• Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.

Embracer Group enters into an agreement to acquire Eidos, Crystal Dynamics, and Square Enix Montréal amongst other assets

Boss Mog

Member
Square-Enix really is their own worst enemy. This is a company that should be dominating the gaming industry and yet they constantly shoot themselves in the foot. They have a bunch of beloved Japanese IPs like FF and DQ but then they also had some of the West's top IPs as well in the form of Tomb Raider, Hitman, Deus Ex and Just Cause and yet they managed to constantly fuck things up and now they sold those great IPs for a measly $300M.
 

Mr Moose

Member
300M is very low to put this deal into perspective

EA Bought Codemaster for 1.2 billion
Embracer bought GearBox for 1.3 billion

So looking at this again i don't know what the hell Square is smoking by selling for only 300M
Sony need to buy the rest of Square Enix Japan they probably going for cheap lol
They don't have to pay 1,100 peoples wages anymore. Those IPs though :messenger_weary:
 

Panajev2001a

GAF's Pleasant Genius



”We are thrilled to welcome these studios into the Embracer Group. We recognize the fantastic IP, world class creative talent, and track record of excellence that have been demonstrated time and again over the past decades. It has been a great pleasure meeting the leadership teams and discussing future plans for how they can realize their ambitions and become a great part of Embracer,” says Lars Wingefors, Co-founder and Group CEO, Embracer Group.

”Embracer is the best kept secret in gaming: a massive, decentralized collection of entrepreneurs whom we are thrilled to become a part of today. It is the perfect fit for our ambitions: make high-quality games, with great people, sustainably, and grow our existing franchises to their best versions ever. Embracer allows us to forge new partnerships across all media to maximize our franchises’ potential and live our dreams of making extraordinary entertainment,” says Phil Rogers, Square Enix America and Europe CEO.


Background and rationale

The collection of studios represents a world-class creative team of ~1,100 employees across three studios and eight global locations, including two of the most reputable AAA studios across the industry in Crystal Dynamics and Eidos Montréal. The studios possess a unique ability to deliver blockbuster hits decade after decade. The acquisition brings a compelling pipeline of new installments from beloved franchises and original IPs, including a new Tomb Raider game. The acquisition builds on Embracer’s mission of creating a leading independent global gaming and entertainment ecosystem. Embracer has been particularly impressed by the studios’ rich portfolio of original IP, housing brands with proven global potential such as Tomb Raider and Deus Ex, as well as demonstrating the ability to create AAA games with large and growing fan bases. There are compelling opportunities to organically grow the studios to maximize their commercial opportunities.


I am not sure Square-Enix needs a cash infusion so badly, it is not even a huge cash infusion either and they lost a lot of talent there that helped diversify their publisher ambitions. They could be prepping themselves as an acquisition target and divesting of resources acquirers would not be interested in paying a premium for while taking extra cash in the short term and thus better return to stockholders.
 
Last edited:

GHound

Member
None of the loser “insiders” got the run up on this?😂😂😂. Figured them asshole would have said something if they did know.
I pissed out my ass but it was a month late. Does that mean I'm pregnant?
Matt Leblanc Reaction GIF
 
None of the loser “insiders” got the run up on this?😂😂😂. Figured them asshole would have said something if they did know.
Insiders don't know anything about acquisitions. It's common sense when you think about, who in their right mind would leak an acqusition? It would have large legal reprecussions, so of course nobody does it.
 
Bruh WTF, they decide to do this today of all days 😂. Guess this takes them off the table for Microsoft, then.

Please keep Deus Ex alive

Also, 300 million seems kinda cheap

It is. Insomniac were cheap, too, but I'm guessing the price for these teams is so low due to relatively low market success of their recent output.

Which kind of falls more on Square-Enix the publisher, really, but it is what it is :/
 
Last edited:

onesvenus

Member
I am not sure Square-Enix needs a cash infusion so badly, it is not even a huge cash infusion either and they lost a lot of talent there that helped diversify their publisher ambitions. They could be prepping themselves as an acquisition target and divesting of resources acquirers would not be interested in paying a premium for while giving cash in the short term and better return to stockholders.
I agree. The only thing that doesn't make sense to me is that I don't think they wouldn't invest in Blockchain, AI and Cloud if they did that to prepare themselves for an acquisition
 

cormack12

Gold Member
Embracer not fucking about. How will purple hairs justify playing the new tomb raider now after their stances against THQN.

We gonna see those straws being grasped for with Koch media etc?
 
Also, yeah, count me in with the crowd that was happy this stayed multiplat.

