What you need to know
- Embracer Group finds itself back in the headlines as it announces it will be splitting into three separate entities.
- The move follows studio closures and thousands of lay-offs after years of acquisitions, and all three new units will be listed on the Stockholm stock exchange.
- The three new companies will be known as Asmodee, Coffee Stain and Friends, and Middle-earth Enterprises and Friends.
It's been a few minutes since Embracer Group was in the headlines for (mostly bad) reasons, so this Monday morning they've decided to change that. Fortunately, this time around we're not talking about financial disasters or, thankfully, lay-offs, instead that the company is splitting up into three new, completely separate entities.
There's a lot of business talk involved in the announcement, which I'll mostly skip over. The short version is that the three companies will all group up similar studios and IP, and each will be listed individually on the Stockholm stock exchange.
Here's how what's left of Embracer Group will be split up:
- Asmodee - Embracer's board and card game franchises will be grouped together, including Ticket to Ride, CATAN, and Exploding Kittens.
- Coffee Stain and Friends - Will encompass the mostly 'indie' studios and IPs including Coffee Stain (Goat Simulator, Valheim), Ghost Ship Games (Deep Rock Galactic), and its free-to-play titles and studios.
- Middle-earth Enterprises and Friends - The collection of the biggest hitters in the Embracer portfolio, including Crystal Dynamics (Tomb Raider), Eidos Montreal, Warhorse (Kingdom Come Deliverance), Plaion and Deep Silver Dambuster Studios (Dead Island 2), and more.
If you're interested in all of the business jargon that goes along with this, you can read Embracer's full announcement to get your fix.
At first glance, this does seem to be a positive move, though. Each of the newly created entities will be operating independently of each other, which, in theory, should make life a little easier when it comes to making games, and making money. Embracer Group was a messy organization, to say the least.
This all comes after the most recent big news out of the company, that being the sale of one of its prized possessions, Gearbox, to Take-Two Interactive for much less than they paid for it in the first instance.
From a gamer's perspective, let's hope that things settle now, and these great studios are allowed to get on with what they do best. And of course, we hope that everyone working there is afforded some kind of job security in doing so.
