is you visit Detroit's Steam page, you can clearly see the Sony copyright at the bottom of the page. https://store.steampowered....

[Obscure_Observer]

"Quantic Dream is self-publishing and doing this entirely independently from Sony. Sony is not involved at all."

The only reason those games are available on PC, is because Sony gave Quantic Dream a permission. If you think Sony paid those third party studios millions to develop a game so they can claim "independence" and do whatever they want with said games, you´re seriously mistaken.

[Persian_Immortal]

According to the United States Copyright Office https://cocatalog.loc.gov/c...

Sony owns the Copyrights for Detroit Become Human and Beyond Two Souls and Death Stranding.

[RosweeSon]

Even if they were 2 of those games were last gen who cares it’s a bit different if they are your only good games to talk about and releasing simultaneously these games are 5-10 years old came out of ps3 originally except Detroit. Like horizon it was a great game do I care it’s gone to PC also not at all I’d already and finished it over a year previously 🤷🏻‍♂️🤓 😜✌🏻

[neutralgamer1992]

Abriael

sony is notorious for wanting IP's. Insomniac pitched sunset overdrive to sony but went with ms because they were going to let insomniac keep the IP. I think sony is allowing this because it's towards the end of gen and these games will generate extra resources. Sony allowed it on epic first because they have a great relationship lately eith epic and now even if QD are self publishing they would have spoken to sony about it

you are making it sound like just because they are self publishing they don't have to ask sony. The company that owns the IP's has a lot of say

https://www.gamespot.com/ar...

BTW i am not saying other games from sony will come to PC just that they do own the IP's

[TricksterArrow]

Hmm... You can literally see this in their steam page:

DETROIT: BECOME HUMAN: ©2018 Sony Interactive Entertainment Europe ltd. Developed by Quantic Dream. “Detroit: Become Human” is a trademark of Sony Interactive Entertainment Europe. All rights reserved.

[blackblades]

The dev always said he wanted them on pc. Lol putting Sony in it to make it look like Sony putting more of there games on pc.

[ajax17]

I'll agree once I see God of War and Spider-man on steam

[Bronxs15]

What about horizons zero dawn??

[DerfDerf]

@Bronxs15 that was before the goal posts were moved

[neutralgamer1992]

shloobian

there is no goal post if yo are comparing MS releasing all their exclusives on pc day one to sony releasing HZD(3 years after release on pc) than maybe you should look up those said goal posts. Most likely case with HZD is the fact kojima optimized the game engine for PC so sony/GG didn't have any extra cost to make it work on pc

[Sophisticated_Chap]

@ Bronxs15

That one doesn't count.

[hulk_bash1987]

Interested to see what other Sony IPs will see a release on PC

[Father__Merrin]

QD are now independant in fact they always was but used sonys platforms to sell thier games.its thier ip they can do what ever they want with them

[gravedigger]

Quantic Dream are no longer works for Sony. Contract ended

[S2Killinit]

If this makes Obscure happy, then does that mean he is secretly sad that ALL of xbox’s games are available on PC? Hmm

[Obscure_Observer]

@S2Killinit

"If this makes Obscure happy, then does that mean he is secretly sad that ALL of xbox’s games are available on PC? Hmm"

Sad? Lol.

Xbox games on PC means more money to fund new first party studios, games and new IP´s for us, Xbox console gamers.

Sony is not stupid, they´re paying attention to every move competition makes. They will allow day one exclusives on PC? Unlikely. However, you´ll see more and more Playstation games making their way to PC. Then, will see more and more PS fanboys telling how Sony is making money out of the PC gamers to fund new first party studios, games and new IP´s for us, Playstation console gamers.

You heard from me first. Mark my words. ;)

[S2Killinit]

Not much of a prediction though is it? The issue is that xbox is already moving toward obsoletion of consoles because MS has realized that they cant dominate the console market, so they want to scorch earth the console habitat by making it irrelevant (or at least a less important factor). As a console gamer I will support consoles and console makers that resist these types of maneuvers. I say screw Microsoft.

[itsmebryan]

Can someone explain why MS console exclusives on PC are bad, but, when Sony copies the same thing it's somehow "different" or "Okay"?

I need to understand fanboy logic.

[WeAreLegion]

Sony would be crazy not to attempt to acquire them at some point.

[Veneno]

Nah. QD is too all over the place. Not consistent in terms of quality.

[Tacoboto]

Detroit was mechanically great, regardless of opinion on story. With Sony support officially behind them, they'd have those resources to improve their management

[Flewid638]

I have yet to play a QD game I didn't like

[AspiringProGenji]

Didn’t they get owned already by some publisher?

[Obscure_Observer]

No. And they will remain independent for the foreseeable future.

[Abriael]

Sony may want whatever they want. Quantic Dream wants to be independent and they're swimming in money (they recently expanded considerably) so they have no reason to sell.

[WeAreLegion]

Insomniac wanted to be independent for decades. But things change. Nice to see you again, Abriael.

[Imortus_san]

Sony spent ther money on PS5 SSD.

[TeamIcoFan]

And I will be rebuying all three on steam!

[AmazingGeneration]

When the crazy Xbox fans completely falsify facts to meet their agenda it really just makes you question how desperate these people are and how brainwashed they’ve become.

I blame Sony, you can only take a beating for so long and Sony been laying the fist into them for three generations now.

[Tacoboto]

What the... The only mention of anything Xbox here is coming from you...

[aconnellan]

What facts?

[TeamIcoFan]

Alright sonny, put down the crack pipe and try to come back to reality, m'kay?

[Neonridr]

sorry who's the one who's brainwashed here. Stop drinking the koolaid, what in dear god are you going on about here. Nothing you said relates to this article in any way. The fact that you got 4 agrees makes me wonder about those people too.

[InUrFoxHole]

Lol. This news truly broke this poor soul!

[FanboyPolice]

Yeeeaaaaaahh

[DefaultComment]

FINALLY, I've been waiting for those games to be on Steam!

[blanka4545]

nice!

[Petebloodyonion]

Good news for PC users, they are all great experiences and are worth playing.

[Pughski]

Such great games