By Earlier this week came the news that Swedish media holding company and gaming giant Embracer would be splitting up into three separate entities – Asmodee Group, Coffee Stain & Friends and Middle-earth Enterprises & Friends.
Embracer went on a major mergers and acquisitions binge during the pandemic, snapping up multiple game developers and companies – in the process snagging the media rights to multiple major IPs including “The Lord of the Rings,” “Tomb Raider,” “Deus Ex,” “Metro,” “Duke Nukem,” “Dead Island” and more.
However after a US$2 billion investment deal unexpectedly fell through, the company was heavily in debt and began selling off multiple studios and laying off nearly 1,400 people at others.
Embracer CEO Lars Wingefors will own all three of the newly listed companies and remain as the group CEO once the splits are complete.
Speaking with GamesIndustry.biz following the announcement, Wingefors says he should be saddled with the blame for a “long list” of mistakes which led to the restructuring of the company, but believes they can still move forward with the games they’re planning:
“I’m sure I deserve a lot of criticism, but I don’t think my team or companies deserve all the criticism. I could take a lot of that blame myself. But ultimately I need to believe in the mission we set out and that is still valid, and we are now enabling that by doing this [new] structure.
I still feel I have the trust from many or all of my key entrepreneurs and CEOs that have joined the group. It’s been difficult, but I think they all believed in the mission of Embracer. They also understand that the world has changed, we need to change.
It’s painful. We can’t make all the games we wanted to make three years ago, but we need to adapt to it. We will still make games, we still have one of the biggest, if not the biggest, pipeline of games in the industry. And we have great plans over the coming years or decades.”
Asmodee will handle board games, trading cards and digital board games. Coffee Stain & Friends focuses on indie, free-to-play and AA games. Middle-earth Enterprises & Friends will focus on triple-A game development.
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