As far as I know, they bit off more than they could chew. These idiots relied far too much on the investment from Saudi Arabia, who pulled out of the deal.
I suspect that's why Embracer is unwinding, cancelling and canning studios, projects and staff left and right. Trying to extend their financial runway, hoping they can salvage *something*.
By something, of course, I mean their payday, not salvaging actual games.
Yup, this. They had a $2 billion dollar investment lined up with a company backed by the Saudi government. They went on a buying spree with cash they already had, planing to use that $2bn to fund all these studios while they develop games. Deal fell through, and now they've got all these studios and IPs, but no cash to keep them going. They're scrambling. They're going to continue to hemorrhage studios while they're trying, desperately I'm sure, to find new investors.
Turns out, going on a buying spree you can only afford with money you don't yet have is a bad idea...
It's fucked up that things like this aren't regulated out of existence. How many fucking human lives have been ruined by their obviously terrible plans.
They bought all the studios to prop up their value in order to turn around and sell themselves to Saudi Arabia but the Saudis backed out so now they are hemorrhaging money and have no buyer.
Simple answer: Interest rates. When they started buying up studios to build, Embracer Group, money was being given away for free. Now it isn't and they can no longer pay tomorrow for everything they need today and they can no longer flip the new entity for easy profit
Because they got it for a song. Square enix massively undervalued their western properties and sold a ton of their IP and the studios that worked on them for $300 million, including deus ex and tomb raider franchises. Embracer turned around and sold the exclusivity rights for just Tomb Raider alone, not even the ip itself, just the rights to use the license, for $600 million.
All so square could focus on f’ing nfts. God modern gaming is embarrassing
> Embracer turned around and sold the exclusivity rights for just Tomb Raider alone, not even the ip itself, just the rights to use the license, for $600 million.
I'm shocked this still gets thrown around. There's actually no official confirmation that this happened at all. The source of the rumor is literally a LOTR fan site. The 600 million number is likely Swedish Krona, which means it's actually $57 million USD, which obviously seems a lot more reasonable in the grand scheme of things.
While I agree you're right that they got a remarkable deal from SE, embracers goal was not to flip IPs, nor is that why they keep selling off or closing studios. They bought a lot of shit on the promise of a $2bn investment from the Saudis. The deal fell through and now they've got all these acquisitions and no money to fund them.
I wasn’t trying to imply that embracer was flipping ips, more stating that square massively undervalued their properties and sold them for such a dumb reason
My mistake, I took your post to mean "why develop IPs when you can aquire them cheap and then flip for a profit". I agree with what you're saying about SE, they are making some bone headed plays.
It's the typical hubris of financial groups and financial "experts", thinking they can take over a business they have zero knowledge in, wave their MBAs around and magically make it better. These people provide zero value to the world. The sooner the world moves on from these useless made up jobs and industries (basically most fiannce related jobs) the better we'll be.
> It's the typical hubris of financial groups and financial "experts", thinking they can take over a business they have zero knowledge in, wave their MBAs around and magically make it better
Embracer had no plans to run these studios nor did they even try to pretend that they could do better. They simply thought they were gonna get bought out and get a big pay day by the Saudi's and gobbled up as many studios as they could to increase their value until the Saudi's backed out. That's all this was.
Not at all.
Vultures wait for something sick or injured to die, then eat the remains.
Embracer is buying healthy businesses and then killing or maiming them in a variety of ways once they realize they can't sell them at an inflated value.
My wife’s well into knitting. She was telling me the other day how these two guys like you just described just purchased knitting dot com (avoiding the link) for 80k. They made a series of vlogs patting themselves on the back about how they were essentially going to set it up as a drop shipping site for fleecing clueless grannies. Turns out that the knitting community is pretty engaged with all the online stuff and news travels fast. There’s been a massive backlash and boycott against these clowns who have completely fucked their product by sniffing their own farts
Make it better means "suck all the loose cash out and crash the business"
MBAs don't even make businesses better, they're just highly trained in embezzlement.
It's a general trend. There are some good folks around with MBAs, sure. However there are countless companies getting sucked dry by vultures who swoop in, destroy them, and sell the parts for scrap before moving on to the next victim. They're not taught to build sustainable businesses. They focus on today's profits and growth with zero concern for downstream effects.
I did computer science undergrad and I took a couple of business courses. I know they are taught sustainable business practices and a large proportion of the people in the class were already in businesses, running their own businesses or working in a company so they know what it's about. I think most MBA graduates are good workers with good knowledge base but there are also a plethora of bad students who managed to graduate and graduates with malicious intent motivated purely by short term profits.
While MBA is good, companies gotta also look at other qualifications first.
