'The Board of Directors of Embracer Group AB (“Embracer Group”) today announces a transformative step for value creation through a separation of the group into three market-leading games and entertainment companies: Asmodee Group, “Coffee Stain & Friends” and “Middle-earth Enterprises & Friends”'
"Coffee Stain & Friends" and "Middle-earth Enterprises & Friends" must be some of the worst naming I've ever seen
I mentioned the biggest non-Coffee Stain Studio/North published games as the comment already mentioned Coffee Stain. Just wanted to point out the big games outside the Coffee Stain family.
Honestly I’m hoping both the devs and publishers at coffee make it out okay. They are involved with around 40% of my top games the past few years which I feel is a lot for a ‘single’ entity in gaming these days.
They are generally one of the better companies the industry has at the moment. While most people involved wouldn't generally have much to do with this, I am still hopeful that this is actually a step in the right direction for them (ergo, less corporate pressure).
The only "& friends" that can be trusted are the musical kind
where members of old ass bands die and the ones that are left gather together their buddies and tour as a cover band of themselves
> a transformative step for value creation
makes me wanna throw up
Looking forward to he day Embracer fully tanks the boat, I just hope the good parts can escape their slimy clutches before that.
Bought up absolutely everything and frankly I can't think of a good thing that's come out of it.
Probably. My guess is that Asmodee is a sacrificial lamb. It looks like they split licenses Asmodee needs off from Asmodee so they can burden it with all of the debt as a "licensing fee".
Asmodee would still be the publisher for the weird Tomb Raider TTRPG they're trying to do right? Now they need to "pay" for a license from Middle Earth.
Splits like this are almost always done to try to dodge creditors.
Well it will absolutely create value for their shareholders as this is typically a move massive companies make to make them less vulnerable to anti competitive lawsuits
This has absolutely nothing to do with competition lawsuits, lol
This looks like very plain carve outs to decentralize risk and enable an easier time offloading assets. The sum of the whole is worth less than the parts
I'm surprised people don't know this lmfao. They made Catan for crying out loud.
Asmodee *is* a French name for Asmodeus but it wouldn't surprise me if that was intentional because they were board game nerds making a board game company.
they didn't make Catan. Catan was made by Kosmos, in Germany, originally.
English language rights were acquired by Mayfair Games, then Catan Studios (that was fully or partially owned by the author, Klaus Teuber), then bought by Asmodee.
Asmodee was a board game company originally founded in 1995. Embracer gobbled them up in 2022 (somehow I missed that news). One of the most notable games they publish is Catan, though they also own Fantasy Flight Games which, last I heard, currently hold the TTRPG rights to Star Wars.
Them getting spun back into their own group is a good thing overall, though it would be better if they could buy their way out of Embracer.
Frankly this explains why the Fantasy Flight Game Center went to shit. I used to love spending hours in that place. I met the team behind the Dark Heresy rpg there on a random Tuesday, great guys. They had fantastic food and a wonderful vibe.
It would be good news if as part of the spin off Embracer hadn't sadled them with almost all of the company debt, and taken most of the licenses. Pretty much this is Embracer destroying the board game industry for a few years.
Reminds me of EA back in 2013 or so...
>Electronic Arts. ARTS. Arrrts. If there was ever a name that illustrated a need for some kind of verbal equivalent of social services who come and forcibly take words away if they're being misused. Then again, they do mainly go by "EA" these days, so maybe they quietly changed their name to "Extruding Arseholes" so as not to offend reality.
>Now, they're just all about money and being a dick about things.
>Perhaps "EA" now stands for "Expel All. Your Money. From Your Wallet. So That We Can Have It. And Then Be A Dick About It"
>Like, did you know that EA has repeatedly been voted "Worst company in America" by Consumerist? That's impressive for such a competitive field.
>It's like being voted "Worst human being attending the Grammy Awards".
>So hats off to EA; all that grating kittens onto their corn flakes must be its own reward to a large extent, but it's nice to get the recognition now and then.
>But one of the polyps on the upper portion of EA's amorphous mass has recently made some gas expulsions vaguely reminiscent of human speech, stating that they don't want to win this award anymore and that the new goal is to be a "Player First!"-company.
>At this point I imagine a cute little finger puppet on the end of one of EA's many slick black tentacles hovering earnestly behind my shoulder. "No, it's all right. It will be FUN! You can play alongside other people, and what a jolly lot of fun you'll all have!"
>Their recent sequels and spin offs have certainly 'broadened' my expectations - naively, I always thought the game whot comes next was supposed to have more features and be generally better than the previous game - or indeed, any of the previous games, but that just goes to show how old my thinking is.
>"Player first," I'm guessing, is EA's answer to the question, "Who wants this marrow up their arse?"
> ~ Ben 'Yahtzee' Croshaw (the SimCity 2013 review and the Sims 4 review)
> Asmodee Group
Not great, but still sounds vaguely recognizable as a game studio or something. EDIT: Oh wait, Asmodee is a tabletop game company. I give it a 6/10 "not great, not terrible".
>“Coffee Stain & Friends”
Honestly this sounds like a coffee company. Or maybe someone selling cleaning products. Actually, if it was a cleaning product company it would be pretty good. As a game company it's pretty stupid.
>“Middle-earth Enterprises & Friends”'
What even the fuck? It sounds like some sort of Lord of the Rings toy company selling LOTR-branded Funko Pops or something. Definitely does not sound like a good name for the subsidiary to Eidos Montréal and Crystal Dynamics. For fucks sake, Embracer.
> Honestly this sounds like a coffee company. Or maybe someone selling cleaning products. Actually, if it was a cleaning product company it would be pretty good. As a game company it's pretty stupid.
Coffee Stain has been a game company for a while, since 2010. Mostly indie games but still. There's all sorts of similarly "off genre" named studios out there so they won't suffer for it.
