Embracer Group Is Dead; Now They're Trying To Get Away With It

Embracer Group is splitting. Those under it's umbrealla aren't out of the woods yet. To try everything Brilliant has to offer-free-for a full 30 days, visit brilliant.org/.... You’ll also get 20% off an annual premium subscription. Sponsored by Brilliant.
Sources:
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[@BellularNews]

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[@vvitch-mist20]

Who could have guessed a company trying to monopolize on game publishing would collapse. No one could see it coming.

[@0ldar]

These are people who are very simple, so easy to understand. THey understand 1) Diversify Risk (aka, buy up all the IPs, one will hit it big eventually) and 2) Money is God Theyre simple fools doing what they do best.

[@Shinkajo]

They were never going to monopolize anything lol. Get a grip.

[@vvitch-mist20]

@@Shinkajo Coming from a clear source in information.

[@terjehansen0101]

I wouldn't trust that CEO.

[@vvitch-mist20]

@@terjehansen0101 They shouldn't be trusted to balance a cash register let alone a company.

[@SMcGrath42]

It’s the start of a new chapter! Chapter 11, that is.

[@qasderfful]

hueh

[@Wh1t3Cat]

They are referencing Chapter 11 Bankruptcy.

[@qasderfful]

@@Wh1t3Cat I understood that very well, thanks.

[@oguzcanoguz5977]

So them acquiring developers was literally the Embrace of Death.

[@iller3]

As bad as E.A.'s standard? ...It's yet to be seen

[@hughzehzelleise7166]

It's like poetry: it rhymes.

[@convergence1point]

Yeah, I picked up on that. Every dev that went under Embracer made terrible games. I think the crown jewel of these failures was Payday 3. That..game is just wow.

[@PleasantSkulman]

As a big fan of board games, it sucks that they stuck Asmodee with nearly 1 billion in debt for Embracer's vast overreach is acquiring studios.

[@drayle71]

the only real solace is they have kept them as one company instead of butchering it for parts to sell to deal with the debt. It will definitely not be an easy time with that debt for a while but they were profitable and if its leadership has its head on straight they have a decent chance of surviving.

[@MarkHeathcliff-bf2im]

@@drayle71unless the debtors come to collect and it gets split up anyway

[@coreymorse1347]

@@drayle71 Is Asmodee staying together a good thing? Even before they were bought by the Embracer Group they were despised as the Embarcer Group of board games.

[@kennyb3325]

@@coreymorse1347 Second this, bring on the debt and so long to Asmodee. I don't think a "mega-studio" brings the same advantages to the board game space as it might in the video game market, they are just an overly large, equity capital owned, cash grab!

[@drgnmstr44]

The issue here is the Embracer is pushing parts of their 2b+ debt on these three companies. Asmodee is set to pick up 900m of that debt, something they didn't have before embracer group acquired them. This is nothing more than spreading thing to not be accountable for theianagement of fund in my opinion

[@silmarian]

This is how all private equity works. They go into debt to buy a company, shift that debt onto the company and they suck out any possible value before jettisoning the company to die.

[@drgnmstr44]

​@silmarian right which sucks for the company acquired. Wish this wasn't the way ot worked though

[@ElDaumo]

This is a feature of capitalism

[@parallelblack788]

@@ElDaumo This is corporate espionage, not capitalism.

[@TheDeadb3ar]

@@parallelblack788 Which is part of capitalism

[@AceofSpades511]

They did the Microsoft acquisition model without the Microsoft money.

[@Henbot]

They were putting everything on that Saudi deal 🙃

[@SanderEvers]

And I'm guessing in the end MS going to buy some of these "smaller" companies.

[@ebenezerspludge8369]

Well they have better games here than MS. It's sad to have to point that out as I once loved MS.

[@jacksonmiltin4199]

@@SanderEvers if they want to get suit again😅

[@hoxyheart5479]

True

[@Hellwalker3581]

It's interesting how large corporations and publishers are supposed to be this somewhat stabilizing economic force that provides job security and financial growth for investors by diversifying their resources, but instead routinely results in mass layoffs, destruction of share price, and economic instability, all due to fiscal irresponsibility on the part of a bunch of greedy rich people who use their employees as meat shields and sacrificial lambs any time they face anything remotely close to consequences. Really makes you wonder why we even bother.