Microsoft 100% would have pounced on it had they not been dealing with Acitivison/Blizzard, especially for Crystal Dynamics and tomb raider
 

Snake29

RSI Employee of the Year
Better than Sony because games would not be confined to playstation, but certainly not better than microsoft. Microsoft would have had the games on every platform and device (outside playstation) plus large budgets and support. Embracer seems to like to things on the very cheap side as far as productions go. If we'll get new games in these franchises you can forget them being these lavish top tier productions that they were

Large budgets and support is what SIE is known for. In that specific case, i trust SIE more when it comes to game development and studio management then Microsoft/Xbox.
 
On the one hand, I'm happy that they are out of Square Enix's perpetual blame game every financial year. On the other hand, this should have been Microsoft buying them to give these people actual budget and pay. Not sure if Embracer is up to the task of doing AAA releases of anything, as they been mostly doing middleware / AA stuff. At least we might get Soul Reaver remakes.
 

Bragr

Banned
A sign that Square Enix is almost done and that these games never made that much money compared to their budgets.
 
Better than Sony because games would not be confined to playstation, but certainly not better than microsoft. Microsoft would have had the games on every platform and device (outside playstation) plus large budgets and support. Embracer seems to like to things on the very cheap side as far as productions go. If we'll get new games in these franchises you can forget them being these lavish top tier productions that they were


I love the narrative of xbox releasing on xbox and pc being “releasing on everything” and sony releasing on playstation and pc being “confined to playstation”.

Also totally ignoring nintendo
 

Varteras

Gold Member
That seems like an incredibly low number. Did no one else even try to offer more than $300 million for several studios and a slew of IP? Was there more to the deal than just the cash? I mean, clearly there are plenty of companies that could have afforded more than that.
 
Hope this isnt true, embracer has had alot more fails then hits, if it wasnt for coffeestain games publishing some games id say embraser has been a total failure with extremely budgeted games
 
That seems like an incredibly low number. Did no one else even try to offer more than $300 million for several studios and a slew of IP? Was there more to the deal than just the cash? I mean, clearly there are plenty of companies that could have afforded more than that.
Then you have WB selling their studios without the Batman/LOTR/Harry Potter license.

Square Enix gave up on multiple IPs. This is highway robbery by Embracer Group.
 
Last edited:
That seems like an incredibly low number. Did no one else even try to offer more than $300 million for several studios and a slew of IP? Was there more to the deal than just the cash? I mean, clearly there are plenty of companies that could have afforded more than that.
Yeah this deal seem weird as hell they got all of that for 300M
So Maybe Sony & MS are busy at the moment with their deal and cannot buy yet
So what about Tencent or EA i find this weird ass hell that no one else willing to pay more then 300M
 
Last edited:

DukeNukem00

Banned
Large budgets and support is what SIE is known for. In that specific case, i trust SIE more when it comes to game development and studio management then Microsoft/Xbox.


How is sony known for large budgets ? The budgets where we have numbers are a third of that 3rd party publishers invest. I noticed there's this illusion that there's "1st party money". For some bizzare reason, some people are under the impression that a game sold on a single platform gets a bigger budget than a game sold on FOUR platforms. You budget a game based on predicted ROI. You are not getting from one platform what you can get from four. The largest budgets are from 3rd party devs, not 1st party, be it microsoft or sony.

Horizon 1 had a budget of aprox 40 million and Shadow of the Tomb Raider which came out next year had a budget on the high end of 135 million, which was claimed it was standard at the time for games of that type.

Other than Last of Us 2 and Horizon 2 right now, none of sonys games are breaking the bank budget wise. A lot of them were riskier affairs, for example God of War 2018. That was coming in a franchise where the last game bombed. And the new game they had these crazy ideas about no cuts cameras, changing the dirrection from what it was. Do you think GOW was some huge budget affair ? It had id say a moderate budget. Why do you think the gameworld is near empty, you have like 5 npc's the entire game, combat scenarios are rare and constrained to arenas, mini bosses reskined and repeated, puzzles repeating the whole game the same one. These were cost cutting choices, because they didnt have money to make more. Im sure the sequel will though, after the big success it had
 

Varteras

Gold Member
Then you have WB selling their studios without the Batman license. Does it even come with the LOTR license for Shadow of Mordor? Harry Potter?
Yeah this deal seem weird as hell they got all of that for 300M
So Maybe Sony & MS are busy at the moment with their deal and cannot buy yet
So what about Tencent or EA i find this weird ass hell that no one else willing to pay more then 300M
Yeah I'm legitimately mindblown that Embracer gets those studios and all those IP for a mere $300 million. Sony bought Insomniac alone for $230 million and they sure as hell didn't come with the IP this lot does. Where were literally ANY of these other companies in this? This really has to make one reconsider the conventional wisdom of these acquisitions. Because this shit makes no sense to me.
 
Top Bottom