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GI.biz - Embracer Group raising over $890m for even more acquisitions

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www.gamesindustry.biz

Embracer Group raising over $890m for even more acquisitions

Embracer Group is gearing up for yet more acquisitions as it stands to raise more than $890 million.The parent of THQ N…
www.gamesindustry.biz www.gamesindustry.biz
Embracer Group is gearing up for yet more acquisitions as it stands to raise more than $890 million.

The parent of THQ Nordic and Koch Media has issued 36 million new Class B shares at SEK 210 ($24.71) per share.

The process is expected to raise SEK 7.6 billion ($893.9 million), which will be used to "further strengthen the company's financial position and, of course, continue its ongoing acquisition strategy.
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Embracer Group said it is looking to acquire new publishers, developers and "other assets" -- the latter potentially meaning more IP, having purchased the rights to dozens of games franchises in the past.

The company also said it is actively reviewing and evaluating a "growing number of potential near-term acquisition targets."
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Embracer's most recent mergers and acquisitions include mobile publisher Easybrain, US developer Aspyr Media, and Borderlands studio Gearbox Entertainment. The three deals were worth just over $2 billion, with Gearbox as the biggest -- potentially worth up to $1.3 billion.

The three acquisitions followed Embracer's biggest spending spree yet, as it announced back in November it had acquired 12 development studios and a PR and influencer relations agency.
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Dust

Dust

C H A O S
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Oct 25, 2017
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Ghostmaster

Ghostmaster

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Oct 25, 2017
244
Are there any AA studios left? Or will they be focusing on smaller indie studios? I guess IOI is still independent technically.
 
defaltoption

defaltoption

The Fallen
Oct 27, 2017
11,482
Austin
If this company ever goes under I can't imagine the bloodbath of job loss and how much smaller ip could be lost for years.
 
Soap

Soap

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Oct 27, 2017
15,164
Part of me is starting to wonder if the long game for embraced is to aquifer so many IP's that they can sell themselves to a bigger player. The issue is, you actually have to do something with the IP you own...
 
Windu

Windu

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Oct 25, 2017
13,616
Someone larger is going to buy them at some point. Was thinking it would be Google for awhile there.
 
Kemono

Kemono

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Windu said:
Someone larger is going to buy them at some point.
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This right here.

They're fattening themselves up to "sell for a high price".

They're worth 10,41 billion dollars right now. Buying them wouldn't be that more expensive than what MS paid for Bethesda.

With such a move MS would've enough developers for 2 Game Passes.
 
OP
OP

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Windu said:
Someone larger is going to buy them at some point. Was thinking it would be Google for awhile there.
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i really don't think that's gonna happen. i don't see anyone taking on the task of managing ~60 studios and 5 different publishing arms. and they really don't have that many mega-popular IPs either.
 
Xadra

Xadra

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Oct 26, 2018
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Even more?!

Between Embracer and Tencent they are going to end up owning nearly half of the videogame industry.

I bet Crytek is in someone list.
 

allongo

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Jun 29, 2018
97
It was a little on the nose to rename themselves "embracer" and then start acquiring a ton of companies.

Pretending to be THQ was a cooler gimmick.
 
daninthemix

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Nov 2, 2017
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When they're done they themselves need to get aquired by MS to fatten up GamePass even more.
 
Piston

Piston

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Oct 25, 2017
11,155
Do we think Embracer has a long game of getting into exclusive streaming or store platform? It feels like there is something brewing here beyond just simple studio acquisition and build up.
 
Conor

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Piston said:
Do we think Embracer has a long game of getting into exclusive streaming or store platform? It feels like there is something brewing here beyond just simple studio acquisition and build up.
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Can see multiple possibilities. They could end up with their own subscription service / 'channel' on other platforms, like EA Play and Uplay+ do on Xbox and Luna etc. Or they could go into licensing for other peoples services.
 

Deleted member 52190

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Jan 20, 2019
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Piston said:
Do we think Embracer has a long game of getting into exclusive streaming or store platform? It feels like there is something brewing here beyond just simple studio acquisition and build up.
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They are preparing for the future, either another big company enters the market or the market goes cloud/sub, whatever happens, that is their main goal, at least for what i can see.
 
Bansai

Bansai

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Oct 28, 2017
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They should really change the name from Embracer to Gobbler. The pace they're going at is pretty insane.
 