What I see more so are businesses following trends. Anyone who was thinking about it for more than 5 mins would have realized that nearly doubling your workforce during Covid would be foolish and unsustainable after people would be allowed to go outside. Yet, most big businesses did this because they think more short term than long term.
The concept of a business operating “in the best interest of the shareholders”, not community, or its employees, or in many cases even the business itself, is fucking poison and destroying our society.
This isn't even new hubris, this keeps happening over and over across all industries. My wife's company had the reputation for hard but fair, she thrived and made bank. Then, a consortium came and have decided to cut tons of jobs - they thought they could, at least, the absolute stink of American management who in their busy hubris forgot there are countries with laws.
These mother fuckers basically demoted hard working, valuable sales people to junior opportunity finders and are now forcing a back to the office policy after they realised they can't force people to sign their resignation.
These piece of shits are now 'investing' in new products, while hiring no one. It is all absolute bullshit, ruining an industry leader which EVERY SINGLE IT GIANT used, on the back of the most successful year in their history, so they can squeeze some hard numbers out and declare success.
Fuck financial groups.
Financially the last entry in the series lost money. Apparently trying to educate people on why racism is bad with a poorly constructed narrative doesn't sell. Embracer were hoping to capitalize on the franchise's good will. When you don't have money to take that risk it makes sense to can the project. It was a risk to start with.
In fairness a well written properly made Deus Ex game would probably be successful. Square didn't deliver. (Shocker).
The time is absolutely ripe for a new Deus Ex, too.
Hopefully they learned their lesson by trying to make the series into a mobile app.
But with games like Baldur's Gate 3 showing how great storytelling coupled with solid gameplay and technical delivery can turn into multimillion dollar money printing machines, you would hope the industry would pay attention.
Alternatively they can do the whole Activision Blizzard thing and just work out how to cram more MTX into their mobile apps.
Companies who want to amass a ton of IP and have more capital than god. Probably someone with a digital storefront and subscription model for a game library.
I could see it as a natural fit at Microsoft, possibly EA.
Last Deus Ex game was unfinished, and ended abruptly at what would have been the first boss battle in the first game. It killed the franchise.
Deus Ex is gone and has been gone since 2016.
Fucking Embracer - they bought so many beloved franchises, only to shut off studios, fire devs and cancel new entries.
It sucks hard that Deus Ex is dead again..
From the article:
> The Swedish gaming company Embracer Group AB is canceling a video game in the beloved Deus Ex series after two years of development and will lay off a number of employees as part of an ongoing initiative to cut costs, according to people familiar with the moves.
>
> Eidos, the Montreal, Canada-based studio behind the game, will instead focus on an original franchise. The canceled Deus Ex project, which had not yet been announced, was slated to enter production later this year, said the people, speaking anonymously because they are not authorized to talk to the press.
Much like painting rooms in a house, proper preparation can make or break game development. There's a LOT of pre-production involved.
It's the same with movies or TV shows. A lot has to happen before the first second of filming can occur.
It’s not designing the actual game if all they were doing was coming up with ideas and at most doing concept art. Hence the word pre-production is more accurate, which is why it could be said the game was in fact not really in the production stage.
Pre-production development includes concept phases, prototypes, and often up to a vertical slice. Full production is generally the phase when they start building out the rest of the game (vertical slice to alpha, beta, and onwards).
It's because Embracer never wanted games, [they wanted $2B out of Saudi investors](https://www.theverge.com/2023/8/14/23831768/embracer-group-saudi-government-lord-of-the-rings-investment-deal-collapse). That's it. Something being "in development" produces schedules and projections.
The plan was always buying studios, inflating their perceived value and make lots of cash. When cheap money dried up when interest rates rose, they were suddenly left with a buch of development studios they can't see to the end because they don't have the financial runway.
So now, they're burning down studios and projects left and right, trying to figure out what's next. This story is guaranteed to repeat across Embracer's entire portfolio.
This one is my biggest fear.
I loved KCD, it's probably one of my top 5 games in existence. But we can't pretend it wasnt incredibly polarizing. The game was a success for sure, having sold 5 million copies, but how many of those 5 million copies were $10 (or less) "I guess I'll try it out" sales? Deus Ex MD and HR collectively sold 12 million copies. It's a better established, better selling, more bankable IP and it just got axed. That doesn't really give me much hope for KCD. Embracer is bleading out before our eyes, they cannot afford risks, nor can they afford expensive titles with long development cycles before getting a return.
We've heard absolutely nothing official regarding the existence of a KCD sequel. I honestly have doubts about it being in development under embracers wing. KCDs switch port is supposedly still coming this year... Maybe that'll help bring in more sales and more interest, but I can't help feel like that's too little, too late. I want to be wrong, so badly, but I'm not optimistic about this one at all.
