Embracer Group has entered into an agreement to acquire Crystal Dynamics, Eidos-Montréal, Square Enix Montréal (~1,100 employees) and a catalogue of IPs including Tomb Raider, Deus Ex, etc (total up $300M)

It isn’t about acquiring everything, but acquiring what felt right, and I believe most people here thought these studios would fit right in with Xbox.

IMO I believe these studios are more of a fit for Xbox than ABK.

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Yeah, I agree. The most likely cause is twofold. A. You can’t buy everyone as then you really will be considered a monopoly so you need your competitors healthy.

B, this is really a neutral move from Microsoft POV. Its not going to sony or someone who would lock the studios away from them which probably would have prompted action. It’s going to the embracer group who for the most part will keep it as business as usual.

Lastly, embracer group buying them today doesn’t mean Microsoft can’t buy them later. As in the scheme of things to them if they wait 2 or 3 years and end up spending an extra 100 million or so it’s not the end of the world when your quarterly is generally between 15-20 billion.

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For me its not that MS didnt grab them, its the fact it was done for 300m

That is chump change for not only a bunch of studios and IP but one of the biggest gaming IPs ever, 300m for all that plus TR is absolutely insane in todays market

Like how were other companies not willing to spend more than that for all of that?

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This right here would be one of the downsides that Embracer acquired them, if this turns out to be the case of course.

We don’t know the budget the new TR was getting from SE, but it probably will be smaller under Embracer. And this goes for Deus Ex and a possible Sleeping Dogs too. Can still be fantastic games though. All speculation of course.

Which game by them had the biggest budget?

I fully expect them to lower the budget. Square nor Embracer have any incentive to fund these massive projects that are likely not going to blow up.

I kind of expect Crystal Dynamics to be a Microsoft contract studio, honestly.

The price raises an eyebrow and the fact that Microsoft did not buy them earlier and decide to partner with them - knowing now that SE wanted to offload the studios - really raises questions.

But the price feels like a joke. Gearbox was 1.3b (for Borderlands only essentially), Codermasters was 1b. But then we remember that 4A was 40m only I think. Guess single player IPs are really really cheap.

All in all, I am in the camp that this acquisition has nothing to do with ABK deal at all and Microsoft just decided not to buy them.

Anyway, hopefully Embracer aren’t as incompetent as Square, plus MS hasn’t really lost anything as I imagine if they want to mkake PD a franchise, they will just make a deal with Embracer/CD again

Or they will staff up The Initiative massively and nab a bunch of CD talent

Iv seen people use the excuse of CD and Eidos not making Square enough money, there profits and net revenue were terrible but that seems more the fault of Square than anyone

Back when I was thinking about xbox making a play for CD and TR I was expecting a billion $ purchase, minimum, instead they Eidos/all IPs and the above for 300m, crazy

I vote for this. I suspect Embracer isn’t going to provide as much funding as Square was, Embracer is perfectly fine with AA games. Any ex-CD employees should be given a fast pass to The Initiative, and Microsoft should grow that studio to be able to make Perfect Dark 2 or whatever else.

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A damn shame. Would’ve preferred MS buy them over Activision. Also I’d prefer Sony to buy them over Embracer group.

This madness :fire: It is not the acquisition season. The last couple of years are the Acquisition Era.

In the last couple of years we had Bethesda, ABK, Gearbox, Square Enix West, Bungie…Ubisoft is dying too, WB is on the way out too…

Damn, that would be disappointing. We’re gonna get a significantly smaller budget Tomb Raider then. Probably can’t be compared to reboot, Rise and Shadow. I would definitely see that as a big bummer.

But again, can still be a great game.

So you would have preferred xbox and pc to get no more games from them, got it.

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Square funded those projects because they thought they would become the next massive AAA studio like CDPR or Bethesda. Instead, those games were selling like 10M-15M instead of 30M+.

I would prefer better funded games from them over Embracer funding. Now, I probably won’t touch them with a ten-foot pole.

Is there an indication that Embracer provides small budgets? I don’t think we had any indication of that.

Jesus, come on, that bad?

I think we gotta look at their most expensive game ever, think we can get an idea from that. Question is, which game is that.

The fact that most of their games are AA games. Square was investing in these games because they thought they would sell a lot better, the financials didn’t line up, which is why they just sold them for $300M. I highly doubt Embracer will have the same desire to invest in the games as Square did, especially since they’re already okay with AA-quality games.

I will always prefer platform holders to buy studios over third parties publishers. Preferably Xbox, but I don’t have an issue with Sony doing so as well. Better funded game that happens to be exclusive to PS > Any multi-platform Embracer game.

I am a little worried for my Fav game… GotG

Hope it’s sequeal makes a cut under embracer

7 stud… 4 studios!

Funny seeing the same reactions from PS players :rofl: :rofl:

Until proven otherwise. I prefer the option to have those games instead of not to :person_shrugging:

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Are they though? Embracer released a lot of AA games simply because they bought a lot of studios that make smaller games. We don’t know about the budgets there.

Doubt.

:joy: