Report: Embracer cancels Eidos' unannounced Deus Ex project, lays off staff

simple@lemm.ee to Games@lemmy.world – 225 points –
Report: Embracer cancels Eidos' unannounced Deus Ex project, lays off staff
gamedeveloper.com
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Companies like Embracer are a disease. Their leadership are taking any passion out of the art, and continue running the money printing machine with no oil between the gears

Would be a real shame if someone boycotted every game they put their greedy claws on..

At the rate they're closing their studios and cancelling games, I don't think there's gonna be much left.

I don't know what other games they had planned. So far they still have the studios that make tomb raider and borderlands.

Well if they just close studios and cancel games, there's not much to boycott lol

Literally the only property of Eidos that I care about, and it was bad enough that the studio wasted so much time on that garbage avengers game rather than finish the deus ex story they left hanging.

It seems like the only time you hear about Embracer is when they are cancelling games or closing studios.

What even is their purpose?

Step 1. Amalgamate as many smaller studios as possible

Step 2. Probably some BS about tax writeoffs or packaging debt for sale

Step 3. Profit? (but not enough to pay anyone outside the C suite and maybe investors)

They're the holding company that used to be "thq"

Kind of like how Alphabet is to Google, or Meta is to Facebook and Instagram.

Canceling games and closing studios.

Not so fast! Sometimes they also announce the return of old franchises, just to be shut down shortly after.

Like Timesplitters 4.

There is a precise technical answer to your question a finance person can probably give you but it doesn’t really answer the question no matter how many acronyms they throw at you.

The actual answer is that there is no reason any of this has to be rational. Business people believe so strongly that companies like embracer are valuable and have a function in society that they detect zero cognitive dissonance when said companies don’t actually do anything but buy smaller companies, dissect them and destroy value.

You can’t understand business and finance people like they are scientists, they are closer to priests of a religious sect that believe in things because of their belief system not because of some rational framework that actually supports their ideas.

I think for the rich, it is just “good practice” to commit economic violence against smaller companies, it is good hygiene for keeping the power in the hands of the rich like mowing a field once a year or something. This doesn’t fully explain how poorly some of these companies function like embracer however.

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We always hear about shit companies like embracer, but who are the actual people in charge? Who are the people who are very bad at their jobs and should be publically ostracized for damaging not only their ips but the lives of hundreds to thousands of working developers? Like what are their names? Who are these faceless scumbags?

Embracer is just a name to hide behind, the people involved in the decisionmaking here should be known by name, like Bobby "incredible piece of human filth" Kotick

You can tell from the pictures that they all play video games. /s

I really hate how people in charge of companies usually don't give a crap about the product, just how to exploit it.

I honestly do believe Lars Wingefors is passionate about games and the industry, he's been trying to find a place in it his whole career, but I do not think he's a good business man nor worthy of stewardship for these IPs.

Very well could be. I didn't research their backgrounds. I just know from first hand experience of people who get jobs who graduated with business degrees who don't care about the stuff they sell.

I was hoping this would see the light of day but alas. Embracer is doomed.

First time I ever heard about Embracer and I hate them already 🤬

Well, they've been doing this a lot. They have bought a massive amount of game studios over the years just to run out of money and close them.

You've heard of them before. They used to be called THQ Nordic.

Welp, it sucked at square, and it got even worse now, Eidos can't catch a break.