After a 1.3 billion buyout in 2021, Embracer is already letting Borderlands’ producers off the hook… without building anything or making its investment profitable.

Game news After a 1.3 billion buyout in 2021, Embracer is already letting Borderlands’ producers off the hook… without building anything or making its investment profitable.

Embracer: The ogre is now on dry bread and water

Born as Game Outlet Europe, which launched Nordic Games in 2007, Embracer Group was the European ogre of video games for many years. Through takeovers and mergers, the company has become a juggernautTHQ Nordic, Koch Media (now Pion) and Deep Silver, owners of Saber Interactive, Gearbox, Piranha Bite among others, Eidos Montreal or Crystal Dynamics. According to ActuGaming’s calculations, the Embracer Group employed more than 16,600 people in March 2023. Historic fundraising, massive investments, everything was done to make Embracer a solid giant. However, society may have put the cart before the horse.

Long debated and on the brink of success, Two billion dollars worth of investment was lost. We later came to know that this money was meant to be injected By Savvy Gaming Group, owned by Saudi Arabia

. The announcement was a bombshell, and Embracer’s stock fell 40% in value. Add to this the end of the boom with Covid, and we find ourselves with a society that can no longer bear its costs. From June 2023, A major restructuring operation has been announcedAnd everyone logically began to tremble in the group.

At the end of the year, this is 1205 developers who lost their jobs For global layoffs that affected 8% of the workforce or 1,383 people. Between project cancellations and cost cutting, Embracer is looking for other ways to speed things up, and One of these ways is to skip certain structures For hard currency. A few days ago, Bloomberg’s Jason Schreier revealed that ahead of time Saber Interactive, a group consisting of 32 studios for about 3,800 employees, will soon regain its independence for a sum of 500 million. of dollars, paid by a group of private investors.

Check out Borderlands 3 on Amazon

Gearbox is to be sold and Embracer will receive more than 1,540 salary relief

Another company bought for $1.3 billion in 2021 should also start the journey. It is a gearbox, and the formalization should take place on March 31, before the end of the financial year.. Gearbox CEO and co-founder Randy Pitchford held a staff meeting to make the announcement to employees, according to InsiderGaming, Bloomberg and Kotaku. That a decision was made regarding the future of the studio, and that more information will be shared in March. Still according to Kotaku’s sources, Pitchford explains to Gearbox employees that three scenarios have been studied since September 2023: staying with Embracer, being sold or financing the purchase and thus becoming independent again. The information collected indicates that a sale has been determined, And soon an agreement will be signed. Asked about this by Kotaku, Randy Pitchford played the “nothing to disclose” card:

I’m glad people are interested enough in what we do that you want to write an article about us for your readers. I am honored and humbled that our company is the subject of rumor, speculation and debate. As always, we’ll be happy to let you know about any projects we have to announce or news to share as part of our mission to entertain the world.

As a reminder, Gearbox worked on 007: Nightfire, Counter-Strike, Halo, Brother in Arms, Duke Nukem Forever and Homeworld, but is best known for the Borderlands franchise which also includes Tiny T’s Wonderlands.

---