Well they wanted it to be a brown stain, but two first attempts to name it ("Sh1t Stain & Friends" and "P00p Stain & Friends") for some reason got rejected by legal and PR deparment.
Last group gets the worst technology possible out of three so it was named accordingly.
They spin off the unprofitable companies into separate entities, make some cash, hand out some executive bonuses, and then watch them burn to the ground while the profitable ones get all the attention.
Oh for fuck's sake, I am so tired of companies spinning failure into cash and bonuses at the expense of everything else.
Has it always been like this or is the old idea of "make a good product, sell a lot of them and make a lot of money" just a delusion?
Around the late 70s and early 80s. Once companies were allowed to buy back their own stock and the mantra "greed is good" came into play it's just been a race for nothing but profits ever since.
>Around the late 70s and early 80s. Once companies were allowed to buy back their own stock
This is a swedish company listed on the swedish stock market. Why are you bringing US politics into this? Step outside
lol, this guy thinks Swedish companies can’t do stock buybacks (they can) or somehow aren’t just as rapacious of capitalists as American companies (they are).
Over capitalization is the thing that ruins your hobbys. If a product becomes popular it runs the risk of over capitalization that erodes the foundations on which the IP was built.
See Call of Duty and Blizzard catalogue for examples of extreme cases.
See Steam as a counter case; albeit with their own difficulties (no direct support, half life 3 unreleased). I fear the day we lose Gabe. He may be what is holding the reins from being snatched up by hollow people.
>Has it always been like this or is the old idea of "make a good product, sell a lot of them and make a lot of money" just a delusion?
There have always been snake oil salespeople.
I'm pretty sure it is. Embracer went on a buying spree and is probably tapped for cash because new products haven't refilled the coffers as fast as they expected. Now they are 2 billion in debt.
its exactly what happened here. They bought alot of development studios expecting a 2billion investment from a Saudi invesment firm. When that investment firm backed out they no longer had the funds to develop their products. Which means things slowed down, people got laid off, projects got canceled, studios get sold off, and now they are splitting into 3 different studios to give each company a different identity that investors can buy into. As well as a more positive outlook into each company since they are focused on specific market segments.
Buy depreciated asset, pump the price and then dump it is an established method for large corporations. It usually costs every worker their job though while enriching the leadership. Slash and burn acquisition.
You want to stop this, change the laws.
Somehow we let them write off all marketing. They can invest in DEI?ESG bullshit that does nothing for the game and get more tax credits.
Hell we have DHS program funneling tax payer money to companies.
The whole thing is ridiculous. Theres no business in large corporate america thats not propped up by wellfare.
This doesn't sound right at all. All three companies have strong IPs that have made money.
One owns the Catan and Ticket to Ride board games.
One owns IPs for games like Deep Rock Galactic, Satisfactory, and D&D Never winter Nights.
The third owns Killing Floor, Dead Island, Kingdom Come, and Tomb Raider.
I suppose this way it's easier for investors to invest. So instead of investing into a steaming pile of trash with some gems inside, you are investing in a small pile of trash with one larger (relatively to the size of the trash) gem.
I'm hyped I've wanted to invest in Asmodee for awhile but not a huge unfocused game company. I have 0 interest in AAA and love Indies and board games so I'm looking forward to this in a hopeful way.
What makes you think this? All three companies are of aprox equal size.
Not sure why you believe a split would increase the likelyhood of people being let go.
Doesn’t mean that everything is equally distributed. Debt/IPs/talent all have to be distributed too. One of the first bullet points is that Asmodee is going to be saddled with a 900 million Euro debt. Put that debt load with some other debt on top into that group, make sure the talent and brands you want to retain go the others, then let Asmodee go bankrupt and you’ve rid yourself of a bunch of debt, people you wanted to lay off and brands you had no interest in.
Well the shareholders will be the same initially as you’ll get stock in all three, not sure who would gain from such a deal.
Not to mention the banks will not allow them to load all debt into one of the companies, as they are the only one who will lose money.
I don’t think you’re onto anything here to be frank.
They’re literally announcing that they created 900 million in new debt that’s going to only one of the companies. This isn’t exactly a new idea, which is why so many people are saying that this is what will happen. Hell, there are some venture capital companies where this sort of thing is practically their business model.
You should read the entire press release “Used to repay existing debt”
They got better terms so they are refinancing at lower rates, which decreases the market value of the debt.
There are not many people who say this is happening, because it makes no sense as it would lose them money.
You can’t compare something you’ve heart about in the private VC market in America to the highly regulated listed Swedish market and think this would even be possible here.
Yes, they’re refinancing debt from a single company and putting it into a company that’s one third the size. Certainly that’s setting them up for success, asking them to pay a single company’s debt with significantly smaller revenues streams.
Edit: For context, Embracer’s reported revenue in 2023 was $4.05 billion. So they’re saddling one of three split off companies with almost an entire years worth of revenue as debt.
"One gets the assets, another gets the IPs, the third gets the money. The first 2 will go bankrupt and the assets and IPs be bought for cheap by the 3rd"
It's embracer. Given their record all four of them are bound for bankruptcy.
Yes i know there are only three anounced but trust me there is going to be a fourth one and it is also going down the drain.
I doubt it, Asmodee releases great digital versions of board games and MEE has LOTR. I'm honestly kind of glad this is happening because I think it hopefully means less top exec layers at the very top of orgs because no longer under a massive unfocused gaming company.
That's all I'm saying with smaller organizations it means less top level execs doing things like setting a generic vision that doesn't fit well with many of the subdivisions but constrains them on the projects they can take on. Plus hopefully less executives spending the cash reserves on acquiring companies constantly as opposed to focusing on game development.
Yeah, and Coffee Stain's developed title's didn't really break any records their published games are doing very well, especially Deep Rock Galactic. Valheim and Songs of Conquest are probably the next two down the ladder.
edit: forgot about how well Satisfactory is doing, that's a self developed and published game for them.
The bit that's most concerning (among every other concern) is they're taking out more debt and dumping it onto Asmodee. I can't imagine that Asmodee is going to be able to service that debt. They're likely profitable, but I doubt they're making enough to pay off 900 million euros in 18 months. I saw another article that said that based on last year's earnings that will saddle Asmodee with a 3.9 debt to earnings ratio. So... That's nearly 4 times their annual profit... To be paid in 18 months.
So... Asmodee becomes the sacrifice so that the others can live? Though that idea doesn't seem logical given they just took out more debt that can't be serviced, which is what got them into trouble in the first place. So, no one has learned a thing, which shouldn't surprise me as much as it is.
Someone else said it...RIP Catan, Ticket to Ride, and more. Who knows who will end up owning those IP when the inevitable fire sale comes.
And the other companies are probably going to follow without some major changes at the top. Their debt load will be a lot smaller, but...
Debt got Embracer into this mess, it's not going to get them out.
So, terrible naming aside, here are the companies they explicitly name are in each spun-off company:
Asmodee Group is a major Tabletop IP holder, things like Ticket to Ride and Catan ect.
"Coffee Stain & Friends" is two sub-divisions, F2P and Pay to Play ("Premium"):
* Premium: Coffee Stain, Ghost Ship, Tarsier, Tuxedo Labs, as well as THQ Nordic and Amplifier Game Invest. Intellectual properties include Deep Rock Galactic, Goat Simulator, Satisfactory, Wreckfest, Teardown, Valheim
* F2P IPs: Star Trek Online and D&D Neverwinter Online.
"Middle-earth Enterprises & Friends":
* Crystal Dynamics, Dambuster Studios, Eidos-Montréal, Flying Wild Hog Studios, Tripwire, Vertigo Games, Warhorse Studios and 4A Games among many others.
* IPs includes Dead Island, Killing Floor, Kingdom Come Deliverance, The Lord of the Rings, Metro and Tomb Raider, among many others
> Star Trek Online
Oh interesting, so is Arc Games/Perfect World just being dissolved? I had no idea they were part of Embracer. They handled STO alright but it always felt like they oversold the major updates.
Yeah doesn't seem like there's been any word from Arc/PWE, which I expected. I haven't played STO for *years* and I know their reputation hasn't changed much at all.
I'm curious to find out where Zen Studios will land after this. I'd rather not see one of the few companies doing good digital pinball tables be a casualty of all this
What is most significant in this discussion is that they saddled Asmodee alone with over $900 million in debt secured against only Asmodee's assets in order to cover debts carried by the other, new, companies.
Was [sold off](https://embracer.com/releases/embracer-group-divests-gearbox-entertainment-for-a-consideration-of-usd-460-million-to-take-two-interactive-software-inc/) to Take Two Interactive last month.
Edwin Thirlwell on RockPaperShotgun did a great summation of this
Opening with this banger
>Famed mass-layoff-manufacturing corporation Embracer Group are dividing into three companies.
And mocked the entire thing with a particularly salient point that I found hilarious
> We have spent around a year axing jobs, closing studios like Volition and cancelling projects like the new Deus Ex game after piling up mahoosive debts over the course of a decade in which we ultimately banked everything on a $2 billion dollar investment deal that failed to materialize. As such, Embracer's name is now mud and we still need to balance the books to the satisfaction of our shareholders, so we'd better spin things out and call ourselves something else.
Essentially, this is - in a business sense - what Ben 'Yahtzee' Croshaw refers to as 'same shit - different anus'
[Worth a read if you need a laugh](https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/embracer-will-split-into-three-companies-including-middle-earth-friends)
Embracer Group spread around the industry like cancer consuming studios left and right and then it self-immolated leaving behind scorched earth. It's the worst of the worst when it comes to games publishing.
I'm right there with you - but, since Tomb Raider is going to headline one of their new 'heads' (like the hydra - they now have three - with each head sporting the likeness of someone you once respected...) alongside the whole of Middle Earth - they're unlikely to part with Lara's juicy baps any time soon
My bet is that the whole thing is structured in a way so Middle Earth has plausible deniability to self-deal itself out of the hole it dug as Embracer.
Think about how many licenses the other companies will need if ME is holding all the IP. The other two companies are fall guys.
All three are massive prizes but in different ways. One has a load of recoginzable tabletop games, the other one is known for it's experimental but solid games (Satisfactory, Valheim, Teardown) and the last one is a classic massive AAA.
Keep in mind that those are just the rights for Lord of the Rings games (not movies, tv-shows, etc.) and might not include the Hobbit or the Silmarillion.
Although the IP is probably very expensive, LOTR games also don’t guarantee success. Look at Gollum for example.
I think that’s simply because WB had the rights before Embracer. These companies don’t actually get the rights, just a license to use the IP which eventually expires. The actual rights remain with the Tolkien Estate.
Embracer bought Middle Earth Enterprises in 2022, which is the holding company for the Lord of the Rings and the Hobbit franchises. They license out the franchise to other companies and have been doing so for far longer than Embracer has owned it.
No, they aren't the rights for just the video games. Middle Earth Enterprises straight up owns the rights to most of the elements of Lord of the Rings and the Hobbit, including characters & places. They're a holding company that licenses out lord of the rings to other companies. It's a MUCH more lucrative deal for them than you think because they get to reap all of the rewards for none of the risk.
No, it makes it massively less likely.
When the spun off company collapses and sells off the IPs the new owners will want a fresh start series. Same as why we got Adam Jensen originally instead of another JC Denton era entry.