PlanetSmasher

PlanetSmasher

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Oct 25, 2017
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Nothing says "hopeful for the industry's future" like all the third party developers getting acquired by a studio that itself could wind up being acquired.

God this generation is exhausting.
 
ThereAreFourNaan

ThereAreFourNaan

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Nov 8, 2017
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Astrochelys said:
When do they announce their own streaming platform?
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I'd say they'll be bulking up their content offerings until about 2025 then they pivot into having their own sub if they can get together a sufficiently desireable portfolio. They'll have a few heavy hitters and ambitious games in that timeframe - in theory they'd have Borderlands 4 out around then for example.

Otherwise, they'll keep building up longer, panning for gold (Coffee Stain has been great at this, developing Satisfactory and publishing Valheim + Deep Rock Galactic) and making modest profits on a lot of middling games leveraging any kind of hustle they can (EGS deals, gamepass deals, PS+ deals, Stadia deals etc). They can effectively be mid-tier content brokers for any platform which is hungry to pad out their game selections.
 
KDR_11k

KDR_11k

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Nov 10, 2017
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I wonder if they're gunning for Focus, that seems to be the biggest other AA publisher out there.
 
Sola1r3

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Jun 20, 2018
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Here is a list of potential studios to buy most of them are just small indie studios. Going through the list, there really isnt that many studios left to acquire anymore. Just American and European studios with some Oceania exceptions, I didnt include Asia:

AMERICAS

Turtle Rock Studios
Red Barrels
Ember Lab
Deck Nine Games
Iron Galaxy Studios
Tripwire Interactive
Bluepoint Games
Oddworld Inhabitants
OtherSide Entertainment
Nightdive Studios
Mossmouth
Toby Fox
Cyan Worlds
Brace Yourself Games
Team Cherry
Unknown Worlds Entertainment
Heart Machine
Intercept Games
Red Hook Studios
Yacht Club Games
Steel Wool Studios
Endnight Games
AdHoc Studio
Sabotage Studio
Airship Syndicate
Fullbright
Ben Esposito
Thekla Inc
Giant Sparrow
The Glory Society
Studio MDHR
Buried Signal
Extremely OK Games
Stoic Studio
DrinkBox Studios
Lucas Pope
A44
Thatgamecompany
Mobius Digital
Funomena
Capybara Games
Supergiant Games
Giant Squid
Young Horses
Counterplay Games
SadSquare Studio
Cardboard Computer
Romero Games
Night School Studio
Skookum Arts
Graceful Decay
Torn Banner Studios



EUROPE

Wild Sheep Studio
Ebb Software
The Astronauts
Techland
GSC Game World
Yager Development
Larian Studios
Frozenbyte
The Farm 51
Rockfish Games
Supermassive Games
IO Interactive
Housemarque
CI Games
Remedy Entertainment
Thunderful Development
Fatshark
Frontier Developments
Arrowhead Game Studios
Quantic Dream
11 bit Studios
Crytek
Tequila Works
Moon Studios
Asobo Studio
Mimimi Games
Hello Games
Playtonic Games
Frictional Games
Bloober Team
Lucid Games
Hazelight
People Can Fly
Rebellion Developments
Mundfish
DotEmu
Nerial
WolfEye Studios
Awaceb
Playwing
Digixart
Ice-Pick Lodge
Sloclap
Dennaton Games
Colossal Order
Playdead
Roll7
Cavalier Game Studios
Motion Twin
Nomada Studio
Coldwood Interactive
Digital Sun Games
Free Lives
Jo-Mei
Simogo
Lizardcube
Team17
Douza Dixiemes
Easy Trigger Games
The Bearded Ladies
Mechanical Head Studios
 
Scottoest

Scottoest

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Feb 4, 2020
11,319
mazi said:
i really don't think that's gonna happen. i don't see anyone taking on the task of managing ~60 studios and 5 different publishing arms. and they really don't have that many mega-popular IPs either.
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This is the part of it I don't get. Yeah there's a lot of cumulative value there, but it's mostly a big ball of unknown, tiny devs with no IP of any real value. Studios so small they don't even have their own Wikipedia pages.

I can't imagine any publisher or first-party is going to want to spend $10+ billion for all of that (not to mention the nightmare of integrating it), when there's very few valuable IPs across the lot, nor do I understand how you launch some sort of viable Game Pass-style or streaming service with it.
 
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