[@keit99]

Well they aren't their only interest is line go up. If the line doesn't go up they will be defunct sooner or later.

[@tommelling9847]

It's cancer, tells everything around it it is good and safe but literally sucks the life and resources out of it at the same time. Cancer get stronger for a short time but everybody loses in the end. There was an economist that used that analogy decades ago about growth for growths sake, can't remember who?

[@TheodoreDiep]

It infuriates me to no end that the people who complain about corporate greed in the gaming industry (i.e. gamers) are also the ones that keep voting ghoulish and corporate stooge politicians into office. The right leaning of the young generation, especially among male geeks and nerds, is destroying the very medium they love, and they don't even realize it.

[@Captain.Mystic]

@@TheodoreDiep What youre missing isnt the fact that the gamer population is actually hypocritical, its that the people who dont care also just so happen to have a lot of money. People think its hypocricy that drives these sorts of things to work, when in reality every time we get actual statistics comes out on player count vs the profits, the loudest people are often in the minority while the people who dont care have enough money to not only buy it themselves, but gift it to every single one of their friends as well. Its why diablo 4(EDIT: wrong number) can consistently make top seller on steam, consistently beating games like counter strike and dota 2, while having a peak player count thats the equivalent of single player games from 2016 and a daily player count that suggests the game is dying rapidly. Pirate Software also spoke out how the horse armor dlc made more than the entire lich king expansion by 5x. Its not that they are hypocrates, the people who have a lot of money money simply do not give a fuck and would rather look cool than have fun.

[@Candlemancer]

​@@TheodoreDiep You say this like the other options have any more interest in reigning this behaviour in. The entire political amd economic system is fundamentally broken

[@raysandrarexxia941]

Bellular did a slight injustice here. They failed to mention that each of these 3 new groups are getting ALL of Embracer's debt. Embracer is trying to go free with no consequences.

[@Retrograde77]

"Lets split up", "Yeah we can do more damage that way"

[@TheVileOne]

What they did is a despicable and disgusting disgrace

[@Ehh.....]

Them succeeding would have been very negative in its own way. This shit should totally be illegal.

[@Shinkajo]

What exactly should be illegal exactly? A company acquiring assets? It's basic business.

[@IRGeamer]

Anti-trust monopoly laws are a good thing. Unless your a far right corpo shill. Edit: Speaking of which.... "A company acquiring assets? It's basic business." Please look up: The history of monopolies and anti-trust laws, the guilded age (seems familiar doesn't it), logical reasoning, fallacious arguments, straw man, black and white fallacy, etc., etc., etc..... What a robust and safe space inducing thought ending cliché you have there! Would it be so difficult for you to use skepticism to determine what verifiable facts contradict your assertion as well as those that support it so that you could then use logical reasoning to come to a rational, justifiable conclusion instead of just asserting whatever your "feelz", or the corporate shills, keep telling you "must" be "common sense" that so very conveniently happens to prop up your narrative? Or is that too much of a risk to that self sustaining safe space in your own mind? “The modern conservative is engaged in one of man's oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness.” - John Kenneth Galbraith

[@ScreamingTc]

This glosses over the worst part: Asmodee has been saddled with over £800 million in debt. Embracer basically used a bunch of banking tricks to leverage the debt it owed against Asmodee before they spun it off, turning Asmodee into a sacrificial lamb. To put it in perspective, a healthy company has between 0.3 and 0.6 years of profit as a debt ratio. Asmodee will be looking at 3.9. No one sane is going to see it as a safe investment and it will starve to death whilst Embrace walks away, scot free.

[@Baldeagle-tw2nv]

If they take it court and make an argument that Embrace is intentionally destroying the "split" companies by dumping the debt that EMBRACER gathered on three entities that didn't technically exist when the debt was acquired.

[@speckbacon9881]

@@Baldeagle-tw2nv take whom to court? Companies are people and that person is dead.

[@bramschoenmakers5071]

How are they going to do that? They will be dead before the case is even close too settled. The debt holders will probably use the loss as a tax write off.​@@Baldeagle-tw2nv

[@dnjago]

You are being way too conservative with those supposed metrics for a debt load of a healthy company. Yes, Asmodee's debt will be significant. No, it won't be crippling. Way more indebted companies made it out just fine and Asmodee has great cashflow.