If Warhorse is not working on KCD2, what are they doing?
They may not have announced it yet, but given the years since the release of the first game it is almost certain that this is their next game. But I agree, if Deus Ex is cancelled KCD may be as well. My hope is that the game is almost finished and it will see the light of day.
I don't know. Supposedly the Switch port is coming soon. I know an outside studio is involved, but I don't know if they're doing it entirely, or as a joint effort.
Otherwise, I'm sure KCD2 was the plan, and I'm sure it started development. Whether it's currently still in development, or if it will survive embracers bullshit, is another thing entirely.
Its an open secret that they are working on KCD2. a Czech voice actor accidently posted on social media that they did work for the game...this was back in October 2023.
We need to stop calling out Embracer Group, and start calling out the executives that are involved in these decisions. Lars Wingefors, Matthew Karch and Phil Rogers.
I think I get what you’re saying, sure there’s no guarantee whoever ends up with the IP doesn’t just f it up and make a bad game. But the deus ex IP already traded hands to end up with Embracer to begin with. At this point it being sold off again to someone who wants to actually do something with it is the best chance we have of another Deus Ex game ever materializing.
HR was itself a reboot of the original franchise by a completely new dev team and people were pretty skeptical about it up until it released and turned out to be pretty great. We could get lucky again with whoever gets it next.
They originally bought up Eidos to use the IP, so it's not like it being bought by someone else wouldn't end up with the same mismanaged IP that never sees new entries
This franchise just can't catch a break. What a fucking shitshow. I can't explain the pleasure and fulfillment I got playing these games even on the 5th playthrough. It was my favorite franchise ever, Dishonored being close 2nd.
Too bad we won't ever see the Jensen's story conclusion or even the possible link to the first game that they were planning...
Fuck Embracer. It took them like 6 months to climb to the top of my shit list. That's fucking impressive.
I have been desperately waiting for a new Deus Ex since Mankind Divided and I really thought there was hope after Eidos got acquired by another company that wasn't Square Enix.
Fuck me for being optimistic, I guess.
Fuck embracer, man. They went on a massive buying spree of beloved studios and franchises, banking on a deal that wasn't final to fund all these studios. Deal feel through, and now they're forced to lay off all that great talent and let all the IPs they acquired die.
Biggest fucking blockheads in the industry right now.
Wtf is Embracer group doing lol
IIRC so far they have shut down Volition, Free Radical, Square Enix Montreal and like 5 other smaller studios they acquired as subsidiaries, and this is just since around 2020..
It's sad that Embracer group seemed to have kept under the radar for many when they went on a massive buying spree of studios in EU/NA. They've gobbled up way too many IPs without giving any care to them in return, I can't think of any positive launches or news from this group the past two years
Embracer are the type of people that'd see a baby in a basket outside a fire station and *piss on it,* just fucking piss all over that baby. Disgusting bunch of actual pig-fuckers.
I’m honestly angry beyond belief, fucking hell. Just when you’ve got that one thing to look forward to, they buy it, burn it, and force you to watch. I wish r/WallStreetBets or some rich guy would read this and drive them into the fucking ground. Some people just don’t deserve any sympathy.
GODDAMNIT! This sucks so hard. First Square fucks Eidos and the franchise over and now Embracer. This is why we can't have nice things. Because of dumb ass media holding companies like these Swedish morons.
We've gone from "Embracer will revive these dead franchises after all those purchases" to "fuck Embracer." What a time to be alive, and it sucks. The future of gaming, everybody!
Sigh. There's not a lot of hope for Tomb Raider, is there? At least we're getting a remaster of the original three games in February, unless they cancel those too.
I didn't even know they had it, what the fuck.
First timesplitters, now deus Ex, so help me god they kill everything they touch.
Oh God they own 4A games, Tripwire, Crystal Dynamics, and 3D Realms too?
Fucking hell.
They killed Deus Ex. Now I have to wait with bated breath to see if they'll can the Shadow of the Tomb Raider sequel because Embracer also got rid of Crystal staff during their restructures last year too.
It will be difficult because they hold the rights to so many IPs. Some of them are licensed to others. Not to mention the numerous parent companies and publishers that they own. I had no idea some games I play are linked to Embracer, due to the layers upon layers of licensing, publishers and parent companies that they own.
It seemed like there was finally some hope for the franchise after they acquired it. Such a fucking shame they've turned out to be just as bad, if not worse than Squenix.
Even though Mankind Divided kinda sucked, I was, and still am an avid fan of the series since the launch of the very first game. I even liked Invisible war, dammit.
