Some potentially good (?) game industry news here, is that Embracer Group and Saber Interactive have split off with a purchase from Beacon Interactive, a company controlled by Saber Interactive co-founder Matthew Karch.
Announced in a press release today from Embracer in a $247 million USD deal it will see Saber Interactive go their own way taking the likes of Nimble Giant, 3D Realms, Slipgate, New World Interactive, Fractured Byte, DIGIC, Saber Interactive Inc., Sandbox Strategies and Mad Head Games with them.
Embracer will retain 34 Big Things, Shiver, 4A Games, Aspyr, Snapshot, Beamdog, Tuxedo Labs, Demiurge, Tripwire and Zen Studios. However, Saber Interactive do have the option to acquire 4A Games and Zen Studios "for a fixed price within a certain time period", but even if they do Embracer will continue to have the "Long-term license and publishing rights to all current and future PC/console games in the Metro franchise". According to Jason Schreier of Bloomberg, Saber confirmed in an email to staff they saw that Saber has already decided to take 4A Games and Zen Studios which actually brings the price to around $500 million USD.
On top of that Embracer said will also continue to retain various projects listed below, including two joint projects:
- The next AAA game from 4A Games.
- An unannounced concept phase AAA game.
- A previously announced AAA game based on a major license.
- A new AAA multiplayer shooter based on a controlled IP.
- A new AA game based on an Asmodee IP.
- A new AA game from 34 Big Things based on an owned IP.
- Killing Floor 3.
- Teardown (ongoing development).
- The full upcoming pipeline and back catalog from Zen Studios, Aspyr and Tripwire.
So… Is it good news? If anything, this shows that Embracer/PLAION is struggling to stay afloat and in desperate need for cash. Good.
Quoting: F.UltraThe selling of Saber have nothing to do with the financial status of Embracer or with their previous missed investments. This is simple done because Saber is Russian and the CEO of Embracer is also involved with renting out property to (among others) the Swedish Defense and they simply have let him know that he should either cut ties with Russia or with them, he can't have both. And it also looks like their business with Saber is infringing on the export embargo on Russia.[sarcasm]So, Nimble Giant, 3D Realms, Slipgate, New World Interactive, Fractured Byte, DIGIC, Sandbox Strategies and Mad Head Games are Russian too. Good to know.[/sarcasm]
If Embracer/PLAION could absolutely not have any dealings with anything "Russian" (yeah, sure, like such a thing as "Russian Game Studio" exists… ) then why now? Not, let's say, two years ago?
Last edited by Alm888 on 14 March 2024 at 7:26 pm UTC
Quoting: Alm888I despise Embracer Group and PLAION while not particularly caring for Saber Interactive or other studios mentioned in the news.
So… Is it good news? If anything, this shows that Embracer/PLAION is struggling to stay afloat and in desperate need for cash. Good.
Quoting: F.UltraThe selling of Saber have nothing to do with the financial status of Embracer or with their previous missed investments. This is simple done because Saber is Russian and the CEO of Embracer is also involved with renting out property to (among others) the Swedish Defense and they simply have let him know that he should either cut ties with Russia or with them, he can't have both. And it also looks like their business with Saber is infringing on the export embargo on Russia.[sarcasm]So, Nimble Giant, 3D Realms, Slipgate, New World Interactive, Fractured Byte, DIGIC, Sandbox Strategies and Mad Head Games are Russian too. Good to know.[/sarcasm]
If Embracer/PLAION could absolutely not have any dealings with anything "Russian" (yeah, sure, like such a thing as "Russian Game Studio" exists… ) then why now? Not, let's say, two years ago?
Yeah don't think it has anything to do with Russia either. Probably Embracer selling off studios that aren't profitable (and Saber hasn't been exactly profitable in the last little while).
In the article the CEO's name is Matthew Karch, which is not a Russian name
Russia does have game studios like 1C or Mundfish
Quoting: FremenQuoting: Alm888I despise Embracer Group and PLAION while not particularly caring for Saber Interactive or other studios mentioned in the news.
So… Is it good news? If anything, this shows that Embracer/PLAION is struggling to stay afloat and in desperate need for cash. Good.
