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

EDMIX

Member
Oh yeah absolutely. I just wanted to put an update on the figure.

You right to, I try my best not to go off of memory and knowing the facts of all this is helpful in seeing why Square sold those off (vs what I remember from the past)

Maybe they wanted wild Uncharted numbers or something and felt putting more money into it would result in that or something.

Shadow was 135 million their most expensive tomb raider to make to date. Also 8.9 million with a a lot of those being heavily discounted.

Days gone sold like 8-10 million as well and look where the sequel ?

oh wow I didn't know all that. I like that Square tired and put in a budget that they felt would allow the game to be as AAA as it could be as thats better then a shit budget tbh, it sounds like it just didn't work out for them.
 
I'm a troll because I don't agree with you? Lmao there is clearly a reason Square is getting rid of garbage
sorry you can't see it.
The reason for them selling is so that they can invest more in Blockchain games which sucks & is horrible

 

AX8

Banned
The reason for them selling is so that they can invest more in Blockchain games which sucks & is horrible

So you don't agree with what they are doing, meanwhile none of those games are ever going to be big anymore so why would they waste more resources making them?
 
The reason for them selling is so that they can invest more in Blockchain games which sucks & is horrible


I’m not buying that excuse, 300m for all that IP and those developers is nothing in the grand scheme of things. If they wanted money for just that they could have gotten it elsewhere.
 

adamsapple

Or is it just one of Phil's balls in my throat?
I don’t get this

100million for MS to have tomb raider exclusive for 1 year
300 million to acquire all the studio and the IP.

Who the fuck was running at MS for this shit ass deal ? That’s a ripoff!

Also what the fuck Sony was doing not to acquire the IP tomb raider ? If there is an IP that they should have got it’s that IP. The studio is also very talented so what the fuck . Sony is dumb as a motherfucker sometimes man ...

Not like MS any better. Jesus

The MS deal was a decade ago when the franchise was in it's prime.

I know some of y'all find solace in taking the piss out of MS, but come on.
 

Baki

Member
Square has $1.3B cash on hand and less than $100m in debt. So they didn’t even need the money from the sale. 😂😂
 

Baki

Member
Makes their reasoning a little odd. Not sure what’s going on with them.
They want to reduce operating costs. 1,100 employees. Honestly this moves reeks of pencil pusher and/or CFO driven. This is why Square Enix has such a low valuation. No vision or ambition as a company. Zero growth mindset here.
 
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The only thing interesting in this is Tomb Raider.

Which Sony can buy in the future for peanuts to stuff her in Uncharted when future Lara games bomb.

In which then they will sell for peanuts to Imangi Studios. And they will create Raider Run.
 

DaGwaphics

Member
This really does sound like a steal. Even if these IPs were never going to be as big as they once were.

I do wonder why Sony or MS didn't try and jump in there, but maybe it is the Activision deal and not wanting to rock that boat (for MS). Or, maybe neither were looking to expand further at the moment.

Or, this is why both MS and Sony are looking for acquisition managers, somebody is asleep at the wheel. :messenger_tears_of_joy:
 
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DaGwaphics

Member
They want to reduce operating costs. 1,100 employees. Honestly this moves reeks of pencil pusher and/or CFO driven. This is why Square Enix has such a low valuation. No vision or ambition as a company. Zero growth mindset here.

Didn't realize they were that big. I guess that would be a lot of $$ over the course of a year. Just to be put into blockchain garbage. Everyone let Embracer know that we would like another GotG. :messenger_grinning_smiling:
 
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Baki

Member
Didn't realize they were that big. I guess that would be a lot of $$ over the course of a year.
For 2021, both studios made $190m but costs across both studios (including marketing etc) was $182M, so they only made $8M profit. If they have a down year, things could become expensive real quick.
 

adamsapple

Or is it just one of Phil's balls in my throat?
I’m not buying that excuse, 300m for all that IP and those developers is nothing in the grand scheme of things. If they wanted money for just that they could have gotten it elsewhere.

My friend, the amount of energy you're putting into willing Sony to buy SE, I really hope it pans out for your sake :messenger_tears_of_joy:
 
My friend, the amount of energy you're putting into willing Sony to buy SE, I really hope it pans out for your sake :messenger_tears_of_joy:

Theres no situation where Sony doesn’t get Square Enix games at this point, it doesn’t matter to me. I just think its funny all pre-emptive square enix hate is.
 