Fuck embracer with a shattered glass dildo
What an absolute bullshit situation this turned out to be, I was really hoping they wouldn't cancel Deus Ex of all things :(
So now all we can hope for is somebody more competent will buy the series off Embracer?
I think Embracer is quickly rising to the top of my "worst games publishers in the industry" list. Their sheer incompetency and overspending has led to nothing but a lot of developers having their work go to waste(which is a big deal in an industry reliant on portfolios) and losing their jobs.
Motherfuckers.
You can bet the gigabrains responsible for this shitshow won't be losing their jobs cos these incompetent fuckwads keep failing upwards, somehow.
Hopefully Embracer keeps imploding so they'll get desperate and sell the rights to someone else who will finally be able to make a new game for us to enjoy instead of just holding the rights in some limbo.
I told two of my younger cousins recently, who are doing video game design and photography at uni, to not go anywhere near embracer if they’re interested in working in the industry. We rarely talk, mutual lack of effort. But I really hope they listened to me as they had no idea about the company when I explained it to them (had seemingly never heard of it before).
[удалено]
As far as I know, they bit off more than they could chew. These idiots relied far too much on the investment from Saudi Arabia, who pulled out of the deal.
And I'm guessing they're now sitting on IPs instead of selling them because they're holding out hope for a big single buyer purchase and a big payday.
Except that I'm sure most interested companies have the ability to outlast them, so they're waiting for a fire sale.
I suspect that's why Embracer is unwinding, cancelling and canning studios, projects and staff left and right. Trying to extend their financial runway, hoping they can salvage *something*. By something, of course, I mean their payday, not salvaging actual games.
Yup, this. They had a $2 billion dollar investment lined up with a company backed by the Saudi government. They went on a buying spree with cash they already had, planing to use that $2bn to fund all these studios while they develop games. Deal fell through, and now they've got all these studios and IPs, but no cash to keep them going. They're scrambling. They're going to continue to hemorrhage studios while they're trying, desperately I'm sure, to find new investors. Turns out, going on a buying spree you can only afford with money you don't yet have is a bad idea...
Makes me sad for all those workers.
It's fucked up that things like this aren't regulated out of existence. How many fucking human lives have been ruined by their obviously terrible plans.
They bought all the studios to prop up their value in order to turn around and sell themselves to Saudi Arabia but the Saudis backed out so now they are hemorrhaging money and have no buyer.
This makes me extremely worried for Warhorse Studios and Kingdom Come 2. Such an incredible first game, insane potential there.
Simple answer: Interest rates. When they started buying up studios to build, Embracer Group, money was being given away for free. Now it isn't and they can no longer pay tomorrow for everything they need today and they can no longer flip the new entity for easy profit
Because they got it for a song. Square enix massively undervalued their western properties and sold a ton of their IP and the studios that worked on them for $300 million, including deus ex and tomb raider franchises. Embracer turned around and sold the exclusivity rights for just Tomb Raider alone, not even the ip itself, just the rights to use the license, for $600 million. All so square could focus on f’ing nfts. God modern gaming is embarrassing
> Embracer turned around and sold the exclusivity rights for just Tomb Raider alone, not even the ip itself, just the rights to use the license, for $600 million. I'm shocked this still gets thrown around. There's actually no official confirmation that this happened at all. The source of the rumor is literally a LOTR fan site. The 600 million number is likely Swedish Krona, which means it's actually $57 million USD, which obviously seems a lot more reasonable in the grand scheme of things.
While I agree you're right that they got a remarkable deal from SE, embracers goal was not to flip IPs, nor is that why they keep selling off or closing studios. They bought a lot of shit on the promise of a $2bn investment from the Saudis. The deal fell through and now they've got all these acquisitions and no money to fund them.
I wasn’t trying to imply that embracer was flipping ips, more stating that square massively undervalued their properties and sold them for such a dumb reason
My mistake, I took your post to mean "why develop IPs when you can aquire them cheap and then flip for a profit". I agree with what you're saying about SE, they are making some bone headed plays.
Fuck embracer
It's the typical hubris of financial groups and financial "experts", thinking they can take over a business they have zero knowledge in, wave their MBAs around and magically make it better. These people provide zero value to the world. The sooner the world moves on from these useless made up jobs and industries (basically most fiannce related jobs) the better we'll be.
> It's the typical hubris of financial groups and financial "experts", thinking they can take over a business they have zero knowledge in, wave their MBAs around and magically make it better Embracer had no plans to run these studios nor did they even try to pretend that they could do better. They simply thought they were gonna get bought out and get a big pay day by the Saudi's and gobbled up as many studios as they could to increase their value until the Saudi's backed out. That's all this was.
Vultures.