[@Barot8]

Too much with not enough profits for growth. i.e. Games have to be released to make money. Also Rock and Stone!!

[@Ss4Goten]

Ah, yes. The classic "We screwed our brand so let's just rename it and hopefully trick customers into thinking it's not us"

[@comlitbeta7532]

The Monsanto method

[@TheDeadb3ar]

I work in one of the company's in the Embracer Group (will likely be the Coffee Stains Group After things are decided. Also ask any questions you want and I'll answer them if I can), and let me tell you: The "Ideal" they "proposed" to studios was to collaborate and effectively keep the money all in the same bag. But everyone was asking how and why they would even do crossover development if they aren't already doing it, as there were no discounts between services provided by any of the studios to any of the other studios in the group, so there was actually no benefit. So EVERYONE has been asking and never getting a solid answer as to what even was the benefit of joining the group... Then the only real answer was "We got bought out for a big amount that kept us a float". Any thought of collaboration between studios made 0 sense. These studios that would need dev crossover or co-dev work, would rather hire a cheap outsourcing studio. So yes, this has all just been a stupid corporate game the entire time, and these assholes have been gambling with beloved IPs and people's lives the entire time. Even the CEOs of the individual companies barely have any idea what's happening and have 0 say in "group" decisions.

[@bht665]

Did you know all thèse informations before us ? When will your game be out ? :)

[@TheDeadb3ar]

@@bht665 Nope, found out the same time as everyone else. And the game I work on is already out, it's an okay old mobile game, not going to mention it here.

[@FlammableAirFreshener]

Repeat after me everyone : investors are just rich people with a gambling problem.

[@Jukantos]

I didn't even know Deep Rock / Ghostship were snatched up by Embracer. Their basically hard stop on development for a game i love so much last year suddenly makes a LOT more sense 💀

[@LuckyTheReviewer]

"Middle Earth and Friends." And just like that Embracer basically told everyone what they think of IPs like Killing Floor, Tomb Rider, Metro, Dead Island, Kingdom Come, and all the other IPs under that specific umbrella: they are secondary to the Middle Earth IP.

[@ebenezerspludge8369]

It just makes me wonder if Embracer knows their name is cancer and they will be pulling the strings behind the scenes. The old Shell corporation trick.

[@sakaraist]

Good ol' private equity. Embracer group dissolves, execs all get their payouts and the surviving companes all take on a crushing amount of debt with zero positives.

[@doctorspook4414]

Vanguard and Canadian Pension Plan as shareholders and Embracer went under. Why am I not surprised?

[@joeshmoe7485]

Somebody got rich... The leaders of Embracer Group should be investigated.

[@jimmyv3170]

The FTC honestly should be investigated. They're allowing these deals to go on. Disney buying FOX for $70 billion, Microsoft buying Activision for $70 billion.

[@Shinkajo]

Nobody got rich lol. This is not what they wanted. They made a bad bet and lost. That's it.

[@joeshmoe7485]

@@Shinkajo I meant the executives at the top that orchestrated all the mergers and acquisitions. They got rich, everyone else got fucked.

[@MoonManPictures]

@@jimmyv3170 probably underfunded though aren't they? Totally agree with you though.

[@TheGreatSquark]

I'm nervous for the ramifications this will have on the tabletop side of gaming. Embracer gobbled up an alarming amount of space in that industry and enacted some pretty sweeping chamnges to the studios it bought. I'm worried for the games I love and the developers who make them.

[@ragingsloth2846]

How'd you take the Warhammer news?

[@alexnoman1498]

The people will be fine. The industrious, creative people will start a new thing; everyone else will be filtered. Just like in the video game industry. Take Ben Brode, who jumps ship whenever he feels like his current one is sinking and then turns someone elses game to gold. Look for people like him, not hollow shells of big names and companies.

[@Redroomjjgfd]

@@ragingsloth2846honestly as a fan, I'm waiting to see the true results. Nothing will change for my personal experience, but instead of emotional reactions I wait and observe and make decisions after.

[@aiodensghost8645]

​@@ragingsloth2846Warhammer is now dead

[@ragingsloth2846]

@@aiodensghost8645 tis true, tis true.

[@pilentus]

I didn't even know Coffee Stain was owned by Embracer.

[@PowerUpT]

Wait wait wait... They've got Crystal Dynamics and Eidos together! This can only mean they can make greatest crossover in history: Deus Gex!!!