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adamsapple

Or is it just one of Phil's balls in my throat?
Theres no situation where Sony doesn’t get Square Enix games at this point, it doesn’t matter to me. I just think its funny all pre-emptive square enix hate is.

I, personally, think it'll be a waste of money. The SE IP that matters to Sony fans is already getting multiple guaranteed (console) exclusive games on PS5 anyway.

I can bet safely Sony fans don't really want more adventures in the Babylon's Fall universe.
 
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I, personally, think it'll be a waste of money. The SE IP that matters to Sony fans is already getting multiple guaranteed (console) exclusive games on PS5 anyway.

I can bet safely Sony fans don't really want more adventures in the Babylon's Fall universe.

If sony were gonna secure a large publisher square enix imo is the only one that really makes sense. I would think sony wants FFXIV more than anything, and they can substantially grow it as well with more servers.

No other company really satisfies the GAAS and Single player portion of what they do.
 

CatLady

Selfishly plays on Xbox Purr-ies X
If someone is going to buy what's left of S/E I hope it's Sony. Embracer now owns the only devs aside from Asobo that I was hoping for Xbox to buy. It would totally piss me off if Xbox somehow got around Japan's protectionist rules and bought Weeb/Enix. There is already more than enough Japanime crap on Xbox as it is.
 

bitbydeath

Member
MS being tied up with Activision and Sony requesting they dump the western side prior purchasing the rest is the only way it makes sense neither jumped on the western studios for so cheap, IMO.

Would be interesting to hear the story if it isn’t that.
 

Brigandier

Member
$300m for Eidos/CD studios and their IPs is actually insane.

That is mind blowing to me 🤯

SE are that desperate to get them off their books? wtaf.
 

Fredrik

Member
$300m for Eidos/CD studios and their IPs is actually insane.

That is mind blowing to me 🤯

SE are that desperate to get them off their books? wtaf.
Yeah this is either insanely cheap or other studio acqusitions has been insanely expensive.
To put it into perspective. Microsoft could’ve made 250 acqusitions like this for the Activision Blizzard money.
 

ArtHands

Thinks buying more servers can fix a bad patch
Their Spider-Man exclusivity deal with Sony for Avengers really screwed them hard. They totally deserves the flop.
 

Embracer confirms that they are going to make new games for Deus Ex, Thief, Legacy of Kain and other unannounced properties.

Several AAA games are apparently already in development.

BOOM
 
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arvfab

Banned
I, personally, think it'll be a waste of money. The SE IP that matters to Sony fans is already getting multiple guaranteed (console) exclusive games on PS5 anyway.

I can bet safely Sony fans don't really want more adventures in the Babylon's Fall universe.

You are not considering that SE have a lot of IPs which scream for manga/anime/movie (cgi) adaptations. Not even speaking about all the mobile games SE already have based on their IPs.
 

jigglet

Banned
I remember when they sent a westerner to run Sony about 20 years ago, apparently it was a cultural shit fight. I've always assumed it would be the same the other way around. It's not surprising to me to see Square starting to divest their western dev teams. I bet they can't stomach a "hands off" approach, while at the same time a "hands on" approach was probably disastrous.

To me the weirdest move yet was when they announced a strategic pivot to GaaS, then 2 months later they announced the sale of IO Interactive, which is one of the best GaaS developers in the industry. Sense no make.
 
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Tarkus98

Member
Wow. On the surface this appears to be an insanely good deal for Embracer. We are obviously not seeing the whole picture though. For whatever reason SE has always seen CD in a negative light. As recently as GoG, which looked to have sold really well was still getting negative statements from SE as under performing. Plus, weren’t they the team that assisted 343 with Halo? They had to be bringing money in between the outsourcing and the game sales.
What we don’t know (I presume we can easily find out with a few searches) is how much it cost to make The Avengers and Guardians. What the overall salary of the teams sold. I mean are they ridiculously overpaid?
Obviously there are other variables in play like the perceived value of the IP’s. Many of us view Kain and Soul Reaver as well as other IP’s in the deal with emotional value but in reality SE didn’t believe them to be very valuable.