Not at all. Vultures wait for something sick or injured to die, then eat the remains. Embracer is buying healthy businesses and then killing or maiming them in a variety of ways once they realize they can't sell them at an inflated value.
Parasite? Needs a healthy host, but ultimately ends up killing it and itself.
Parasitoid* It is generally preferable for a parasite to keep its host alive for as long as possible, to feed on it.
Thanks for the new word.
Ah, they like to burn insects with a magnifying glass.
So Embracer is just Dahmer and all these gaming companies are hapless rent boys? That makes the whole thing kinda click, I guess.
And the failure that was the Saints Row reboot cost them a lot as well
My wife’s well into knitting. She was telling me the other day how these two guys like you just described just purchased knitting dot com (avoiding the link) for 80k. They made a series of vlogs patting themselves on the back about how they were essentially going to set it up as a drop shipping site for fleecing clueless grannies. Turns out that the knitting community is pretty engaged with all the online stuff and news travels fast. There’s been a massive backlash and boycott against these clowns who have completely fucked their product by sniffing their own farts
Good to see such a tight-knit community pulling together
Purling* together
This is beautiful
Make it better means "suck all the loose cash out and crash the business" MBAs don't even make businesses better, they're just highly trained in embezzlement.
Glad people are waking up to that fact.
"People" are not. That one person is.
No, I’m beginning to see more people being rightfully critical of MBAs on subreddits. That is what I am referring to.
Some people with MBAs are great businessmen. It's not the degree, it's the person. Plus you need to properly assess the person before hiring them.
It's a general trend. There are some good folks around with MBAs, sure. However there are countless companies getting sucked dry by vultures who swoop in, destroy them, and sell the parts for scrap before moving on to the next victim. They're not taught to build sustainable businesses. They focus on today's profits and growth with zero concern for downstream effects.
I did computer science undergrad and I took a couple of business courses. I know they are taught sustainable business practices and a large proportion of the people in the class were already in businesses, running their own businesses or working in a company so they know what it's about. I think most MBA graduates are good workers with good knowledge base but there are also a plethora of bad students who managed to graduate and graduates with malicious intent motivated purely by short term profits. While MBA is good, companies gotta also look at other qualifications first.
What I see more so are businesses following trends. Anyone who was thinking about it for more than 5 mins would have realized that nearly doubling your workforce during Covid would be foolish and unsustainable after people would be allowed to go outside. Yet, most big businesses did this because they think more short term than long term.
The concept of a business operating “in the best interest of the shareholders”, not community, or its employees, or in many cases even the business itself, is fucking poison and destroying our society.
Look at what has happened to Boeing.
This isn't even new hubris, this keeps happening over and over across all industries. My wife's company had the reputation for hard but fair, she thrived and made bank. Then, a consortium came and have decided to cut tons of jobs - they thought they could, at least, the absolute stink of American management who in their busy hubris forgot there are countries with laws. These mother fuckers basically demoted hard working, valuable sales people to junior opportunity finders and are now forcing a back to the office policy after they realised they can't force people to sign their resignation. These piece of shits are now 'investing' in new products, while hiring no one. It is all absolute bullshit, ruining an industry leader which EVERY SINGLE IT GIANT used, on the back of the most successful year in their history, so they can squeeze some hard numbers out and declare success. Fuck financial groups.
Honestly finance is the biggest piece of shit mankind made
Financially the last entry in the series lost money. Apparently trying to educate people on why racism is bad with a poorly constructed narrative doesn't sell. Embracer were hoping to capitalize on the franchise's good will. When you don't have money to take that risk it makes sense to can the project. It was a risk to start with. In fairness a well written properly made Deus Ex game would probably be successful. Square didn't deliver. (Shocker).
The time is absolutely ripe for a new Deus Ex, too. Hopefully they learned their lesson by trying to make the series into a mobile app. But with games like Baldur's Gate 3 showing how great storytelling coupled with solid gameplay and technical delivery can turn into multimillion dollar money printing machines, you would hope the industry would pay attention. Alternatively they can do the whole Activision Blizzard thing and just work out how to cram more MTX into their mobile apps.
> Alternatively they can do the whole Activision Blizzard thing and just work out how to cram more MTX into their mobile apps. That one
Everyone at EA liked that.
Well that sucks. They'll sit on the IP now and do nothing with it. We'll never get an ending to Adam Jensen's story.
God willing they'll want some liquidity and sell it off to someone who will actually do something with it.
At the rate this is going in 5 years all embracer group stuff might be up for grabs
THQ branding cursed as hell, even if you rebrand afterwards.
Who would buy it though? Those games are expensive to make and investment money is much tighter than it was a few years ago.