[@keit99]

Wasn't Crystal dynamics with eidos for a long time? Or was that because of square?

[@PowerUpT]

@@keit99 They were, I just made the connection now between the franchises since they were listed onscreen together

[@jimmyv3170]

Crystal Dynamics is done for. They're already talking about being embarrassed and ashamed to be making Tomb Raider games because of Colonization or some shit and that's the only thing they've made for almost 20 years besides that terrible Avengers game and the soon to be terrible Perfect Dark reboot game.

[@MsSerinde]

Middle-earth enterprises and friends… MEEF… they will now always be MEEF to me.

[@heatherharrison264]

In the text adventure game "Sorcerer" the Meef spell causes plants to wilt. This isn't a good omen.

[@jochenkraus7016]

Depending on how you pronounce it it sounds like "Mief" which means stale air in German lol.

[@aiodensghost8645]

Ok, so between a text-adcenture and German, shit's gonna get rockier still for awhile.

[@scruffiestofnerfherders7397]

It was a short term vision of bundling companies for one sales and when that fell through, they have no other plan, short or long-term

[@pierregravel-primeau702]

Consolidation is a normal part of the boom and gloom capitalist model. I am pretty sure you can find the 2-4 families that own most of these compagnies and just wish to cash out with restructuration...

[@Shinkajo]

How do you know this?

[@linusgustafsson2629]

It did seem logical to purchase successful companies and then profit from it. Sadly it seemed like their plan only lasted to the purchases, and afterwards it was all "Ok, how do we get our money back with interest?" I think if they had planned for a long term 10+ years investment and getting the money back much later, it could have worked out. Especially if they ran with the groundbreaking new strategy of listening to customers instead of people who just like politics.

[@Silent002]

Although those names are weird, the press releases have a footnote that the names of the groups are temporary and will be decided at a later date - see 5:26.

[@jonathanabgrall6075]

Their company names legit sound like something out of Borderlands or High on Life lol

[@manboy4720]

handsome jack would probably try a mass corporate takeover tactic like this.

[@larseich5796]

The names are just placehoders. There is a footnote on the slides shown in the video stating "the name will be decided at a later date" 8:22 for example

[@iller3]

This is just EVERY Institution these days though. They're all based only on short term stock speculation and the bailout economics of failing upwards

[@Xankill3r]

What kind of "stewards" are we talking wrt Middle-earth and Friends? Denethor?

[@The_Judge300]

I saw on the list of owners that multiple bancs and investor/pension funds are heavily in the ownership of this group and they will for sure not hesitate to back out if they think it is dying.

[@hedlund]

Pension funds buying into gaming industry hype makes me furious to the point I can't even articulate it properly.

[@linusgustafsson2629]

@@hedlund Pension funds is just toys for people with high saleries. You'd expect it all to be forced to be run through safe options, and not just wing it.

[@Cluesman]

in a year they will try buying each other

[@W0lfenstrike]

THQ failed because they were working on too many projects without meaningful investment returns while being in significant debt. Embracer failed because they gobbled up too many studios without meaningful investment returns while being in significant debt. The more things change, the more they stay the same. This fu**ing industry never learns. Personally I'm bummed we'll never see a new Deus Ex and Timeplitters any time soon 😥

[@sebastianvroom7595]

Let's all laugh at an industry that never learns anything tee hee hee

[@micheljolicoeur6094]

I cannot help but think this makes things much worse for all involved. This sounds like Lars saying 'This is too complicated to manage and decide periorities. So we divide what is left into three pots and see which sinks and which swims." I can see 2 of the 3 groups failing and us losing 2/3 of the development studios and IPs Embracer still hold. Totally baffling situation that makes things even worse fro the developers.

[@ghostrider654321]

All I hear is: "big money washing machine done it's work and now we throw it away" but i'm just a crazy silly dude.

[@HermanDuyker]

I think Amazon did a separate deal with the Tolkien Estate, as (apparently) shows of more than 8 episodes were not part of the original deal with Saul Zaentz.

[@DerFreiegedanke]

Before they had one Board of great Leards to pay-off out of dev money - Now they have THREE! What a improvement!

