• alyaza [they/she]@beehaw.orgOPM
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    11 months ago

    this seems soon-to-be the Embracer cut. this company fucking sucks man. hate this shit

    VGC reported earlier this month that Free Radical was at threat of being closed just two years after it was established, as part of huge company-wide cuts at Embracer and its owned publishers.

    Although Embracer has yet to publicly confirm Free Radical’s position, sources told VGC that Wingefors has now acknowledged in a company e-mail that the Nottingham, UK-based company could be closed on December 11, following the completion of a consultation process.

      • ampersandrew@kbin.social
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        11 months ago

        Borrowing money was cheap until it wasn’t. When they bought the old Eidos stuff, everyone thought Square Enix was taking crazy pills. Now, given that everyone’s cutting back right now, it looks more like they knew something Embracer didn’t.

        • Spitfire@pawb.social
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          11 months ago

          Wasn’t Embracer depending on a huge cash deal with the Saudis that fell through? Likely had an impact.

          • nromdotcom@beehaw.org
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            11 months ago

            I think regardless of that deal, they were already on the debt-go-round for long enough it would’ve caught up to them eventually. I can’t imagine this was gonna be “one last job then we go clean.” The market would continue to demand more and faster growth until they hit the wall one way or the other.

        • MJBrune@beehaw.org
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          11 months ago

          I honestly don’t think anyone was taken back by Eidos being sold off. The biggest mess Square Enix did was let IOI go while putting out The Quiet Man. Hitman 2? No! The Quiet Man, one of the worst games of the decade, YES! MORE PLEASE! Eidos hadn’t made a great game in a while but IOI had just put out a rather successful Hitman 1 season with large seasonal plans to keep it going. Now they are working on a James Bond game that everyone is excited about and Square is looking like an idiot. While Eidos will probably flop and flounder until they can get back their roots and build something substantial.

          • ampersandrew@kbin.social
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            11 months ago

            People were taken aback by how little they sold for. IO Interactive bought themselves back from Square Enix some time ago.

      • MJBrune@beehaw.org
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        11 months ago

        They bought everything up because loans were cheaper and this positions Embracer as a strong IP holder. They now have lots of IPs they own and while you might think “Well they got no one to make the IPs for them!” that might be true in-house, although they certainly have plenty of successful studios still they are busy they have their pick of IPs. Additionally, you can license out IPs for a lot of money with additional funding from the actual sale of the game while a third-party publisher foots the bill entirely.