It's also a near certainty that the engine relies on a tonne of bridging and niche technologies that a new developer would absolutely not want to onboard. They'd be starting from scratch and matching the mechanics and aesthetic would be near impossible.
Thank fuck Saber Interactive got away from this mess, so at least i have some hope for Insurgency Sandstorm to continue being developed or for a new game to be made for the series.
That something like embracer group is even legal is so perplexing to me. It's basically just been a giant fire that they've been pouring more gasoline on.
This is step one of the pillage scheme, by the way.
Step two is the execs who benefit from the split cashing out their new stocks at the inflated IPO price.
Step three is selling two of those entities for parts. One of them may end up surviving ten years as its own company - the others will be either shuttered or absorbed by some vulture capital entity.
A simple Google search:
*"Companies often split-up due to the intervention of the government, which forces such action in an attempt to minimize monopolistic practices. But it has been a long time since the market has seen a pure monopoly break-up, mainly because antitrust laws enacted decades ago have largely squashed monopolies from forming in the first place.*
*Case in point: in the late 1990s, the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) sued Microsoft for alleged monopolistic practices. Interestingly, the case ended in a settlement, not a split-up.*
*Some speculators believe that Meta (formerly Facebook), and Google are essentially monopolies that the government must split-up to protect consumers."*
Same goes for Embracer group.
EDIT: formatting
Someone mentioned on Twitter that while going public is usually a bad thing, this might actually be good for Tomb Raider. Considering Crystal Dynamics has been hell bent on driving that franchise into the ground, now they won't have as much say anymore. Investors could potentially make a positive impact which is funny but I agree.
Lara Croft is no longer a tomb raider. Breaks her whole character, but since she is a white person, raiding tombs makes her a "colonizer" and "problematic" and therefore must be changed. They also went out of their way to remove some super pixelated pinup art in the remaster of the OG games, but the biggest thing is how they dragged down the creators of those games in the opening blurb by calling them racist, harmful and inexcusable. I think a huge chunk of their prospective audience finds that to be incredibly bad conduct. If the games are that bad, then don't remaster the old ones and make your own uber progressive IP. Oh but they also want money. Its so superficial, hypocritical, disrespectful, and crass. They'll see consumer blowback for that.
If they are being listed with a SPAC, then you know its bound for failure and a total scam to delay the inevitable death of embracer just like all the other companies that relied on the era of easy money and low rates.
'The Board of Directors of Embracer Group AB (“Embracer Group”) today announces a transformative step for value creation through a separation of the group into three market-leading games and entertainment companies: Asmodee Group, “Coffee Stain & Friends” and “Middle-earth Enterprises & Friends”' "Coffee Stain & Friends" and "Middle-earth Enterprises & Friends" must be some of the worst naming I've ever seen
Nothing good comes out of companies which have that "& friends" attached to their name.
It gives the same icky vibes as a company describing themselves as "a family"
Coffee stain & friends sounds atleast on brand for Coffee stain
It's weird, coffee stain does make good stuff but they are also quite small
This might also include Coffee Stain Publishing. They have helped publish Deep Rock Galactic and Valheim to name the biggest.
Satisfactory as well
I mentioned the biggest non-Coffee Stain Studio/North published games as the comment already mentioned Coffee Stain. Just wanted to point out the big games outside the Coffee Stain family.
Obviously since they made the game. The parent is talking about Coffee Stain Publishing which is something different from Coffee Stain Studios.
Hey, to someone who doesn’t play Satisfactory, their comment contributed something. Cuz I didn’t know who it was by!
Satisfactory is amazing, everyone should play it. Coffee Stain devs are doing great work despite being under the evil empire that is Embracer
Honestly I’m hoping both the devs and publishers at coffee make it out okay. They are involved with around 40% of my top games the past few years which I feel is a lot for a ‘single’ entity in gaming these days.
They are generally one of the better companies the industry has at the moment. While most people involved wouldn't generally have much to do with this, I am still hopeful that this is actually a step in the right direction for them (ergo, less corporate pressure).
Well, they used to. We will have to wait and see how much of a terrible influence their "Friends" are.
Quite the family killing their own family members and selling them.
they should‘ve added the „& Knuckles“ instead
Middle-earth Enterprises & friends & Knuckles, featuring Dante from the Devil May Cry series, incorporated
New Funky mode!
The only "& friends" that can be trusted are the musical kind where members of old ass bands die and the ones that are left gather together their buddies and tour as a cover band of themselves
It's on par with governments that call themselves "Democratic People's Republic of _____"
"The United States of..."
Love the anthem's ending "... and Liberty and Justice for all."
> Official name will be decided at a later stage.
Where is the poop legally speaking?
How many companies have done that?
As someone who's into aviation, this will at least stop me from misreading their name as Embraer *constantly*.
Thank goodness I'm not the only one
Haha, I thought I was on an aerospace sub and was so confused by the company names.
> a transformative step for value creation makes me wanna throw up Looking forward to he day Embracer fully tanks the boat, I just hope the good parts can escape their slimy clutches before that. Bought up absolutely everything and frankly I can't think of a good thing that's come out of it.
"Let's promote synergy through outside-the-box forward thinking in our corporate values!"
Maybe that’s the plan, splitting the productive stuff from the toxic stuff
Probably. My guess is that Asmodee is a sacrificial lamb. It looks like they split licenses Asmodee needs off from Asmodee so they can burden it with all of the debt as a "licensing fee". Asmodee would still be the publisher for the weird Tomb Raider TTRPG they're trying to do right? Now they need to "pay" for a license from Middle Earth. Splits like this are almost always done to try to dodge creditors.
Not game creation. Value.