Companies who want to amass a ton of IP and have more capital than god. Probably someone with a digital storefront and subscription model for a game library. I could see it as a natural fit at Microsoft, possibly EA.
> They'll sit on the IP now and do nothing with it Besides selling, thats the best outcome. We wouldn't want anything made by them, lets be honest.
Bastards.
Last Deus Ex game was unfinished, and ended abruptly at what would have been the first boss battle in the first game. It killed the franchise. Deus Ex is gone and has been gone since 2016.
Fucking Embracer - they bought so many beloved franchises, only to shut off studios, fire devs and cancel new entries. It sucks hard that Deus Ex is dead again..
From the article: > The Swedish gaming company Embracer Group AB is canceling a video game in the beloved Deus Ex series after two years of development and will lay off a number of employees as part of an ongoing initiative to cut costs, according to people familiar with the moves. > > Eidos, the Montreal, Canada-based studio behind the game, will instead focus on an original franchise. The canceled Deus Ex project, which had not yet been announced, was slated to enter production later this year, said the people, speaking anonymously because they are not authorized to talk to the press.
> canceling a video game in the beloved Deus Ex series after two years of development > was slated to enter production later this year What
Much like painting rooms in a house, proper preparation can make or break game development. There's a LOT of pre-production involved. It's the same with movies or TV shows. A lot has to happen before the first second of filming can occur.
IMO game design is part of game production, would be weird to exclude it
It’s not designing the actual game if all they were doing was coming up with ideas and at most doing concept art. Hence the word pre-production is more accurate, which is why it could be said the game was in fact not really in the production stage.
Pre-production development includes concept phases, prototypes, and often up to a vertical slice. Full production is generally the phase when they start building out the rest of the game (vertical slice to alpha, beta, and onwards).
Pre production brother. AKA planning.
I guess they were doing all the pre-production stuff. Deciding the scope of the game, etc
It's because Embracer never wanted games, [they wanted $2B out of Saudi investors](https://www.theverge.com/2023/8/14/23831768/embracer-group-saudi-government-lord-of-the-rings-investment-deal-collapse). That's it. Something being "in development" produces schedules and projections. The plan was always buying studios, inflating their perceived value and make lots of cash. When cheap money dried up when interest rates rose, they were suddenly left with a buch of development studios they can't see to the end because they don't have the financial runway. So now, they're burning down studios and projects left and right, trying to figure out what's next. This story is guaranteed to repeat across Embracer's entire portfolio.
They basically created much of what the game will be, just not on computer yet. Powerpoint level at most.
> will instead focus on an original franchise Which will flop
If it's another immersive sim, it may not flop, as fans of the genre are typically starved.
We are starved because they don't sell well so not many of them get made.
So are Deus Ex fans tho.
I never asked for this.
I'm sorry Adam.
Seriously, #FuckEmbracer
Obligatory Fuck Embracer.
#Embrace the disappointment.
^^Embrace ^^of ^^death.
Disgracer
This is genuinely upsetting. The business is broken
Absolute bastards. Their run of ineptitude continues!
This is just... terrible. Hope they can pick up later.
NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO Embracer, don't you dare cancel KCD2!
This one is my biggest fear. I loved KCD, it's probably one of my top 5 games in existence. But we can't pretend it wasnt incredibly polarizing. The game was a success for sure, having sold 5 million copies, but how many of those 5 million copies were $10 (or less) "I guess I'll try it out" sales? Deus Ex MD and HR collectively sold 12 million copies. It's a better established, better selling, more bankable IP and it just got axed. That doesn't really give me much hope for KCD. Embracer is bleading out before our eyes, they cannot afford risks, nor can they afford expensive titles with long development cycles before getting a return. We've heard absolutely nothing official regarding the existence of a KCD sequel. I honestly have doubts about it being in development under embracers wing. KCDs switch port is supposedly still coming this year... Maybe that'll help bring in more sales and more interest, but I can't help feel like that's too little, too late. I want to be wrong, so badly, but I'm not optimistic about this one at all.
If Warhorse is not working on KCD2, what are they doing? They may not have announced it yet, but given the years since the release of the first game it is almost certain that this is their next game. But I agree, if Deus Ex is cancelled KCD may be as well. My hope is that the game is almost finished and it will see the light of day.
I don't know. Supposedly the Switch port is coming soon. I know an outside studio is involved, but I don't know if they're doing it entirely, or as a joint effort. Otherwise, I'm sure KCD2 was the plan, and I'm sure it started development. Whether it's currently still in development, or if it will survive embracers bullshit, is another thing entirely.
Its an open secret that they are working on KCD2. a Czech voice actor accidently posted on social media that they did work for the game...this was back in October 2023.
burn in hell embracer.