[@rnbpl]

i hope people see taht this is first and foremost a result of 0% interest rates followed by 5% interest rates. if it hadn't been embracer it would have been some other guy with 0% interest loans

[@keit99]

IT's what happens when you buy stuff with cheap loans, without thinking:. "What if interest Rates go up again?"

[@Shinkajo]

No this is the result of them banking on 2b$ that didn't materialize. Your have no idea what interest rates they had on their liabilities.

[@darksidegryphon5393]

Privatise gains, socialise losses.

[@bitmau5]

rip Embracer, won't be missed.

[@Raika63]

It's like it was run by people who thought interest rates could never change. Too bad that money wasn't put into something that had a chance.

[@utopua4all]

And to think I was somewhat happy when Embracer bought Tomb Raider from SE. I mean we did get Tomb Raider remastered, but honestly, at what freaking cost

[@fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

It's hearwarming that the M&A guys can preen just as readily at how the collapse of their house of cards vindicates their vision as they did back when they were building the thing.

[@SiliconSlyWolf]

I hope none of this messed up any of the companies. But I'm certainly worried about a few games listed here, especially Coffee Stain published ones.

[@techkev140]

Anyone remember Sierra On-Line? Growing, merging, etc. Despite the constant string of successful hits over the years they had to make cuts. They ended up restructuring multiple times, layoffs and many cancelled projects. No idea how much the game landscape was changed back then. Same thing today when companies make big mistakes. I recall Sierra signed the rights for the Babylon 5 TV series (i think for 9 years?), it was being talked about in the press. Then the game disappeared under one of those restructures. Later video and audio from the game surfaced on the internet but it was gone along with any chance of a Babylon 5 game. Sierra still had exclusive rights so no one else could publish an alternative. Apparently dispite all the work done on it, It no longer fit in with the type of games they wanted to publish. I'm sure many more games disappeared around the same time without us even knowing about them.

[@SiliconSlyWolf]

Isn't this the group that basically got the equivalent of the average person being verbally told "a million dollar salary LOOKS certain" and then went and bought everything they could, and then the check never got written? If yes, I don't think it implies what they tried can't be done, just they did a horrible job trying to do it.

[@Candlemancer]

It can't be done without borrowing unreasonable sums from unstable and unreliable partners.

[@chadwickmccarty4944]

I'm worried for Star Trek Online. Over the last few years Cryptic has made STO more of a ST themed casino with more gambling & less storyline content releases. I fear DECA will "double-down" on that approach, but I hope DECA will take a step back & focus a bit more on creating game content instead of just gambling galore.

[@pierregravel-primeau702]

To the moon... To the drain...

[@manboy4720]

to the moon! and then plummeting back down to earth.

[@Ajan-X]

...to the sweatdrips of my brain!

[@stage6fan475]

Embracer is just the game industry version of a decades old problem. Somebody wanting to acquire huge things for ego, and a whole set of consultants and lawyers eager to charge fees for a huge merger. Long ago it was 'Bid 'em up Brucie' (Bruce Wasserstein) ruining Macy's. I am sure there are a bunch of lawyers and consultants who cleaned up on forming Embracer and don't have to give a dime back even though it never made any economic sense.

[@shodanargie1574]

But what happens to the AA devs? I see Ttrpg, AAA and indie. Wheres the AA stuff?

[@BradPrichard]

If I were an investor, well 1. I'd stay far away from Embracer, but also 2. Lars still leading things would have me sprinting the other way.

[@Eehonda_again]

If this f’ing around impacts on KCD2 I ain’t going to be happy

[@archdrone]

Why does no one remember that Relic was the original developer of Homeworld?

[@baddabeer4862]

Is a self funded game company completely impossible? Like you never actually make money, you just tickle investors into fronting you more money?

[@Pax__man]

so this is the group that allowed to make aragon a black dude for their card game and turning lara croft into a "seeker of truth" because raiding tombs is too colonial?

[@linusgustafsson2629]

I think of them as the group who bought Dark Horse, while manga is super profitable, without me ever hearing of any new Dark Horse manga being released. If they had started spamming out manga titles that Dark Horse owns but are too lazy to print, it would have been amazing. I know of two of them at least, which is Eromanga Sensei and 3x3 Eyes.

[@JohEl777]

They acquired more studios than they could afford, should have live within their means.

[@ZeroUm_]

The sad thing is that you could have seen it from years away. No one shows up from nowhere with a suitcase full of money and with plans to stay for long. It reeks like a scam.

