Embracer Group, the holdings company that spent years scooping up as many gaming properties and development teams as possible, has had to reduce its unsustainable size, cutting jobs, closing studios, and shelving projects. Last summer, the company announced its restructuring plan, and has now confirmed the figures pertaining to layoffs and more, and it's not pretty.
Embracer has so far let go of 1,387 employees, or roughly eight per cent of its workforce. Studios like Volition and Free Radical have been shuttered, while others, such as Gearbox Publishing, Crystal Dynamics, and Eidos Montreal have had their staff numbers reduced. The restructuring plan is now entering its "final stretch", says CEO Lars Wingefors, but he warns that the cuts may not be over just yet.
In related news, Embracer has also confirmed that, between July and December 2023, it cancelled a total of 29 unannounced games. It reportedly has 124 projects in the works as of right now, but again, this "final stretch" of its restructuring may put an end to more games, as well as more jobs.
We sincerely hope all those who find themselves out of work land on their feet.
[source videogameschronicle.com]
Comments 54
Some of my favourite studios and corporate stupidity has destroyed them. Imagine banking on death cult money and then panicking when it falls through, these are peoples livelihoods they’re playing with.
Embracer have been the worst thing to happen to gaming since Duke Nukem Forever
Gaming is top heavy, simple as that. The big hitters like Fortnite and GTA are giving a completely skewed picture of the health of this industry.
The gaming bubble, it seems, has burst.
I'd hate to be an employee there at the moment. Constantly worried that there's a chance I could loose my job in the near future.
Let this be a cautionary tale to remember when we next hear grand plans of mass industry consolidation.
@PSme That just isn’t true. Gaming is making more money than it ever has, but capitalism has spiralled so far out of control that constant growth is the only thing that matters. It’s beyond a joke, everything needs to be the biggest thing since Fortnite so that their shareholders see a rise in the curve when it would be far more realistic to have a market where AA and AAA games were priced accordingly and judged on their sales relatively to their budget. The graphics arms race hasn’t exactly helped, there’s not been a revolution in how everything looks and yet rising costs have sunk games before they’ve even come out.
@nessisonett These numbers are staggering, it's sickening. It reads like all purchasing and game creation decisions were made by people who clearly have no hx of VG industry ebb and flow, people that were outsmarted by Nerds in gaming websites that saw this coming years ago. I really need to try and sue down and read investor meeting notes for a full cycle, might be fascinating.
Looking forward to a well deserved video game crash.
To be honest after so many articles I am surprised it has ONLY been 8% of Embracer laid off, that's proportionately less than many others.
All together now...
F*%# Off, Embracer.
Not at all shocked by this. They kept buying up studios and that was clearly unsustainable. Sad for the workers who pay the price for executives' stupidity.
That's what happens when decisions are made by humanoid things barely pretending to be human, who only care about making more money, and couldn't give a f*** about games or actual human beings.
@themightyant I think it's more to come too, though. No way any overlord can oversee 124 projects with exactly zero track record of making anything work so far 😵
These companies would have been better pushing through on their own, and at least they could fall on their own creativity and ideals, rather than someone else's spreadsheet
@Ravix I agree there will be more. I was just shocked it was much less than I thought.
I think it's complicated. The reason Embracer was able to buy many of these studios at bargain basement rates is because they were already failing businesses. Selling to Embracer gave them a last lifeline. Not all of them, but many of them were struggling and couldn't get funding elsewhere.
@nessisonett whats the death cult money you speak of?
I still think Embracer is a giant money laundering scheme. In no way was any of this investment we've heard of over the past several years going to be financially viable.
I was really looking forward to unannounced game 23 as well. This company is the worst.
Really, the ones responsible should get processed and put in jail
I anxiously read every one of these articles dreading the day I come across, "Embracer to shutter Warhorse Studios." I want Kingdom Come 2 and I'm not very confident that I'll get it.
Meanwhile, there are people on Twitter trying to convince me that yellow paint on climbable surfaces is the worst thing with gaming at the moment.
@nessisonett Death cult?
@DiggleDog for real! Gaming Twitter has long since been out of touch with reality. And the Xbox podcast today will no doubt overshadow this terrible news 😪
@Alps_Stranger this is where my main embracer dislike, bias and worry lies, tbh 😵
Such a great independent studio that got wrapped up with THQ and therefore Embracer. Wish they could have got funding elsewhere. Also, one of the nicest, most supportive fan communities that is still growing to this day.
