Lars Wingefors, CEO of Embracer Group, says his company is looking to spend billions more on studio purchases. It is one of several publishers that has been making multi-million/billion acquisitions. Embracer Group recently acquired Dark Horse Media, Perfect World Entertainment, and more in a deal worth at least $125 million. It owns 115 studios, with over 12,500 employees in over 40 countries, and has a market value of $9.9 billion.
Embracer Group is a parent company of businesses led by entrepreneurs in PC, console, mobile and board games and other related media. The Group has an extensive catalogue of over 850 owned or controlled franchises.
With its head office based in Karlstad, Sweden, Embracer Group has a global presence through its ten operative groups: THQ Nordic, Koch Media, Coffee Stain, Amplifier Game Invest, Saber Interactive, DECA Games, Gearbox Entertainment, Easybrain, Asmodee, and Dark Horse. The Group has 115 internal game development studios and is engaging more than 12,500 employees and contracted employees in more than 40 countries.
“If you can make one game, you have a big business risk but if you make 200 games like we do, the business risk is less,” Wingefors said.
Embracer plans to invest more money in countries including the U.S, France, Poland, and China. The company also wants to expand into the free-to-play gaming market.
Source: The Financial Times (via VGC)
Discussion (11 replies)
Join Discussion →Trying to make a new EA or Epic Games?
I'd say Tencent is a more appropriate model for them. Epic is just a small fish in a big pond when looking at that level of the game.
Some computer determined the market sector is prone to cornering.
I never heard of Embracer Group or Dark Horse Media, or Perfect World Entertainment. Should I know these? What games they made?
Lol i thought they were movie/television studios. Show's what I know.
As far as Embracer goes, I'd only know about them from posting stories on their acquisitions.
In terms of Dark Horse, well, anyone who's heard of Aliens vs Predator or ever thought about space marines vs aliens owes them credit. The movies scrapped all their great material into the 'meh' we know now.
Otherwise, there's THQ Nordic who does the Metro games and a handful of other popular franchises.
Perfect World Entertainment. Heck if I know, beyond what we've reported.
Perfect World has a bunch of copy cat Chinese MMOs. They also bought out Runic Games and Cryptic Studios before they themselves were bought - you may have heard of some titles from those two - Torchlight from Runic and City of Heroes, Champions Online, Star Trek Online and some other MMOs from Cryptic
Well, I assumed they are gaming companies. I thought if they are not making games this would not be tech news.
Is Pixar not tech related?
That reminds me. I wonder how their relations with Apple/Mac are these days. I remember that at one point they had some very, very, close ties to each other back in the early 2000s.
The bond there was Jobs. He was an early investor in Pixar (their biggest actually), and sat on their board for a while (even a stint as CEO) - continued to do so after they were bought by Disney (and vice-versa with some Disney execs on Apple's board)
Once Jobs died, it kinda sputtered out. He was what held the two together.