The video game industry has seen a number of major acquisitions over the last year, and it seems Embracer Group is looking for new studios to purchase. The company currently owns developers such as Gearbox Software, Saber Interactive, Deep Silver, and THQ Nordic. In an interview with Financial Times, CEO Lars Wingefors stated that he plans to bring more studios under the company’s umbrella, specifically those that already have a strong success rate. Embracer wants to find companies that are well run and let them continue doing what they do best, with minimal oversight.
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“From a commercial standpoint, we don’t have central, commercialdecision-making,” Wingefors told the Financial Times. “Looking at other companies, they’vestruggled when they put too many layers of directors and management andstart controlling creators, that’s when they start falling apart.”
Wingefors’ comments come less than a month after Embracer completed its purchase of Dark Horse Media. Following the purchase, Dark Horse CEO Mike Richardson has remained with the company, which would seem to confirm Embracer’s approach. Dark Horse is Embracer’s 10th operating group, and was brought on to enhance the latter company’s transmedia capabilities. As Embracer brings on more development teams, Wingefors believes it puts less pressure on games needing to be big financial successes.
“If you can make one game, you have a big business risk but if you make200 games, like we do, the business risk is less,” said Wingefors.
The CEO obviously did not get into specifics about Embracer Group’s plans, but he did state that they are looking more into free-to-play games. Embracer is located in Sweden, but the company wants to continue to expand its footprint in several other countries, including the U.S., China, U.K., Poland, and France. It remains to be seen how things will play out for the company, but it certainly seems like Embracer is making big plans to expand!
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[H/T: Video Games Chronicle]
