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[Oppoi]

Embracer tried to extend the industry but ended up extinguishing.

 

[CamHostage]

It shouldn't be allowed to buy up studios left and right if you close them down by the dozens.

Well, many of these studios would have closed on their own in that same time period (if not sooner.)

That there was a central holding company which they were all gathered under lets us have one great big villain to hate in the public square. (In fact, a good number of these developers were already bought up or aligned with companies before their parent company got picked up by this even bigger conglomerate.) The alternative would have just been a quiet autumn of game companies dying and blowing away as dust in the business world wind, and most of these deaths would have never been noticed.

It's cathartic and sometimes fun to hate on Embracer's failure (there are certainly many titles in their catalog I worry about or rue their cancelation,) but Embracer was a certain type of game development factory business which doesn't much exist anymore. Look at the output of most other major publishers and look at the difference in how many titles they produce now versus 10 years ago; then look at the size of the Embracer / THQ Nordic catalog in that same time period. If it had gotten its desperately-needed cash infusion and avoided the tech collapse, (although that seems highly unlikely even if the money had come through; the business still needs to run, and the global economy was going the wrong way,) its survival and output would have been good for mainstream, meat-and-potatoes games. They don't make the best product, but they make a lot of it, in genres which have been forgotten by the billion-seeking core publishers. Or at least, they used to.

 

[Blade2.0]

Love or hate her, but Steph did a great video on this two months ago.

 

[Spukc]

I need to know what games were cancelled.

74.

SEVENTY FOUR.

Every day steam gets 80+ new games

 

[OppaiNinja]

Love or hate her, but Steph did a great video on this two months ago.

Can't stand this dude. He's annoying as fuck. With a sense of humor that makes something like Borderlands seem like comedy gold in comparison.

 

[amigastar]

Not even EA has such an impressive kill count.

Yeah, it literally reminds me of Quake 3 "IMPRESSIVE" when on a kill streak.

 

[Gamer_By_Proxy]

rad.

 

[DonF]

god daaayyuummm

 

[lockdown2222]

If IPs die with this can they ever be resurrected or bought or what happens in those situations?

 

[Radioskugga]

As a Swede I can't say that I'm that proud of Embracer.

 

[lh032]

this shows you that the top management embracer is really clueless about business managing.
how can you screw up like that? there is no planning or strategy involve at all.

 

[Complistic]

If IPs die with this can they ever be resurrected or bought or what happens in those situations?

They can sell IPs they own. I would love to see a list of cancelled games and IPs they gobbled up.

 

[Beechos]

This is par for the course I hate to say with any large company when they make acquisitions. Sell it to the regulators agree to concessions for x amount of time and once that time is over the bloodbath usually begins due to "changing business conditions"

 

[Braag]

lmao
Good job Embracer, you guys clearly know how to run a business.

 

[Dane]

Embracer shitstorm was only possible because they were on the right time when THQ assets were being auctioned, everything went for a fraction for what was worth, that's how they got their leverage to get investors on board.

 

[Dirk Benedict]

Embracer tried to extend the industry but ended up extinguishing.

They didn't try to do shit. It would seem their only plan was to acquire IP and somehow leverage that, later on down the line. I don't see any other reason for their buying spree, other than that.
This thread is a result of their extreme incompetence. Whether purposeful or not.

 

[ResilientBanana]

Well now, I am just flabbergasted as to how that may have happened. Let me guess, they still own all the IP? If they simply open one or two smaller, cheaper studios, they could milk them all.

 

[Griffon]

Many of these studios would have closed on their own in that same time period (if not sooner.)

That there was a central holding company which they were all gathered under lets us have one great big villain to hate in the public square. (In fact, a good number of these developers were already bought up or aligned with companies before their parent company got picked up by this even bigger conglomerate.) The alternative would have just been a quiet autumn of game companies dying and blowing away as dust in the business world wind, and most of these deaths would have never been noticed.

Yup, all of those studios would be dead years ago if Embracer wasn't buying. The only winners are the founders of said studios who got a nice paycheck instead of having to close shop by themselves.

 

[lockdown2222]

They can sell IPs they own. I would love to see a list of cancelled games and IPs they gobbled up.

Me too - is there a resource somewhere that would show? Great idea

 

[Natsuko]

Many of these studios would have closed on their own in that same time period (if not sooner.)

That there was a central holding company which they were all gathered under lets us have one great big villain to hate in the public square. (In fact, a good number of these developers were already bought up or aligned with companies before their parent company got picked up by this even bigger conglomerate.) The alternative would have just been a quiet autumn of game companies dying and blowing away as dust in the business world wind, and most of these deaths would have never been noticed.

It's cathartic and sometimes fun to hate on Embracer's failure (there are certainly many titles in their catalog I worry about or rue their cancelation,) but Embracer was a certain type of game development factory business which doesn't much exist anymore. Look at the output of most other major publishers and look at the difference in how many titles they produce now versus 10 years ago; then look at the size of the Embracer / THQ Nordic catalog in that same time period. If it had gotten its desperately-needed cash infusion and avoided the tech collapse, (although that seems highly unlikely even if the money had come through; the business still needs to run, and the global economy was going the wrong way,) its survival and output would have been good for mainstream games. They don't make the best product, but they make a lot of it, in genres which have been forgotten by the billion-seeking core publishers. Or at least, they used to.

Is that really the only reason?

If you look at Embracer's catalogue, there are a lot of games / IPs whose latest spin-offs just weren't that great. So I'm not surprised if they weren't the big hit. Deus Ex, Saints Row, Darksiders, Tomb Raider ...