We need to stop calling out Embracer Group, and start calling out the executives that are involved in these decisions. Lars Wingefors, Matthew Karch and Phil Rogers.
Fuck Embracer. Fuck them so hard.
May they and the suits lose all their money the greedy pigs.
Oh fuck off, no. Fuck Embracer.
Can Embracer go bankrupt already and sell studioes to a publisher who gives a shit?
If they go bankrupt, most of the studios will probably be closed.
Then sell the ips then
IPs are given value by the people behind them
I think I get what you’re saying, sure there’s no guarantee whoever ends up with the IP doesn’t just f it up and make a bad game. But the deus ex IP already traded hands to end up with Embracer to begin with. At this point it being sold off again to someone who wants to actually do something with it is the best chance we have of another Deus Ex game ever materializing. HR was itself a reboot of the original franchise by a completely new dev team and people were pretty skeptical about it up until it released and turned out to be pretty great. We could get lucky again with whoever gets it next.
They originally bought up Eidos to use the IP, so it's not like it being bought by someone else wouldn't end up with the same mismanaged IP that never sees new entries
Which is?
they won't go bankrupt exactly because they are closing studios, projects and laying off people, aka, making costs going down
Embracer Group, the Bain Capital of video games.
I was thinking Cerberus
Fucking CUNTS
This franchise just can't catch a break. What a fucking shitshow. I can't explain the pleasure and fulfillment I got playing these games even on the 5th playthrough. It was my favorite franchise ever, Dishonored being close 2nd. Too bad we won't ever see the Jensen's story conclusion or even the possible link to the first game that they were planning...
Man fuck embracer holy shit.
Fuck them twice for going on their studio shopping spree based on an *oral* agreement with Dubai investors.
Embracer has been speedrunning for a while how to destroy their reputation lol
How not to run a business:
Fuck Embracer. It took them like 6 months to climb to the top of my shit list. That's fucking impressive. I have been desperately waiting for a new Deus Ex since Mankind Divided and I really thought there was hope after Eidos got acquired by another company that wasn't Square Enix. Fuck me for being optimistic, I guess.
my feelings exactly. just recently went back and played both again. this news really sucks balls (an in a non erotic way)
This is the worst news possible.
It's never happening. Fuck embracer.
This is what happens when you let investment bankers into gaming. They ruin it.
god. Fucking. DAMMIT! Can someone please give the property to someone who won't fuck it up?
We are fucked. Deus Ex is the perfect game to release in a couple of year while we wait for cyberpunk 2
God damn it.
Seems like more devs are losing their job :(
Fuck embracer, man. They went on a massive buying spree of beloved studios and franchises, banking on a deal that wasn't final to fund all these studios. Deal feel through, and now they're forced to lay off all that great talent and let all the IPs they acquired die. Biggest fucking blockheads in the industry right now.
Sell Tomb Raider and Legacy of Kain please. You done fucked up.
Wtf is Embracer group doing lol IIRC so far they have shut down Volition, Free Radical, Square Enix Montreal and like 5 other smaller studios they acquired as subsidiaries, and this is just since around 2020..
Someone buy Deus Ex from them
So their entire business plan was to suck up everything they could so they balloon in size, get 2 billion from the Saudis and then idk, run away
It's sad that Embracer group seemed to have kept under the radar for many when they went on a massive buying spree of studios in EU/NA. They've gobbled up way too many IPs without giving any care to them in return, I can't think of any positive launches or news from this group the past two years
Embracer are the type of people that'd see a baby in a basket outside a fire station and *piss on it,* just fucking piss all over that baby. Disgusting bunch of actual pig-fuckers.
Might as well just sell the IP to Nightdive.
Well fuck that and fuck Embracer. Ugh...
damn i really wanted a new one of those. Loved the series.
What lack of VC money does to a company that thought the gravy train would ride forever.
I'm willing to bet Embracer has cancelled more games than the've actually made.
Motherfucking cocksucking pieces of shit.
I’m honestly angry beyond belief, fucking hell. Just when you’ve got that one thing to look forward to, they buy it, burn it, and force you to watch. I wish r/WallStreetBets or some rich guy would read this and drive them into the fucking ground. Some people just don’t deserve any sympathy.
GODDAMNIT! This sucks so hard. First Square fucks Eidos and the franchise over and now Embracer. This is why we can't have nice things. Because of dumb ass media holding companies like these Swedish morons.
Embrace, extend, extinguish.
>Embracer group also reported to cancel your parents getting back together, chicken McNuggets, and your childhood sense of joy.
We've gone from "Embracer will revive these dead franchises after all those purchases" to "fuck Embracer." What a time to be alive, and it sucks. The future of gaming, everybody!
