Embracer Group has today announced its intention to split into three separate companies - 'Asmodee Group', 'Coffee Stain & Friends' and 'Middle-earth Enterprises & Friends'. The three companies will handle different aspects of Embracer's operations, as explained in a new blog post from the huge gaming entity.
Asmodee Group will handle the company's tabletop games and partnerships, Coffee Stain & Friends will be in charge of Embracer's "A/AA premium and free-to-play games for PC/console and mobile", while Middle-earth Enterprises & Friends will take charge of the team's "powerhouse in AAA game development and publishing for PC and console" - with the latter also becoming "the stewards of The Lord of the Rings and Tomb Raider intellectual properties".
"Following a careful and thorough review, it is the assessment of the Board of Directors that the current Group structure does not create optimal conditions for future value creation both for Embracer Group’s shareholders and other stakeholders.
To continue the transformation of Embracer Group into the future for the benefit of all employees, gamers and shareholders, the Board of Directors and the executive management have therefore decided to propose a separation of Embracer Group, creating three separate publicly listed entities: Asmodee, “Coffee Stain & Friends” and “Middle-earth Enterprises & Friends”."
For now, this whole split is Embracer's "intention", and the group will seemingly have to go through regulatory approval before all of this can be confirmed. If this all goes through, you can expect to hear from these three companies in future, rather than Embracer Group as a whole.
Embracer has gone through lots of change recently, including multiple rounds of significant layoffs, so we're not surprised to see a shake-up at the top level. Hopefully, if this split happens, it allows the team's operations to become more digestible, and ultimately, result in less turmoil for developers involved in creating Embracer games.
What do you make of this proposal? Talk all about the future of Embracer Group down below.
[source embracer.com]
Comments 15
I think Microsoft should offer Middle Earth franchise in their entirety or at least one or two studios. Under Embracer I have doubts about their prolonged success. This separation may be beneficial for all parties concerns or likely they were already doomed to begin with.
They really shouldn't have bought all these studios and IP's when they didn't have the money to afford it. Many franchises will be dead for good now.
I won't be buying a single game from Embracer no matter how they try and change the name.
Embracer is a toxic company and should leave the gaming sector. Many people lost their jobs due to the greed of the management.
@Tonmoy from the looks of it, Embracer is willing to tear itself apart to keep hold of this property. I don't think they will let others touch it for free or easily license it out to others. My best guess is that they will release more LOTR games with minimal to medium investments to keep the margin the highest.
And Phil couldn’t scoop some cool ips before tencent grabs ?
How did I know there's be comments about MS buying up more and more of the industry?
I have so little faith in this.
Middle earth enterprises and friends is a catchy name. What's MEEF working on?
Who came up with the names?
I would love to see the business plan that preceded this whole snafu.
The Financials have to be fascinating, especially hinging so much on billion dollar Saudi investors, with no fail safe in place.
They tried to copy Tencent without an underlying mobile game safety net
Really bizarre
@Tonmoy don't think Microsoft have the budget to have more employees, didn't they just layoff a few recently? So there's probably no profit from acquiring studios from embracer.
This is the result you get after trying to make a billion dollar deal with a bigwig investment company and having it blow up in your face. It was such a bad decision for Embracer to purchase all those different companies and properties and then proceeding to layoff employees and shutting down the studios they worked at in a failed attempt to save face and keep money to themselves.
Even if it does seem like Microsoft goes on endless shopping sprees to purchase a ton of video game companies, at least they aren’t on the same level as Embracer; the company who wasted billions of dollars in an attempt to make more, took its failure out on the companies they own by making people lose their jobs as a result of greed, and is now going to split into three as a result of their failure in escaping their financial situation. It is a good thing I’m not interested in any of their games or products, cuz you know full well I’ll never be supporting them EVER for how badly they managed this situation and for laying off tons of people undeserving of it.
Also, I like how in that quote they add gamers and employees into “for the benefit of all employees, gamers and shareholders” in an attempt to make it seem like their splitting is positive and to quell any negative attention they’ve gotten over the months. “For the benefit of all shareholders” would be a more fitting statement for a company that reeks of corporate greed and is run by money-hungry people who absolutely don’t care about video games and only want to get richer.
EDIT: Well, my comment mentioning Microsoft did age poorly, didn’t it? They just announced today on May 7 that they are closing four studios they acquired via the Bethesda acquisition, and sent an internal email that seemed to have little empathy towards closing the studios and the people affected… Nevermind, both are equally terrible when it comes to acquiring new game studios and closing them shortly after.
This is a complete and utter disaster of greed… nothing more to say
Yeah, a new chapter; one in which that Timesplitters was just murdered in the previous one... 😡 😡
Those names are also terrible. Coffee stain? Embracer's management is a nasty 💩 stain on the entire gaming industry.
It's a strategy, will see how it goes. I don't expect it to be the best I think the uplifting/look at this hope for everyone tone is a bit much. We will see what actually happens over time. It could go either way.
Coffee Stain being well enough (and good personality enough like Larian Studios in the Satisfactory update videos). Not surprised people that barely know studios just go yep use their name in dumb ways.
The buying up AA IPs was a big gamble. That and the many other AAA studios for sure.
We will see what changes help or not when games release or whatever changes.
If their free to play and their card/board game sides do well sure. If A/AA and AAA do then hmm.
That CEO truly fractured the company in every sense of the word.
I’m not into how they grouped it or how they named the groups. But I’m not in charge and don’t work there and don’t know the full
Story either!
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