[@patrickb1303]

I love how Company of Heroes doesn’t even get mentioned. That’s how shit of a job relic did with the third game.

[@IMEEntertainment]

Embracer didn't own Relic, Sega did. But they did split them off last month, so you could say something about that.

[@siubhan2047]

I really have no emotional connection to companies. They sell products. However, for some inexplicable reason I felt a moment of terrible grief when I saw Warhorse Studios as part of this entity. In my mind I had this fairytale of a few passionate people making a game out of sheer love, succeeding with it and being able to reap the rewards for themselves instead of having to be saddled with corporate overlords. What a shame.

[@luckyduck777]

I vaguely remember when they sold the studio to THQ Nordic they said afterwards in some czech media interview that they worked very hard for quite some time on that contract. To futureproof it, so they can keep making games they love (singleplayer RPGs) and are not forced to work on "multiplayer, battleroyale, free-to-play etc bullshit". I think it's visible on KCD2 developement now - reveal when it's almost done, no bullshit, just sequel that players want basically. Lets hope it will stay that way in the future.

[@siubhan2047]

@@luckyduck777 be that as it may, it stands to reason that they will undoubtably have to fork over profits... Naturally though one can only hope the overlords do not interfere with KCD2 and that we get a good game without any of the usual big company BS.

[@Youngson113]

Oh my goodness! Who could have possibly seen this coming!

[@chrispellack5536]

What sucks for Asmodee is that Embracer foisted off 900M Euros in debt onto them.

[@SpottedHares]

A invest and a loan is not the same thing. Since the investment fell through now their on the hook for all those loans, it may sound callous but splitting up the liability into serval groups means that creators can only go after parts of the company rather then the whole thing. If you want to pretend Embracer is the worst thing ever angry creditors make embracer look like puppies.

[@chrishoppner150]

Can we just stop pretending like going public is ever a good thing for any company that's actually supposed to produce any kind of customer facing value?

[@TempestDK]

So the 50 HQ people will be making 300 million SEK a year? ... that is 6 million (550k USD) per headcount.

[@Kidna]

Yet again a proof of why Anti-trust laws need to be enforced *everytime*

[@bokrugthewaterserpent3012]

"and friends" in the name is the most absurd thing lmao

[@sidburnsting]

I've got zero hope for Deus Ex now

[@falken5555]

Game journalism and Kotaku were dead, but Bellular came to the rescue and helped them out.

[@mr.potato9449]

How do you get 40% of the vote if you only own 20% of the group o.O

[@kwisatzhaderach9591]

Does he finally "address the elephant in the room" in this video?

[@robertsprankle6127]

What Embracer has done to LOTR makes me understand more and more why the Tolkien Estate has such good lawyers.

[@andystocking5316]

Asmodee may have been split off, but their assets were used as colateral for loans for Embracer Group. And the funds from those loans didn't go into Asmodee, so they just got a crippling amount of debt.

[@10-OSwords]

All I care about is what happens to Airship Syndicate...which I didn't hear, maybe just under THQ Nordic?

[@wetub3e]

You mist two points 1. Those &friends names are placeholders (you showed it even in the screenshots at the bottom) and 2. that 900mio debt is shifted to the tabletop company the only profitable one. Probably so the other two are looking better for investors

[@cjsayers3346]

Man, I hope Tripwire Interactive pulls through ok. The killing floor franchise is great. They've been pioneering a scaled back non predatory live service system for years, a la Helldiver's, but before it was cool.

[@vexaurora]

Love Coffee Stain, great approach to game dev with Satisfactory and fantastic community relations, "leveraging" that genuine relationship feels disgusting to me. Also in the longer term the any failures in the group will reflect badly on the name and harm their well earned reputation.

[@robertmcpherson138]

While I'm not exactly optimistic... tabletop, AAA, and indie/A/AA games are all very different spaces with different timetables and expectations. So theoretically having the split into those three branches should mean better management who have appropriate expectations and strategies for their branch.