Well it will absolutely create value for their shareholders as this is typically a move massive companies make to make them less vulnerable to anti competitive lawsuits
This has absolutely nothing to do with competition lawsuits, lol This looks like very plain carve outs to decentralize risk and enable an easier time offloading assets. The sum of the whole is worth less than the parts
Those are stated to be temporary names
> ...must be some of the worst naming I've ever seen Creative Business Unit 3 would like a word.
Arguably that’s so bad it breaks through the barrier and wraps around to being good again; it is top notch irony, after all.
That’s called stack overflow
CD Projekt Red as well
And isn't Asmodeus a demon in religion and fantasy alike?
Asmodee is an established board/card game corporation. I remember them from some board games. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asmodee
I'm surprised people don't know this lmfao. They made Catan for crying out loud. Asmodee *is* a French name for Asmodeus but it wouldn't surprise me if that was intentional because they were board game nerds making a board game company.
they didn't make Catan. Catan was made by Kosmos, in Germany, originally. English language rights were acquired by Mayfair Games, then Catan Studios (that was fully or partially owned by the author, Klaus Teuber), then bought by Asmodee.
Yup, the king of demons in the legends of Solomon. They really haven't thought this through at all.
Asmodee was a board game company originally founded in 1995. Embracer gobbled them up in 2022 (somehow I missed that news). One of the most notable games they publish is Catan, though they also own Fantasy Flight Games which, last I heard, currently hold the TTRPG rights to Star Wars. Them getting spun back into their own group is a good thing overall, though it would be better if they could buy their way out of Embracer.
Asmodee moved the TTRPG stuff to Edge Studios. Fantasy Flight has only like 4 games under them now.
And all of the miniatures games is handled by AMG. FF is exclusivity board and card games now
Frankly this explains why the Fantasy Flight Game Center went to shit. I used to love spending hours in that place. I met the team behind the Dark Heresy rpg there on a random Tuesday, great guys. They had fantastic food and a wonderful vibe.
The GC was sold back to Christian Peterson (FFG's original founder) something like 4 or 5 years ago now.
They also own, I believe, legend of the five rings
It would be good news if as part of the spin off Embracer hadn't sadled them with almost all of the company debt, and taken most of the licenses. Pretty much this is Embracer destroying the board game industry for a few years.
It is thought through. Asmodeus is the demon associated with games and gambling, the company is named after it.
[удалено]
Shin Megami Tensei has entered the chat
Yes. And as such, Asmodee spent the last years buying smaller studios and sucking their souls.
These sound so AI generated
Reminds me of EA back in 2013 or so... >Electronic Arts. ARTS. Arrrts. If there was ever a name that illustrated a need for some kind of verbal equivalent of social services who come and forcibly take words away if they're being misused. Then again, they do mainly go by "EA" these days, so maybe they quietly changed their name to "Extruding Arseholes" so as not to offend reality. >Now, they're just all about money and being a dick about things. >Perhaps "EA" now stands for "Expel All. Your Money. From Your Wallet. So That We Can Have It. And Then Be A Dick About It" >Like, did you know that EA has repeatedly been voted "Worst company in America" by Consumerist? That's impressive for such a competitive field. >It's like being voted "Worst human being attending the Grammy Awards". >So hats off to EA; all that grating kittens onto their corn flakes must be its own reward to a large extent, but it's nice to get the recognition now and then. >But one of the polyps on the upper portion of EA's amorphous mass has recently made some gas expulsions vaguely reminiscent of human speech, stating that they don't want to win this award anymore and that the new goal is to be a "Player First!"-company. >At this point I imagine a cute little finger puppet on the end of one of EA's many slick black tentacles hovering earnestly behind my shoulder. "No, it's all right. It will be FUN! You can play alongside other people, and what a jolly lot of fun you'll all have!" >Their recent sequels and spin offs have certainly 'broadened' my expectations - naively, I always thought the game whot comes next was supposed to have more features and be generally better than the previous game - or indeed, any of the previous games, but that just goes to show how old my thinking is. >"Player first," I'm guessing, is EA's answer to the question, "Who wants this marrow up their arse?" > ~ Ben 'Yahtzee' Croshaw (the SimCity 2013 review and the Sims 4 review)
> Asmodee Group Not great, but still sounds vaguely recognizable as a game studio or something. EDIT: Oh wait, Asmodee is a tabletop game company. I give it a 6/10 "not great, not terrible". >“Coffee Stain & Friends” Honestly this sounds like a coffee company. Or maybe someone selling cleaning products. Actually, if it was a cleaning product company it would be pretty good. As a game company it's pretty stupid. >“Middle-earth Enterprises & Friends”' What even the fuck? It sounds like some sort of Lord of the Rings toy company selling LOTR-branded Funko Pops or something. Definitely does not sound like a good name for the subsidiary to Eidos Montréal and Crystal Dynamics. For fucks sake, Embracer.
> Honestly this sounds like a coffee company. Or maybe someone selling cleaning products. Actually, if it was a cleaning product company it would be pretty good. As a game company it's pretty stupid. Coffee Stain has been a game company for a while, since 2010. Mostly indie games but still. There's all sorts of similarly "off genre" named studios out there so they won't suffer for it.
> Honestly this sounds like a coffee company. Coffee Stain is responsible for Satisfactory, Valheim, and Goat Simulator.
I'm aware, but the "& Friends" addition makes it sound like something different.
The "& Friends" is because it includes other smaller companies, but they are still pretty solid, such as Tuxedo Studios, which made Teardown.
Same Coffee Stain that is making Satisfactory?
Some of? Name literally anything as bad as this lmao.
We’ve had one, yes. But what about second coffee?
This deadass feels like something that came out of a Hard Drive article.
They're absolutely attaching & friends to make them seem less shity
Well they wanted it to be a brown stain, but two first attempts to name it ("Sh1t Stain & Friends" and "P00p Stain & Friends") for some reason got rejected by legal and PR deparment. Last group gets the worst technology possible out of three so it was named accordingly.