Anyway to much text- in a nutshell, we don’t have the big picture here. That or SE management is fucking beyond incompetent here.
Will be interesting to see Sony scoop up SE for cheap now just so they have the FFXIV license. Seems they already have other FF games like XVI locked up. Guess we’ll have to wait and what happens.

Just happy to hear Embracer will be resurrecting Kain, Thief and Deus Ex. ABOUT FUCKING TIME, YES!!! As a gamer, this is an Awesome deal.
 

Denton

Member
Proves that IP alone doesn’t sell games, they still need to be good.
Guardians is good. GOTY material, easily on par with God of War (I thought it was better than GoW, actually).

Avengers has a decent 7/10 campaign. But its terrible marketing and GAAS soured so many people, no wonder it sold peanuts (I even finished its campaign during free weekend) and even poisoned Guardians.

What we don’t know (I presume we can easily find out with a few searches) is how much it cost to make The Avengers and Guardians. What the overall salary of the teams sold. I mean are they ridiculously overpaid?

Crystal Dynamics is in Bay area US and has around 500 employees. Rough math, 5000 dollars per employee gives you 2.5 million USD burn rate monthly, 30 million yearly. A game like Tomb Raider or Avengers thus easily costs 100 million USD on development alone, and then there is another 30-50 million to spend on marketing.

To recoup that, you need to sell at least 3.5 million copies at release at full price.
And that's just to recoup.

Meanwhile, game like Kingdom Come Deliverance cost 20 million USD including marketing, and it is much larger and mechanically rich game than anything by Crystal, with comparable production values.

Embracer should invest more in central and eastern europe :p
 
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Wildebeest

Member
Square has $1.3B cash on hand and less than $100m in debt. So they didn’t even need the money from the sale. 😂😂
Seems a good way to lose that 1.3B is to run studies that lose 100M here and there on super expensive games that are critically acclaimed and have "legendary" IP but fail to sell enough. Then people say they are stupid when they point out that they are disappointed with the performance of those games and demand they make even more expensive projects. It's a potential death spiral.
 

Hendrick's

If only my penis was as big as my GamerScore!
I'm glad someone finally wrestled these western devs away from SE who have horribly mismanaged them. Maybe we can get a decent Deus Ex game now.
 

adamsapple

Or is it just one of Phil's balls in my throat?
You are not considering that SE have a lot of IPs which scream for manga/anime/movie (cgi) adaptations. Not even speaking about all the mobile games SE already have based on their IPs.

You're correct, but in most cases game studios gravitate towards Sony by default for their film projects anyway.

Sony was involved in Advent Children marketing and distribution to an extent as well, if I'm not mistaken.
 

arvfab

Banned
You're correct, but in most cases game studios gravitate towards Sony by default for their film projects anyway.

Sony was involved in Advent Children marketing and distribution to an extent as well, if I'm not mistaken.

Activision games were releasing on MS platforms anyway, and yet they spent 70 billions for them.

Why wouldn't it be better for Sony to own the IPs to produce movies and animes themselves, instead of hoping to be contracted for them?
And for PlayStation it is in the long run maybe cheaper to buy the studios instead of buying single games.

PS: I'm not saying Sony will or should buy SE, but from an investment point of view, it sure makes sense.
 

John Wick

Member
This really does sound like a steal. Even if these IPs were never going to be as big as they once were.

I do wonder why Sony or MS didn't try and jump in there, but maybe it is the Activision deal and not wanting to rock that boat (for MS). Or, maybe neither were looking to expand further at the moment.

Or, this is why both MS and Sony are looking for acquisition managers, somebody is asleep at the wheel. :messenger_tears_of_joy:
Seeing as how tight Sony and SE are I'm sure they would have approached Sony for a sale first. Sony a while back even had shares in SE.
 

CatLady

Selfishly plays on Xbox Purr-ies X

Embracer confirms that they are going to make new games for Deus Ex, Thief, Legacy of Kain and other unannounced properties.

Several AAA games are apparently already in development.

BOOM

Fantastic news! I hope Deus Ex is their first release. This makes me happy these studios finally got released from S/E prison and they will stay multiplat as long as Sony doesn't moneyhat them.
 
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