Quoting: F.UltraThe selling of Saber have nothing to do with the financial status of Embracer or with their previous missed investments. This is simple done because Saber is Russian and the CEO of Embracer is also involved with renting out property to (among others) the Swedish Defense and they simply have let him know that he should either cut ties with Russia or with them, he can't have both. And it also looks like their business with Saber is infringing on the export embargo on Russia.[sarcasm]So, Nimble Giant, 3D Realms, Slipgate, New World Interactive, Fractured Byte, DIGIC, Sandbox Strategies and Mad Head Games are Russian too. Good to know.[/sarcasm]
If Embracer/PLAION could absolutely not have any dealings with anything "Russian" (yeah, sure, like such a thing as "Russian Game Studio" exists… ) then why now? Not, let's say, two years ago?
Yeah don't think it has anything to do with Russia either. Probably Embracer selling off studios that aren't profitable (and Saber hasn't been exactly profitable in the last little while).
In the article the CEO's name is Matthew Karch, which is not a Russian name
Russia does have game studios like 1C or Mundfish
Quoting: FremenQuoting: Alm888I despise Embracer Group and PLAION while not particularly caring for Saber Interactive or other studios mentioned in the news.
So… Is it good news? If anything, this shows that Embracer/PLAION is struggling to stay afloat and in desperate need for cash. Good.
Quoting: F.UltraThe selling of Saber have nothing to do with the financial status of Embracer or with their previous missed investments. This is simple done because Saber is Russian and the CEO of Embracer is also involved with renting out property to (among others) the Swedish Defense and they simply have let him know that he should either cut ties with Russia or with them, he can't have both. And it also looks like their business with Saber is infringing on the export embargo on Russia.[sarcasm]So, Nimble Giant, 3D Realms, Slipgate, New World Interactive, Fractured Byte, DIGIC, Sandbox Strategies and Mad Head Games are Russian too. Good to know.[/sarcasm]
If Embracer/PLAION could absolutely not have any dealings with anything "Russian" (yeah, sure, like such a thing as "Russian Game Studio" exists… ) then why now? Not, let's say, two years ago?
Yeah don't think it has anything to do with Russia either. Probably Embracer selling off studios that aren't profitable (and Saber hasn't been exactly profitable in the last little while).
In the article the CEO's name is Matthew Karch, which is not a Russian name
Russia does have game studios like 1C or Mundfish
Did you two even look at the text I quoted from the news article? Aka "Lars Wingefors is the real owner of the gaming group Embracer, which, according to the Kyiv School of Economics, is the Swedish company with the largest turnover in Russia"?
So let's look at the history of Saber:
QuoteSaber Interactive was founded in 2001 by Andrey Iones, Matthew Karch, and Anton Krupkin.[5][6] Together they created a 3D engine from scratch, gathered a team of artists from Saint Petersburg, Russia and began working on their first game
...
On August 1, 2016, Saber Interactive opened its first internal studio outside of Russia
Ok so was created in Russia and had a Russia only presence for 15 years. Still convinced that Saber have zero to do with Russia?
For crying out loud, it was national news over here when SVT exposed all of this.
7 sep 2023: Gaming billionaire Lars Wingefors is designated as a security risk - has business in both Russia and the Swedish defense industry
7 feb 2024: After SVT's reveal: Embracer wants to liquidate in Russia
14 mar 2024: After SVT's reveal: Embracer is leaving Russia
And press release from Embracer: Embracer Group ceases all operations in Russia through the divestment of selected assets from the operative group Saber Interactive
The last link in English, all others in Swedish.
Last edited by F.Ultra on 15 March 2024 at 12:08 am UTC
Quoting: ElamanOpiskelijaI just wanted to play games... why are you guys forcing me to think?What's forcing me to think is the blatant conflict between your avatar image and the distro icon next to your name.
(Just kidding. I'm pretty sure liking more than one distro is allowed.)
Quoting: tuubiHa, I use multiple distributions, generally I base it on 'what purpose do I want this computer for or which one supports the hardware best.' Ultimately that answer usually is 'Debian'. Occasionally, it's 'I want a specific thing that is maintained as a package in the distribution' so will choose Arch over Debian if it has it, or it's a more current version for a while.Quoting: ElamanOpiskelijaI just wanted to play games... why are you guys forcing me to think?What's forcing me to think is the blatant conflict between your avatar image and the distro icon next to your name.
(Just kidding. I'm pretty sure liking more than one distro is allowed.)
Quoting: tuubiQuoting: ElamanOpiskelijaI just wanted to play games... why are you guys forcing me to think?What's forcing me to think is the blatant conflict between your avatar image and the distro icon next to your name.
(Just kidding. I'm pretty sure liking more than one distro is allowed.)
Garuda for the desktop, and Mint for the really old laptop, which had rolling distros for many years but I don't feel like abusing that poor old Intel anymore.