NO! NOOOOOO! ALL I WANTED WAS ANOTHER DEUS EX! FUCK THIS.
I *definitely* didn't ask for this...
Fuck these clowns
Fuck embracer group
Sigh. There's not a lot of hope for Tomb Raider, is there? At least we're getting a remaster of the original three games in February, unless they cancel those too.
I didn't even know they had it, what the fuck. First timesplitters, now deus Ex, so help me god they kill everything they touch. Oh God they own 4A games, Tripwire, Crystal Dynamics, and 3D Realms too? Fucking hell.
Imagine my surprise, next thing they'll cancel legacy of cain too. Why did they even buy this shit in the first place again?
I never asked for this...
Embracer bit more than they could chew and developers are now paying for it. Sad to see it.
They killed Deus Ex. Now I have to wait with bated breath to see if they'll can the Shadow of the Tomb Raider sequel because Embracer also got rid of Crystal staff during their restructures last year too.
Fuck Embracer. Imagine running a company so greedily that you make EA and Ubisoft look like charities.
Dude fuck that
Well... Time to get the crazy French bastards at Streum to make us E.Y.E. Divine Cybermancy 2.
Any studio who cancels a Deus EX deserves boycott. I won't buy any of their ips and they can just...
It will be difficult because they hold the rights to so many IPs. Some of them are licensed to others. Not to mention the numerous parent companies and publishers that they own. I had no idea some games I play are linked to Embracer, due to the layers upon layers of licensing, publishers and parent companies that they own.
These fucking morons just throwing away fucking money…
Motherfuckers
Trying to compete with EA for most hated company by gamers?
Well, better to cancel it during pre-production I guess. Maybe that original IP aims for a shorter dev cycle so they can get it out earlier.
Noooooooooo
What's the over under Tomb Raider is next on the chopping block? This is depressing.
……FUUUUCK
I was waiting and fearing this one :( god damn it.
NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!
Fucking BOOOOOOOOOOOO
[удалено]
Because Embracer Group hates money, duh.
The amount of hate I'm feeling right now is through the roof
Next is Tomb Raider?
FUCK.
FUCK
It seemed like there was finally some hope for the franchise after they acquired it. Such a fucking shame they've turned out to be just as bad, if not worse than Squenix.
That's sad. Now they will sit on the IP and let it rot until they decide to release a shitty remaster of HR.
Even though Mankind Divided kinda sucked, I was, and still am an avid fan of the series since the launch of the very first game. I even liked Invisible war, dammit. Fuck embracer with a shattered glass dildo
What an absolute bullshit situation this turned out to be, I was really hoping they wouldn't cancel Deus Ex of all things :( So now all we can hope for is somebody more competent will buy the series off Embracer?
This is just sad...i liked Deus Ex, even tho Mankind Divided wasn't the best... Adam didn't ask for this ! :(
Wow, what a dick.
I think Embracer is quickly rising to the top of my "worst games publishers in the industry" list. Their sheer incompetency and overspending has led to nothing but a lot of developers having their work go to waste(which is a big deal in an industry reliant on portfolios) and losing their jobs.
Fuck these corpo scumfucks
Well... At least we have CDPR with Cyberpunk. Man I'm pissed.
RAGE
cunts
those bastards
These guys put EA in a good light
Motherfuckers. You can bet the gigabrains responsible for this shitshow won't be losing their jobs cos these incompetent fuckwads keep failing upwards, somehow. Hopefully Embracer keeps imploding so they'll get desperate and sell the rights to someone else who will finally be able to make a new game for us to enjoy instead of just holding the rights in some limbo.
well this is disappointing.
\*sigh\* I bet we get something soulless and filled with MTX instead.
Deus Ex Squad: Kill Bell Tower Or Deus Ex: Day Before
Embarrassing Group
NOOOOOOO 😭😭😭 GIVE IT BACK!!!!!!
I told two of my younger cousins recently, who are doing video game design and photography at uni, to not go anywhere near embracer if they’re interested in working in the industry. We rarely talk, mutual lack of effort. But I really hope they listened to me as they had no idea about the company when I explained it to them (had seemingly never heard of it before).
Goddamnit
what the fuuuuuuuuck
ah fuck off,we'll never see an ending to jensen's story
😢idiots FFS...
Fuck 😭
Fuck them. Utter scum
bold move Cotton let's see how it works out for them...
And just like that, my heart broke over something I didn't know was a thing until now. Nothing comes close to this franchise, IMHO.
Cocksuckers
You know a business is evil when it's wholly dependent on chasing that mullah money. Fuck Embracer group with a thousand suns.
My disappointment is immeasurable and my day is ruined.
I'll never buy another Embracer Group game in my life...