[@krspaceT1]

Its certainly a interesting observation at how Embracer tried to speed blitz into the game industry's top echelons. That's hard, doesn't matter if you have been around forever like Nintendo or shot to prominence in more recent years like CDPR, it takes building to do that. Embracer didn't build as they raised up. There's also the question of their IP variety. A lot of developers might accumulate a lot of types of IP, though it is certainly common that many publishers and developers become known for a certain type of game and it is hard to branch out. Microsoft has had trouble keeping up I.P outside of shooters and racers for a reason, and Sony's arguably hitting that problem too recently. And those are companies who need to attract the sort of people who'd buy a box just for a single game. 3rd party developers have this problem in spades. Homogony is common in games for a reason, and while it is powerful to be able to have IPs that attract a very different type of gamer, it is also hard work and has risks. After all, for Nintendo you have fans that will get upset at you if you aren't always producing Metroid games that sell 3 mill max versus a Mario that sells 10 million on a bad console cycle. But Nintendo also had years to develop multiple fanbases and connect the fanbases: Samus shows up in Smash for a reason, but Embracer's mergers never really...linked them. What sort of gamer would look at an Embracer game and think 'Yes' the way they'd do so with Nintendo, Ubisoft, CDPR, or any other such group? ...Honestly makes me wonder if Embracer would have been better served coming together to make a new console or even PC launcher instead of trying to be a super 3rd party developer.

[@SpottedHares]

Did we ever find out why the a Saudi dropped out at the 11th hour?

[@Toonrick12]

I could only assume that Saudis wanted profit not growth. If the two billion dollars was given to Embracer they would just throw the money into buying more companies to grow, rather than actually making a profit.

[@Candlemancer]

​@@Toonrick12 they wanted a traditional investment that makes actual long term money, not the overgrown ponzi scheme that western capitalism has turned into.

[@1049662]

Hmm, yes, ~5 years, 'long term'.

[@K-W1]

Just seems like another notch in the Year of Loss, just not one that is going to be readily apparent yet.

[@warhammerguy]

It is kinda wild to think that at one point Embracer was looked at as a possible saviour of gaming and how far they have fallen.

[@simpson6700]

Embracer looked sketchy from the beginning, how nobody saw the red flags everywhere is beyond me.

[@Sub-Mythos]

ESG has far too much connotation with the S and sometimes E components (Social and Environment). There's 0 measurement on Governance... are investors too self aware to judge projects on how they are run? Embracer should have long been a "do not touch" ESG investment on the G component alone.

[@Murbz]

Bunch of incompetent money men buy a bunch of the game industry on a risky gamble. They fail their dice roll and as a result cause the destruction of multiple studios and many people to lose their jobs. I imagine the "perfect ending" will be that instead of getting punished for doing significant damage to the industry, they will make a lot of money and probably find new jobs in the industry. Truly failing upwards.

[@lordbane5627]

The Onion Rings of Power is an utter disgrace lol

[@Nikibugs]

Little Nightmares is one of my favorite IPs, and it breaks my heart Tarsier Studios got acquired by them. Bandai Namco kept the rights and Supermassive Games is making the 3rd game now, hope Tarsier Studios is still able to continue making cool new things.

[@FHL-Devils]

7:42 - I love that someone made a mockery of Ubisoft by calling themselves 4-A games.

[@DreaNorZ]

As a part of this split I know Pieces Interactive is being shut down, sad that some if not most of the studios Embracer bought might've survived if they hadn't

[@greed-1914]

Good news, guys. You will get to focus on what you were already doing under leadership that was already doing it. Oh, and you have massive debts that weren't there before. We are really good at this publishing thing.

[@XerrolAvengerII]

I'm really worried about all these small studios being drowned by debt

[@samliveshere88]

well its good that all of these companies are still friends

[@azhder]

I think it's quite apt to rename the Embrace of Death into Sauron And Friends

[@kahlur]

The new company names may suck, but thankfully theyre just placeholders

[@successfulgeek]

I'm really into board games, and seeing Embracer saddle Asmodee with 900 million in debt feels really bad. Like they are freeing the tabletop division but in exchange that division still has to pay for the video game divisons...

[@malinryden3099]

As someone who was deeply annoyed with LW back in Sweden in the nineties (from the same area) (oh Nordic Games fuckups) this does not surprise me at all... it's the same story again and again...

[@Dhalin]

Now if only SBI didn't go under....

[@darkphase7799]

OMG Bellular, you needed to put a reference to the movie "Lars and the real girl". It's a movie about someone who has an "anatomically correct love doll" who he gets married to as a way of dealing with his sense of loss and mental health issues.