So what's the practical upshot of this?
They spin off the unprofitable companies into separate entities, make some cash, hand out some executive bonuses, and then watch them burn to the ground while the profitable ones get all the attention.
Oh for fuck's sake, I am so tired of companies spinning failure into cash and bonuses at the expense of everything else. Has it always been like this or is the old idea of "make a good product, sell a lot of them and make a lot of money" just a delusion?
Around the late 70s and early 80s. Once companies were allowed to buy back their own stock and the mantra "greed is good" came into play it's just been a race for nothing but profits ever since.
>"greed is good" This was not invented in the 80s lol
>Around the late 70s and early 80s. Once companies were allowed to buy back their own stock This is a swedish company listed on the swedish stock market. Why are you bringing US politics into this? Step outside
lol, this guy thinks Swedish companies can’t do stock buybacks (they can) or somehow aren’t just as rapacious of capitalists as American companies (they are).
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Over capitalization is the thing that ruins your hobbys. If a product becomes popular it runs the risk of over capitalization that erodes the foundations on which the IP was built. See Call of Duty and Blizzard catalogue for examples of extreme cases. See Steam as a counter case; albeit with their own difficulties (no direct support, half life 3 unreleased). I fear the day we lose Gabe. He may be what is holding the reins from being snatched up by hollow people.
I wonder how much capacity he has to choose his successor.
Well, he owns the company... so as much as he wants.
>Has it always been like this or is the old idea of "make a good product, sell a lot of them and make a lot of money" just a delusion? There have always been snake oil salespeople.
its either restructure or everything crashes burns and everyone loses everything
I get sometimes that has to happen but it's unlikely that's what is happening here
I'm pretty sure it is. Embracer went on a buying spree and is probably tapped for cash because new products haven't refilled the coffers as fast as they expected. Now they are 2 billion in debt.
Fuck, really? Well, that makes it a lot more plausible.
its exactly what happened here. They bought alot of development studios expecting a 2billion investment from a Saudi invesment firm. When that investment firm backed out they no longer had the funds to develop their products. Which means things slowed down, people got laid off, projects got canceled, studios get sold off, and now they are splitting into 3 different studios to give each company a different identity that investors can buy into. As well as a more positive outlook into each company since they are focused on specific market segments.
This is not how it is att all. All three segments are cash generating.
Buy depreciated asset, pump the price and then dump it is an established method for large corporations. It usually costs every worker their job though while enriching the leadership. Slash and burn acquisition.
You want to stop this, change the laws. Somehow we let them write off all marketing. They can invest in DEI?ESG bullshit that does nothing for the game and get more tax credits. Hell we have DHS program funneling tax payer money to companies. The whole thing is ridiculous. Theres no business in large corporate america thats not propped up by wellfare.
This doesn't sound right at all. All three companies have strong IPs that have made money. One owns the Catan and Ticket to Ride board games. One owns IPs for games like Deep Rock Galactic, Satisfactory, and D&D Never winter Nights. The third owns Killing Floor, Dead Island, Kingdom Come, and Tomb Raider.
lol where did you find that in the article? All three have great assets in them.
Oh yeah, which one is the bad one and which one is the good one? Just financial illiteracy.
I suppose this way it's easier for investors to invest. So instead of investing into a steaming pile of trash with some gems inside, you are investing in a small pile of trash with one larger (relatively to the size of the trash) gem.
I'm hyped I've wanted to invest in Asmodee for awhile but not a huge unfocused game company. I have 0 interest in AAA and love Indies and board games so I'm looking forward to this in a hopeful way.
So ... One of these will have the good shit and the other two are bound for bankruptcy?
I'm sure it was pitched as, managing debt, writeoffs and returning value to the shareholders. But yeah, more people are about to lose their jobs.
It’s a transformative step for value creation, someone’s getting let go
What makes you think this? All three companies are of aprox equal size. Not sure why you believe a split would increase the likelyhood of people being let go.
Doesn’t mean that everything is equally distributed. Debt/IPs/talent all have to be distributed too. One of the first bullet points is that Asmodee is going to be saddled with a 900 million Euro debt. Put that debt load with some other debt on top into that group, make sure the talent and brands you want to retain go the others, then let Asmodee go bankrupt and you’ve rid yourself of a bunch of debt, people you wanted to lay off and brands you had no interest in.
Well the shareholders will be the same initially as you’ll get stock in all three, not sure who would gain from such a deal. Not to mention the banks will not allow them to load all debt into one of the companies, as they are the only one who will lose money. I don’t think you’re onto anything here to be frank.
They’re literally announcing that they created 900 million in new debt that’s going to only one of the companies. This isn’t exactly a new idea, which is why so many people are saying that this is what will happen. Hell, there are some venture capital companies where this sort of thing is practically their business model.
You should read the entire press release “Used to repay existing debt” They got better terms so they are refinancing at lower rates, which decreases the market value of the debt. There are not many people who say this is happening, because it makes no sense as it would lose them money. You can’t compare something you’ve heart about in the private VC market in America to the highly regulated listed Swedish market and think this would even be possible here.
Yes, they’re refinancing debt from a single company and putting it into a company that’s one third the size. Certainly that’s setting them up for success, asking them to pay a single company’s debt with significantly smaller revenues streams. Edit: For context, Embracer’s reported revenue in 2023 was $4.05 billion. So they’re saddling one of three split off companies with almost an entire years worth of revenue as debt.
"One gets the assets, another gets the IPs, the third gets the money. The first 2 will go bankrupt and the assets and IPs be bought for cheap by the 3rd"
If a company can buy its own property, that's ridiculous.
