How the F do you “function” when half your people are gone Jesus Christ…
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I wonder if that TMNT Ronin game they were working will get canned now.
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That guy nick is interacting with is a Xbox doomer. Constantly talking about the brand dying and fake worrying.
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The whole narrative is aimed at Xbox. We have seen with Sony last year that gamers don’t care that much about layoffs until Xbox is doing it.
Anyway, when the total number of headcounts in the company is growing, the budget is redirected to a more talented team, that’s all. Acquisitions don’t stop studios from going out of business.
I agree with Nick. Embracer does have some really great studios and it would be great to see Microsoft or another top tier publisher acquire a few/some of them.
Yeah it’s weird how people think Xbox is in trouble like they didn’t just spend $70 billion on Activision and Blizzard. Although I do hope that the layoffs will be over soon.
These people are literally wish casting. This is where their true intentions bely. The best part is that, it’s becoming more clear, that Xbox is here to stay, and it causes them legitimate anguish; like their life spans are literally being shortened because of Xbox.
But hey, I’m all for Palworld surpassing another sales threshold. And I’m also all for MS’ next gaming acquisition.
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Here’s my two cents on Embracers studios. I’ve scored some of the more popular studios out of 5. Alot of these studios make great games but Xbox has shooters / racing nailed making those studios less valuable.
I’ve also excluded CD/E as they are both 5/5 must haves. Keep in mind 2.5/5 is average and not a terrible score like some review sites.
Anyway here’s my list.
2.5* - Black Forest games, IP - Destroy all Humans, Currently working TMNT.
1* - Bugbear, IP - Wreckfest, competes with Forza Horizon
3*- Gunfire, IP - Remnant II. I solid pick but it will be years before their next game.
1.5*- Rainbow Studios, IP - MX v ATV, Forza Horizon could add as DLC if people were desperate for MX/ATV games
2.5* - Dambusters, IP - Dead Island 2. While great it would complete with State of Decay and years before the next DI game.
2* - DigixArt, IP - Road 96. I don’t know how successful these games are but given Telltales fate I’d assume not well, that said Xbox do enjoy getting these into Game Pass for a more casual audience
2*- Flying Wild Hog, IP - Shadow Warrior - Trek to Yomi - Evil West. I like these games but they don’t hit big numbers
3.5* - Tarsier, IP - Little Nightmares. A unique game and talented studio. I think this one would work nicely and could help fill the horror genre out.
2* - 4A, IP - Metro. The metro games are great but Xbox has enough shooters (saying this was painful)
1.5* - Tripwire, IP - Killing Floor
1* - Zen, IP - Pinball. I like pinball games and think it would be great in game pass but I don’t think you need a studio dedicated to it.
3.5* - Gearbox, I’m not up to speed on the partnership with 2k so a bit tricky to judge.
The other stupid take repeated non-stop is “they have to keep everything multiplatform to make back some of the 70B”. People don’t understand those 70B are simply moved from bank to an asset (ABK), also, in the mean time from the announcement to the closing of the deal, MS had already made (much) more than 70B of net profit.
They keep some things multiplatform only to appease regulators and/or not disrupt communities for online/developing games. Imo they are even too open for the sake of Xbox brand, because some moves here and there (Ori on Switch and Quake 2 remaster in particular, years after acquisition) keep always open the bad faith “all multiplatform” topic (like the recent fud cycle), because there’s a slim opening in the window.
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If Microsoft purchases the pal world devs now i don’t think it will look good because they canceled abk’s game and fired a bunch of people.
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I don’t think they care to be honest. They’re painted as the villains no matter what they do.
I don’t think they’ll be purchasing the Palworld developers either though.
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Worth remembering they laid off staff back when acquiring Activision. While it seems weird to cut staff while hiring new staff - the goal is to bring in new sources of revenue while cutting costs on theit existing revenue and those aren’t necessarily contradictory. Unpleasant as it may be.
Yeah I don’t see this one happening either, every story I have heard about the development of this game is, well, bizarre to say the least.
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You all know that I’m with you on the state of layoffs and how no one should be above reproach in this situation, but we started funneling that discussion into its own thread. Thanks everyone 
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I don’t want to talk about layoffs here but 1900 people represents approximately a publisher the size of SEGA ( around 3000 people ) are they planning to grow by buying another publisher ? In this case SEGA would make the most sense with Rovio for Mobile.
No acquisition is worth a trade like this 
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From the point of view of someone close to the industry who talks with developers, I completely agree with you, no one deserves to lose their jobs for free like this. from a consumer customer point of view if it allows other acquisitions from Studios and Publishers and therefore new content in the XBOX Gamepass I’m not going to lie I’m in favor even if it goes against my values. You’re talking to my wallet. The more content there is in the XBOX Gamepass Day One, the happier I will be from a customer point of view. Having XGS, ABK, Bethesda, and perhaps future publishers and studios games accessible Day One in a subscription service is a huge plus for me.
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It’s a business without any sort of long-term guarantees.
There’s absolutely no world where employees at these publishers have jobs for life or employment safety for years to come. None.
It’s a sector of the entertainment industry. I think some people forget that. It’s called ‘tech’ but that’s almost misleading because in reality it’s very similar to the movie or music industries, i.e. dependent on consumer tastes & purchase inclinations.
Before MS bought them, Bethesda weren’t exactly in a great place. Ditto Activision.
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I don’t believe they do lay-offs for a set amount of staff in order to bring in a set amount of staff. This is just something that had to happen. They just merged the largest 3rd party publisher. About 20K staff, there was time needed to actually asses the company and work being done there.
But MS is going to acquire, they are just waiting for the market to stabilize plus complete the ABK integration. I definitely do see it being another publisher instead of single studios that we think would be obvious. Studios can be contracted, ip and established franchises need to be bought. I’m still team SEGA, they fit every metric.
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Game pass isn’t more important than people. Also this has nothing to do with Sega.
JP companies are significantly more difficult to just do mass lay offs like this at (we have not seen JP sides of publishers from there getting affected, last year most of them raised employee wages, unfortunately we did see Western branches take hits such as Sega’s.). I don’t know how much that factors into Microsoft’s evaluation of buying publishers from there but I hope they just stick to partnerships, I don’t want any more publisher acquisitions (an opinion I had during the ABK saga).
Nowhere near as important but I also don’t like that they bought Bethesda and, if those physical game rumors are true, have effectively removed physical as an option for Bethesda games if they will remain Xbox exclusive digital only games.
Game cartridges, cd’s, dvd, bdvd, and now hard drives. They are all physical media digital information storage. It’s just evolution. Every game is digital data, and actually a ssd is the best and safest storage drive now for it. In the future there will be something better. Game preservation has actually improved because of this. Every game I own is physically stored, I even made copies of them legally with Xbox. Oh and PC is even better, in case our consoles stop working, their will always be ways to launch them.
And yes, Sega would be a great acquisition because they would finally have the investment and support needed to make the best games they can. Their employee count would increase, great for Japan and it’s industry as well.