Garuda, to be honest, starting to give issues after a few years, but it was a good run... almost 3 years with Garuda now.
Quoting: F.UltraQuoting: FremenQuoting: Alm888I despise Embracer Group and PLAION while not particularly caring for Saber Interactive or other studios mentioned in the news.
So… Is it good news? If anything, this shows that Embracer/PLAION is struggling to stay afloat and in desperate need for cash. Good.
Quoting: F.UltraThe selling of Saber have nothing to do with the financial status of Embracer or with their previous missed investments. This is simple done because Saber is Russian and the CEO of Embracer is also involved with renting out property to (among others) the Swedish Defense and they simply have let him know that he should either cut ties with Russia or with them, he can't have both. And it also looks like their business with Saber is infringing on the export embargo on Russia.[sarcasm]So, Nimble Giant, 3D Realms, Slipgate, New World Interactive, Fractured Byte, DIGIC, Sandbox Strategies and Mad Head Games are Russian too. Good to know.[/sarcasm]
If Embracer/PLAION could absolutely not have any dealings with anything "Russian" (yeah, sure, like such a thing as "Russian Game Studio" exists… ) then why now? Not, let's say, two years ago?
Yeah don't think it has anything to do with Russia either. Probably Embracer selling off studios that aren't profitable (and Saber hasn't been exactly profitable in the last little while).
In the article the CEO's name is Matthew Karch, which is not a Russian name
Russia does have game studios like 1C or Mundfish
Quoting: FremenQuoting: Alm888I despise Embracer Group and PLAION while not particularly caring for Saber Interactive or other studios mentioned in the news.
So… Is it good news? If anything, this shows that Embracer/PLAION is struggling to stay afloat and in desperate need for cash. Good.
Quoting: F.UltraThe selling of Saber have nothing to do with the financial status of Embracer or with their previous missed investments. This is simple done because Saber is Russian and the CEO of Embracer is also involved with renting out property to (among others) the Swedish Defense and they simply have let him know that he should either cut ties with Russia or with them, he can't have both. And it also looks like their business with Saber is infringing on the export embargo on Russia.[sarcasm]So, Nimble Giant, 3D Realms, Slipgate, New World Interactive, Fractured Byte, DIGIC, Sandbox Strategies and Mad Head Games are Russian too. Good to know.[/sarcasm]
If Embracer/PLAION could absolutely not have any dealings with anything "Russian" (yeah, sure, like such a thing as "Russian Game Studio" exists… ) then why now? Not, let's say, two years ago?
Yeah don't think it has anything to do with Russia either. Probably Embracer selling off studios that aren't profitable (and Saber hasn't been exactly profitable in the last little while).
In the article the CEO's name is Matthew Karch, which is not a Russian name
Russia does have game studios like 1C or Mundfish
Did you two even look at the text I quoted from the news article? Aka "Lars Wingefors is the real owner of the gaming group Embracer, which, according to the Kyiv School of Economics, is the Swedish company with the largest turnover in Russia"?
So let's look at the history of Saber:
QuoteSaber Interactive was founded in 2001 by Andrey Iones, Matthew Karch, and Anton Krupkin.[5][6] Together they created a 3D engine from scratch, gathered a team of artists from Saint Petersburg, Russia and began working on their first game
...
On August 1, 2016, Saber Interactive opened its first internal studio outside of Russia
Ok so was created in Russia and had a Russia only presence for 15 years. Still convinced that Saber have zero to do with Russia?
For crying out loud, it was national news over here when SVT exposed all of this.
7 sep 2023: Gaming billionaire Lars Wingefors is designated as a security risk - has business in both Russia and the Swedish defense industry
7 feb 2024: After SVT's reveal: Embracer wants to liquidate in Russia
14 mar 2024: After SVT's reveal: Embracer is leaving Russia
And press release from Embracer: Embracer Group ceases all operations in Russia through the divestment of selected assets from the operative group Saber Interactive
The last link in English, all others in Swedish.
We now quote the "Kiev School of Econoimcs" as a remotely reliable source?
Plus Sweden is notoriously Russophobic, just because a few people with Russian sounding names opened a company does not make it "Russian". Besides, Saber has been an international company for ages - I am highly skeptical of claims it remains "Russian". Especially considering Russia doesn't have a gaming industry.
So no, I wont buy this "We can't deal with pesky Russians" story.
Last edited by Alm888 on 18 March 2024 at 4:46 am UTC
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