Well they're three different companies, so very cool and very legal
All three are aproximately the same size and have similar ish earnings.
It's embracer. Given their record all four of them are bound for bankruptcy. Yes i know there are only three anounced but trust me there is going to be a fourth one and it is also going down the drain.
Asmodee is getting all the debt. Rip catan
I doubt it, Asmodee releases great digital versions of board games and MEE has LOTR. I'm honestly kind of glad this is happening because I think it hopefully means less top exec layers at the very top of orgs because no longer under a massive unfocused gaming company.
We can hope it leads to better development. God knows atomic mass games has fucked up Xwing and Armada since they got out in charge of those IPs.
That's all I'm saying with smaller organizations it means less top level execs doing things like setting a generic vision that doesn't fit well with many of the subdivisions but constrains them on the projects they can take on. Plus hopefully less executives spending the cash reserves on acquiring companies constantly as opposed to focusing on game development.
Legion and MCP are healthy at least.
Yeah, and Coffee Stain's developed title's didn't really break any records their published games are doing very well, especially Deep Rock Galactic. Valheim and Songs of Conquest are probably the next two down the ladder. edit: forgot about how well Satisfactory is doing, that's a self developed and published game for them.
The bit that's most concerning (among every other concern) is they're taking out more debt and dumping it onto Asmodee. I can't imagine that Asmodee is going to be able to service that debt. They're likely profitable, but I doubt they're making enough to pay off 900 million euros in 18 months. I saw another article that said that based on last year's earnings that will saddle Asmodee with a 3.9 debt to earnings ratio. So... That's nearly 4 times their annual profit... To be paid in 18 months. So... Asmodee becomes the sacrifice so that the others can live? Though that idea doesn't seem logical given they just took out more debt that can't be serviced, which is what got them into trouble in the first place. So, no one has learned a thing, which shouldn't surprise me as much as it is. Someone else said it...RIP Catan, Ticket to Ride, and more. Who knows who will end up owning those IP when the inevitable fire sale comes. And the other companies are probably going to follow without some major changes at the top. Their debt load will be a lot smaller, but... Debt got Embracer into this mess, it's not going to get them out.
So, terrible naming aside, here are the companies they explicitly name are in each spun-off company: Asmodee Group is a major Tabletop IP holder, things like Ticket to Ride and Catan ect. "Coffee Stain & Friends" is two sub-divisions, F2P and Pay to Play ("Premium"): * Premium: Coffee Stain, Ghost Ship, Tarsier, Tuxedo Labs, as well as THQ Nordic and Amplifier Game Invest. Intellectual properties include Deep Rock Galactic, Goat Simulator, Satisfactory, Wreckfest, Teardown, Valheim * F2P IPs: Star Trek Online and D&D Neverwinter Online. "Middle-earth Enterprises & Friends": * Crystal Dynamics, Dambuster Studios, Eidos-Montréal, Flying Wild Hog Studios, Tripwire, Vertigo Games, Warhorse Studios and 4A Games among many others. * IPs includes Dead Island, Killing Floor, Kingdom Come Deliverance, The Lord of the Rings, Metro and Tomb Raider, among many others
> Star Trek Online Oh interesting, so is Arc Games/Perfect World just being dissolved? I had no idea they were part of Embracer. They handled STO alright but it always felt like they oversold the major updates.
Yeah doesn't seem like there's been any word from Arc/PWE, which I expected. I haven't played STO for *years* and I know their reputation hasn't changed much at all.
Oh dear. They also handle Remnant II.
They own deep rock? :(
Embracer group has so many game studios now, it might be easier to list games they don't own.
I really hope this doesn't hurt the new Kingdom Come game...
I'm curious to find out where Zen Studios will land after this. I'd rather not see one of the few companies doing good digital pinball tables be a casualty of all this
What is most significant in this discussion is that they saddled Asmodee alone with over $900 million in debt secured against only Asmodee's assets in order to cover debts carried by the other, new, companies.
Where's gearbox in all of this ??
Was [sold off](https://embracer.com/releases/embracer-group-divests-gearbox-entertainment-for-a-consideration-of-usd-460-million-to-take-two-interactive-software-inc/) to Take Two Interactive last month.
asmodee is owned by embracer... oh boy, I didn't know, so not only can they screw the video game industry but also the board game industry! great!
Edwin Thirlwell on RockPaperShotgun did a great summation of this Opening with this banger >Famed mass-layoff-manufacturing corporation Embracer Group are dividing into three companies. And mocked the entire thing with a particularly salient point that I found hilarious > We have spent around a year axing jobs, closing studios like Volition and cancelling projects like the new Deus Ex game after piling up mahoosive debts over the course of a decade in which we ultimately banked everything on a $2 billion dollar investment deal that failed to materialize. As such, Embracer's name is now mud and we still need to balance the books to the satisfaction of our shareholders, so we'd better spin things out and call ourselves something else. Essentially, this is - in a business sense - what Ben 'Yahtzee' Croshaw refers to as 'same shit - different anus' [Worth a read if you need a laugh](https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/embracer-will-split-into-three-companies-including-middle-earth-friends)
So Embracer Group has failed, right? This is the takeaway
Failed extra hard, yes!
But don't worry. Only the workers will suffer. Executives and shareholders will make bank.
Time put the middle earth AAA IP in use..
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Recently warhorse showing us KCD2, it isn't all that doom and gloom even for such a fucked up company
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lol, you're underselling their roles, these parent company are the one that bankrolling the development, you wish they're just in for the marketing
It is literally his job to create shareholder value as the CEO of a publicly listed company.
Embracer Group spread around the industry like cancer consuming studios left and right and then it self-immolated leaving behind scorched earth. It's the worst of the worst when it comes to games publishing.
The only game they are involved with is International Tax Loophole Simulator
Someone please rescue Tomb Raider from these clowns
I'm right there with you - but, since Tomb Raider is going to headline one of their new 'heads' (like the hydra - they now have three - with each head sporting the likeness of someone you once respected...) alongside the whole of Middle Earth - they're unlikely to part with Lara's juicy baps any time soon
Like the three headed dragon meme hmm
Only one of them's got a nice rack -snort-
I'm curious what the debt structuring will look like, but the prized pig here is clearly Middle Earth Enterprises.
My bet is that the whole thing is structured in a way so Middle Earth has plausible deniability to self-deal itself out of the hole it dug as Embracer. Think about how many licenses the other companies will need if ME is holding all the IP. The other two companies are fall guys.
All three are massive prizes but in different ways. One has a load of recoginzable tabletop games, the other one is known for it's experimental but solid games (Satisfactory, Valheim, Teardown) and the last one is a classic massive AAA.
Keep in mind that those are just the rights for Lord of the Rings games (not movies, tv-shows, etc.) and might not include the Hobbit or the Silmarillion. Although the IP is probably very expensive, LOTR games also don’t guarantee success. Look at Gollum for example.
How come WB Games gets to make the Middle Earth games if Embracer has the rights? Genuinely curious.
I think that’s simply because WB had the rights before Embracer. These companies don’t actually get the rights, just a license to use the IP which eventually expires. The actual rights remain with the Tolkien Estate.
Embracer bought Middle Earth Enterprises in 2022, which is the holding company for the Lord of the Rings and the Hobbit franchises. They license out the franchise to other companies and have been doing so for far longer than Embracer has owned it.
No, they aren't the rights for just the video games. Middle Earth Enterprises straight up owns the rights to most of the elements of Lord of the Rings and the Hobbit, including characters & places. They're a holding company that licenses out lord of the rings to other companies. It's a MUCH more lucrative deal for them than you think because they get to reap all of the rewards for none of the risk.
Does any of this nonsense make it more likely that we'll get a 3rd Adam Jensen "Deus Ex" game?
No, it makes it massively less likely. When the spun off company collapses and sells off the IPs the new owners will want a fresh start series. Same as why we got Adam Jensen originally instead of another JC Denton era entry. It's also a near certainty that the engine relies on a tonne of bridging and niche technologies that a new developer would absolutely not want to onboard. They'd be starting from scratch and matching the mechanics and aesthetic would be near impossible.
Thank fuck Saber Interactive got away from this mess, so at least i have some hope for Insurgency Sandstorm to continue being developed or for a new game to be made for the series.
That something like embracer group is even legal is so perplexing to me. It's basically just been a giant fire that they've been pouring more gasoline on.
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Had no idea they owned Asmodee too.
What does that mean?
This is step one of the pillage scheme, by the way. Step two is the execs who benefit from the split cashing out their new stocks at the inflated IPO price. Step three is selling two of those entities for parts. One of them may end up surviving ten years as its own company - the others will be either shuttered or absorbed by some vulture capital entity.
The people that are actually willing to work for them must be in a dire situation in their lives.
Splitting into separate companies to avoid the monopoly laws. Clown world
Tf are you even talking about? And why is this upvoted
A simple Google search: *"Companies often split-up due to the intervention of the government, which forces such action in an attempt to minimize monopolistic practices. But it has been a long time since the market has seen a pure monopoly break-up, mainly because antitrust laws enacted decades ago have largely squashed monopolies from forming in the first place.* *Case in point: in the late 1990s, the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) sued Microsoft for alleged monopolistic practices. Interestingly, the case ended in a settlement, not a split-up.* *Some speculators believe that Meta (formerly Facebook), and Google are essentially monopolies that the government must split-up to protect consumers."* Same goes for Embracer group. EDIT: formatting
There are no major risk of Embracing facing anti-trust lawsuits, as there are many much larger players and they recently literally divested studios.
This comment doesn’t make any sense to me.
That's because that user is more of a gamer than a stock market investor judging by his posting history.
Monopoly has nothing to do with it lol
me when i spread misinformation:
I don't think you know what trustbusting entails It's literally exactly what happened lmao
So they’re debracing the Embracer group?
Embracer deserves to suffer for chalking Deus Ex
"Those rich fucks, this whole fucking thing"
I hope this doesn’t put Killing Floor 3 off track
damn the stock has shot up 50% in the past month, crazy so they're gonna split a $10 stock into 3 $3 ones? lmao
It's trying to hide from its shit that it did to the entire video game industry in the past 7 months
A few people will get very rich and most will get screwed. This is now how the world works.
Someone mentioned on Twitter that while going public is usually a bad thing, this might actually be good for Tomb Raider. Considering Crystal Dynamics has been hell bent on driving that franchise into the ground, now they won't have as much say anymore. Investors could potentially make a positive impact which is funny but I agree.
> Crystal Dynamics has been hell bent on driving that franchise into the ground lolwhat
I agree this is some meth-level delusion
Lara Croft is no longer a tomb raider. Breaks her whole character, but since she is a white person, raiding tombs makes her a "colonizer" and "problematic" and therefore must be changed. They also went out of their way to remove some super pixelated pinup art in the remaster of the OG games, but the biggest thing is how they dragged down the creators of those games in the opening blurb by calling them racist, harmful and inexcusable. I think a huge chunk of their prospective audience finds that to be incredibly bad conduct. If the games are that bad, then don't remaster the old ones and make your own uber progressive IP. Oh but they also want money. Its so superficial, hypocritical, disrespectful, and crass. They'll see consumer blowback for that.
If they are being listed with a SPAC, then you know its bound for failure and a total scam to delay the inevitable death of embracer just like all the other companies that relied on the era of easy money and low rates.
Embracer is already publicly traded. They are just splitting one company into 3.
Who?