We bought all these studios, slashed their budgets, made their projects boring, and now no one is buying them! Time to lay off the workers and boost exec salaries!
Embracer owns DRG, among other actually good games.
They went on a studio buying spree during covid, thinking investor money can only go up. Which obviously it didn’t, and now they have more studios than they can fund.
But instead of doubling down on making good shit, the are doing this.
Embracer should divest the studios so they can do their own things.
They wanted the IP from most of them. And there is a ton of well known IP that they have now.
While there is some truth to this, they did let some studios buy themselves back, including their relevant IPs, like gearbox.
Embracer bought a bunch of studios during the covid gaming bubble expecting investors that then didn’t show up. The idiots did intend to do something with all these IPs and studios, but then found themselves without money on hand to actually fund anything.
Now the studios and ips getting sat on are paying the price for that fuck-up.
The IPs were already sat on when Embracer bought them, largely. No one was making Outcast, Alone in the Dark, or Destroy All Human games when Embracer bought them. They might be well known IP by the standards of 20 years ago, but now they’re vintage and at bargain prices.