Embracer has an impressive number of IPs. And I find a lot of them absolutely boring. Reminds me a bit of Shovel Ware. You can play it, but why bother when there are other things to do?

Ironically, I used to love all those IPs. And yes, they were actually going down the drain before Embracer. But what exactly did all those Embracer purchases actually achieve? I'm not sure I've bought a single game from them. They'd have to put something useful on the market first. There doesn't seem to be a shortage of studios. Nor is there a lack of rights for well-known IPs. So where are the good games now? What have they saved?

 

[Alan Wake]

1) Buy a ton of studios
2) Mismanage them
3) Close studios and fire thousands of people

 

[tusharngf]

they got all licenses of the game that's their endgoal

 

[Hudo]

1) Buy a ton of studios
2) Mismanage them
3) Close studios and fire thousands of people

4) Pay yourself a hefty bonus

 

[mckmas8808]

The CEO was trying to pull a scam
and get Saudi money by massively inflating the balance sheet. Saudis figured it out and backed off.

Yep! So glad the Saudis figured out it was a scam.

 

[grvg]

Hopefully the ips end up in capable hands whenever the inevitable chapter 7 bankruptcy ensues.

I feel bad for the people let go, especially since many of them were working on cherished old ips and were likely really excited about it.

 

[CamHostage]

Is that really the only reason?

If you look at Embracer's catalogue, there are a lot of games / IPs whose latest spin-offs just weren't that great. So I'm not surprised if they weren't the big hit.

THQ (which is where a good portion of Embracer's legacy IP came from) was the home of "just weren't that great...", yet enough stuff stuck in the vast catalog that they succeeded for a long while.

And that was Embracer's game plan, long before the chips-in deal crisis: just take the hit period of '95-2005 and run it back. And not just known brands, but genres like platformers and music games and RTSes and kids games and just stuff too narrow for big publishers to play with. Run it all back again. Reproduce it without expensive US staff, make a cheap remake first to see if a sequel has an audience, market it on nostalgia, and hope the 30-year-old teenagers still care to pay for things.

Sure, you not liking the recent Darksiders and SR games is indicative of their aptness to fail. My point though is that they did them. (Those games, and DAH and SpongeBob and a 10-years-late World War Z game and a bunch of other crap, some of which was actuality good crap. They never got around to making a new TR or Deus, those were still at Square, but they were going to.) Nobody else is left doing that type of bumrush business today, for good or bad.

These IPs, maybe even these genres, they may be better off dead in many minds versus what Embracer makes of them. Whoever is angry at Embracer though because they killed their old PS2 / Xbox 360 fave, they need to understand that these franchises they're lamenting being canceled under Embracer being stupid only ever came back to life because Embracer was stupid. The games died years ago for reasons which may or may not have been due to quality, but Embracer was the only company stupid enough to ask, "...but what if they didn't die? "

Businesses being stupid occasionally lucks into a win for the consumer, while businesses being smart can overthink everything but the massive hit out of existence.

Activision used to shovel a whole lot of shit in that same 95-05 period too, (including a few good games that MS talked about running back when they first bought them,) but the only game Activision is making and may only ever make again is Call of Duty. CoD is smart money, but what if they still could make some dumb biz moves again?

 

[pasterpl]

Good studios will find new publishers, owners quickly, shit ones, should remain silent.

 

[Not_A-Cop_Maybe]

But how could Microsoft do this?

 

[StreetsofBeige]

Many of these studios would have closed on their own in that same time period (if not sooner.)

That there was a central holding company which they were all gathered under lets us have one great big villain to hate in the public square. (In fact, a good number of these developers were already bought up or aligned with companies before their parent company got picked up by this even bigger conglomerate.) The alternative would have just been a quiet autumn of game companies dying and blowing away as dust in the business world wind, and most of these deaths would have never been noticed.

It's cathartic and sometimes fun to hate on Embracer's failure (there are certainly many titles in their catalog I worry about or rue their cancelation,) but Embracer was a certain type of game development factory business which doesn't much exist anymore. Look at the output of most other major publishers and look at the difference in how many titles they produce now versus 10 years ago; then look at the size of the Embracer / THQ Nordic catalog in that same time period. If it had gotten its desperately-needed cash infusion and avoided the tech collapse, (although that seems highly unlikely even if the money had come through; the business still needs to run, and the global economy was going the wrong way,) its survival and output would have been good for mainstream games. They don't make the best product, but they make a lot of it, in genres which have been forgotten by the billion-seeking core publishers. Or at least, they used to.

Scam or not, Embracer with a million studios and products tried to replicate what giant consumer good companies achieve. Shitloads of employees, brands and products. You can have a lot of dogs, but as long as the other million products sell decently, it's pretty hard to fuck it all up. That's why most of these big companies always make money and pay a dividend to boot because the cashflow and profits they get are steady. You can have entire floor of employees turnover year after year and it may not even make a difference. The products sell themselves for 5, 10 or 20 years. They sell essential kinds of products, most are cheap, and steady sellers.

Gaming is like the wild west. You can get giant sellers, and then a game that sells almost nothing.

I dont have experience in tech industry, but at face value it seems way more risky trying to manage a ton of tech employees and new products under development vs a big multinational company selling food doing the same.

 

[RCX]

Like the 25 Turkish barbers that have popped up in my small town over the last couple of years, I'm thinking Embracer might be some sort of front for drug money?

 

[StueyDuck]

Not so embracing of them if you ask me