Embracer group; who are they?

 What behind the company that ‘embraces great ideas’?


If you asked anybody last year who Embracer group was, no gamer would have an answer for you (outside of Spawn Wave, perhaps). Now? Every gamer does. We’ve entered the era of acquisitions, as I talked about just a few months ago, and Embracer group has become an unexpected yet big player. After making waves with their acquisition of the Tomb Raider IP and games, developer Crystal Dynamics and more from Square Enix they were back at it again only a few months later. This time around, it was even more mind-boggling. Multiple studios are set to be acquired, including Limited Run games and, the big one, the rights to The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit literary works by J.R.R. Tolkien. Yeah. That’s big.

Who is this company? What do they own? Where have they come from and where could they be going? I did some digging into the company to see if I could answer these questions.
Let’s dive in.

The beginning; from 2nd hand game seller to Nordic Games.

Embracer Group started out as just another business of the young Swedish Entrepreneur Lars Wingefors. At age 13, he founded a company that sold 2nd hand comic books. Three years later he did the same for Video games under the name ´Nordic Games'. Nordic games early life was a rollercoaster From a successful chain of brick & mortar stores to a failing video game publisher. The company even switched owners for a year before falling back into Wingefors hands, who couldn’t turn the fortunes around initially but eventually did reform the company in 2004.

After finding success with its own developed title for the massively popular Nintendo Wii, We Sing, the company officially established itself as a holding company; A company that doesn’t make or distribute goods themselves but owns, buys and sells companies that do. From this point forward, acquisitions became the name of the game. Nordic Games acquired publisher JoWood Entertainment in 2011 but more importantly, it bought many of THQ’s IPs after its bankruptcy and, eventually, the name itself.

That really was the big one. THQ was a known game developer with brand recognition. Nordic Games used this recognizition by renaming itself THQ Nordic. From there, it acquired many different studios and companies, including Sabre Interactive and Dark Horse Comics, changed its name to Embracer Group to better represent its mission of “Embrace great companies, great people, and great ideas” and grew into the company it is today. An over 120 game developer strong holding company with its studios spread over 12 subsidiaries and holding the rights to a massive amount of IP’s. For a specific list, you can read a good list on Push Square

The here and now: why?

Embracer group has really snuck up onto the gaming industry, slowly growing for years before making waves with two back-to-back big acquisitions. What now though? What do they want with all these acquisitions? Well, make games and make money of course. The gaming industry has been moving towards a consolidated future in which video game companies are owned by larger tech companies such as Amazon and Microsoft. A ´few big fish in a small pond´ situation. I think Embracer Groups wants to be one of those big fish.

With around 230 games currently in development and over 280 IPs, from AAA all the way down to mobile titles, they have enough in the pipeline for a stream of games that could last years with the big IPs such as Tomb Raider guaranteeing interest and laying the groundwork for AAA games. Embracer is even, reportedly, in talks with Marvel for not only the contracts Marvel had with Square Enix for the ongoing ‘Marvel’s Avengers’ but also for contracts that go far beyond. Licensing is expensive, especially for a franchise so popular as Marvel and one that’s controlled by Disney. It’s one of the reasons why THQ went bankrupt in the first place! If Embracer is willing to shove out the cash and work under the… ‘strict’ Disney they must have big plans in mind for these Marvel games.  

They already have one Disney title in active development: the Star Wars Knights of the Republic remake. That one is immediately a peculiar case. Originally under development by Embracer subsidiary Aspyr, the game has since shifted over to Sabre Interactive. The demo, or vertical slice, of the game Aspyr prepared, did not make a good impression with LucasFilm and Sony so the development studio was shifted. 

Other games in development are Crystal Dynamic's new Tomb Raider, SpongeBob: The Cosmic Shake and the new Saints Row may or may not have some extra content planned. There’s also a new Metro game, Dead Island 2 and a new, mainline, Borderland game. That’s not a bad lineup and only a small fraction of what’s being worked on. I’d reckon we’ll be seeing a lot more games announced in the coming years, from brand-new AAA titles to remakes and/or re-releases for the IPs it now owns. 

Some of the stuff Embracer now owns. 

Embracer Group; good or bad

So the big question here: what do I think of all of this? Well, my gut reaction is negative. I see a big corporation gobbling up smaller studios to become even bigger. That’s just not something I like seeing. I could point towards the trouble with the Knights of the Old Republic, the development hell of Dead Island 2 and the general apathy toward the new Saints Row as ´proof´ so to speak.

However, since I´m not a fan of ´negativity for negativity´, talked about this sentiment already and because I want to give both sides their due I´m making an effort to look at it from the bright side. 

One thing that I heavily dislkie is that the industry is heading towards a future in which a few, but big companies with lots of control over games that you, technically, speaking don’t actually own etc. Embracer Group could be a positive force for the industry in this regard. Another player could prove meaningful pushback to Microsoft and other companies working towards a monopoly in the gaming scene.

Now that we´re on the subject already, I don’t think Embracer is going to stay with games. They own more than just video game-related companies. To once again use Tomb Raider as my example, Dark Horse comics made some well-received comics about the series a few years back and Embracer now owns both. It would be such a missed opportunity if they didn’t restart the Tomb Raider comics now that they have both pieces of the puzzle at their disposal.

That’s what I think Embracer could be doing. Through its subsidiaries become an entertainment juggernaut with games at its centre. I mean, if they’d acquire a (small time) movie studio I wouldn’t be surprised. They could release games, try to make the IPs big and then adapt them all internally. Do I have any evidence or interviews that point towards this intention? No. This is pure speculation on my part. 

A simple thought that popped into my head that I felt like sharing, but it is one I can see happening. Plus: it’s what other gaming companies such as Nintendo and Microsoft are (trying) to do too. Kind of where the industry is heading.

One last point I want to touch on is AA games. We´ve seen fewer AA, or mid-tier, games ever since the PS4 and Xbox One hit. With development costs and time rising the platform holders and big studios have prioritized creating big games. Big games = big bucks, at least that’s what I suspect their reasoning is. The Indie scene has lots of smaller and cheaper games but the mid-tier though? That has been neglected. With AAA games from Sony and Microsoft becoming more expensive, jumping from an MRSP of 60 to 70 the time for mid-tier games to have their grand comeback is now. Titles that are bigger than Indie titles but not as big or expensive as AAA games. Think around 40 bucks with around 8-12 hours of playtime. I think there’s a spot in the market for these games.

Why do I think about Embracer? SpongeBob, mostly. These have been/are positioned as mid-tier titles. With only a fraction of Embracer’s current development output labelled AAA, chances are high that many of them are AA. With a little luck, this is the case and we’ll get to see if my thoughts about AA are correct.

..........

And that’s that. Embrace Group is a Swedish holding company that started out as a small used game seller that, over the course of over 30 years has grown to what it is today. A company that has over 120 gaming companies under it and is making big steps to become a big player in the gaming, and perhaps even the entertainment industry.

Is it good? Is it bad? Too early to tell but I’m doing my best to push my own biases away and look at it in a positive light. Embracer could push back against other, massive, companies buying out the industry and might just even bring back AA games in a meaningful way.

Only time will tell what happens next.

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