@Beetlebum91 @K1LLEGAL Apparently they had a deal to get $2 billion in funding from a Saudi investment fund but it fell through
At this point, what games are even in development at Embracer now? You hear more about them falling apart than them actually doing anything.
Still not sure what's worse,the layoffs to date, or the survivor devs & IP's being sold off in an almost predictable fire sale of them or their IP's as the parent company seemingly implodes.😕
@themightyant fair. I guess delaying failure (Embracer knows which were set to fail, I imagine) is better in some ways, but also, maybe delaying the inevitable isn't the best plan.
I think their plan was maybe to patch everything together as good as possible with those studios, make it look like they had some value, get the funding and then sort things out after that and hope it works out. And if not, hey we got some investors money. But now the patch job is just falling apart and they don't have the investment they expected and its just a big mess.
I am biased, but they have not proven they have any clue how to release "19 AAA games by 2026" and I don't think their influence has helped out many studios anyway. We shall see, I suppose.
@Voltan yea I remember that but still unsure about the “death cult” comment…
@Ravix Completely agree they are fumbling the bag, they were far too reliant on outside investment, including the $2bn deal with Saudi PIF that reportedly fell through which would have allowed them some room to invert into the games & studios.
But I do give them a little leeway in that they were the only ones willing to take a risk on many of these studios when they were up for sale. The alternative was many would have closed before now.
But I also get it, Embracer is the industry's current whipping boy, someone we can all gather round and ridicule in safety.
@somnambulance Borderlands is now an embracer property gearbox has to be working on something borderlands related it’s been a few years since Tina came out.
@K1LLEGAL Its not exactly a suitable conversation for this site but what happened to Khashoggi alone is enough to put most normal people off the House of Saud.
Corporatism at its most insultingly garish. To think, there’s people actually upset with Sony for independently forging partnerships with studios to release new I.P. instead of gobbling them and their groups up while also giving their first party teams apt time to develop their projects.
@Adol-Bannings But there’s rumors Embracer is selling Gearbox, and we don’t know what they’re working on either. It feels like Embracer hasn’t announced anything since Biomutant and Saints Row tanked in succession.
These douchebags should be criminally prosecuted.
Colin was right.
embracer went on a big buying spree and expected a 2 billion deal with the Saudis to go through. it didn't now they are screwed
Still can't believe Disney chose this guys to make the KOTOR remake (Sony was just paying the development to get the exclusivity like they to with other games).
It sure looks like they only want to shut down everything and sell the ips separately.
@Bentleyma anyone who can jump ship, they absolutely should. Their days are likely numbered and that's no way to live your life.
Shame deus ex new game got cancelled as well.
I bet ceos will still get big bonuses..
Maybe they wanted to kill off smaller studios.
Already seeing the same with ABK. Embracer expanded so much without rhyme or reason
I'll admit, I naively thought that Embracer would be good for the industry when they started buying up some of these studios. Turns out they represent everything wrong in the business world.
Idiots only have themselves to blame for going on a spending spree without making sure funding was secure. Now their employees suffer from the brass’s bonehead move.
@MidnightDragonDX executives only care about the employees during the 10 minute messages then they’re telling the employees how much they care about them. Before and after that, it’s all about their boats and bonuses.
@AgentMantis Duke Nukem Forever was fantastic. And I'll die by those words 😂
It kind of feels like some kind of independent regulator should have been watching these guys and checking if they had a proper business plan and the funds to execute it. Instead they were allowed to swallow up devs and IP with no money of their own and very little idea of how to do anything with them. Disgusting.
Dumb company doing dumb moves. Layoff people because dumb decision made by higher ups but let’s raise the salaries of the higher ups who made the dumb decision. Classic
@AhmadSumadi Yea, I know. Still sucks so many have to suffer due to their stupidity.
At this point someone needs to buy the IPs
Timespitters
Deux Ex
Soul Reaver
Off them asap because they will be gone forever if not
no timesplitters, no deus ex...we live in a society.
Removed - trolling/baiting; user is banned
Removed - trolling/baiting; user is banned
Removed - trolling/baiting; user is banned
Embracer are speedrunning what EA used to do for years
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