After the Closure of 7 Studios and Cancellation of 29 Games, CEO Admits to Deserving Criticism for Hundreds of Layoffs

Painful period

The video game industry is experiencing a painful crisis for over a year now which can be counted in thousands of layoffs: very recently, for example, we learned of the closure of the French office in Bethesda, part of the restructuring of Microsoft which separated, in total, 1900 people within its video games division.

The other pet peeve of this episode is called Embracer Group, a Swedish giant which, after a 2 billion dollar deal with the Saudi company Savvy Games Group which did not come to fruition, had to completely review its plans in order not to the key under the door. A reversal of policy which materialized by the closure of seven studios, the forced departure of more than 1,400 people, 29 games canceled… without forgetting the express resale of companies that have recently been acquired, such as Gearbox.

Soon it's time to raise your head?

Today, Embracer Group seems to want to get back on its feet for good and to do this, the company announced the creation of three entities:

• Coffee Stain & Friendsa publisher and developer of AA and independent video games;
• Middle-earth Enterprises & Friendsa publisher and developer of AAA video games;
• Asmodeewhich will take care of card, board and board games as well as the video games associated with them.

A new start, therefore, to set things right once and for all. Lars Wingefors, CEO of Embracer Group, recently spoke with GamesIndsutry: he thus returned to this particularly troubled and dramatic period for video games… for which he seems to take personal responsibility.

As a leader and owner, sometimes you have to take responsibility and you have to recognize if you made mistakes and if you could have done things differently.

I'm sure I deserve a lot of criticism, but I don't think my team or my companies all deserve criticism. I could take on a lot of it myself. But at the end of the day, I have to believe in the mission that we set for ourselves and that still stands, and we are now enabling that by creating this new structure.

Is Embracer Group out of trouble yet? Not yet, no. But it's on the right track according to Wingefors, who has also maintained good links with his various entities according to his statements.

I still feel that I have the trust of most or all of my key entrepreneurs and CEOs who have joined. It was difficult, but I think they all believed in Embracer's mission. They also understand that the world has changed, that we must change. It's painful.

We can't make all the games we wanted to make three years ago, but we have to adapt to them. We will continue to make games, we still have one of the largest, if not the largest, games pipeline in the industry. And we have big plans for the years or decades to come.

Remember that Embracer must, among other things, develop the new Tomb Raider through Crystal Dynamics: a chance that Eidos Montreal did not have, which saw its new Deus Ex canceled altogether after several years of design.

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