Quoting: ArehandoroFrom the article It’s a myth that companies must put shareholders first [External Link]:

The notion that a corporation’s primary purpose is to look after its shareholders is widely believed and taught, but is in fact a myth with no basis in corporate law. The corporation is a separate legal entity. Because ownership of assets and liabilities are attributed to this entity, corporations are not “owned” by shareholders.

Instead, shareholders have limited legal rights, which do not include the right to directly control directors’ or managers’ behaviour. Indeed, shareholders have no special claim on a corporation’s economic returns. Their right to dividends is the same as a waiter’s right to tips: an expectation that is unlikely to be enforceable in court.

Quoting: F.UltraThere is no way that a public company can give the finger to investors. Remember that the investors, aka the share holders, are the actual owners of the company, the CEO and other execs are only running the company per the will of the shareholders

So, not quite true. Companies decide to allign with them.

That article is playing with words to convey a completely different picture than it really tells and your conclusion of it is incorrect. Yes a corporation is legally a separate entity from it's shares so the article is correct in that aspect, but the shares control all the assets so without the shareholders all you have is that legal entity of a corporation (aka you no longer have any of its products, none of its income, none of its cash, none of its assets). Basically all you have is a bunch of employees but no assets and no income.

As a shareholder you own shares, each share comes with votes (unless you happen to buy very special shares like the Alphabet ones that comes without votes which is mostly a US thing). At each shareholders meeting you use those votes to vote on various topics and with enough votes you can also put forward items to discuss and if you get enough other votes on that item then the company is obliged to comply. Most importantly however is that you vote on who constitutes the board, once the board is voted in they in turn decide on who they want to have as the CEO to carry out the boards directions as per the wished of the share holders that just voted them in.

So yes legally you the CEO can say screw the share holders and do whatever you like but at the next annual meeting you will be discharged with liability.

But this is not to say that the primary purpose of the company is to look after it's shareholders, see this is another notion where the article is correct but written in a way to convey a different context than what that sentence really means. The primary goals are written into the companies articles of association and is something that you as a potential investor have to look at before making an investment to make sure exactly what rights you might have or not have as a shareholder, however those articles can be changed by way of voting if you gather enough votes to make it a topic for the general meeting.

I sit on the board on some companies and are also a share holder in the very company that employs me and have exercised my rights as a share holder on occasion.

For Embracer in particular you can see the level of governance in this chart where you can see that all the power originates from the share holders:



They also clarify how the CEO is selected and what his or her responsibilitis are:

The CEO of Embracer Group is appointed by the Board of Directors to handle the Group’s day-to-day management and to lead the Group Executive Management Team, which also includes the Group CFO/Deputy CEO and the Chief of Staff, Legal & Governance.

And the role and powers of the board:

The Board of Directors is the highest decision-making body after the shareholders’ meeting and is ultimately responsible for Embracer Group’s organization, administration, long-term development and strategy. In accordance with the Swedish Companies Act this means that the Board is responsible for establishing targets and strategies, ensuring that procedures and systems are in place for the evaluation of set targets, continuously evaluating Embracer Group’s financial position and performance, and evaluating the executive management. The Board is also responsible for ensuring that the annual accounts and interim reports are prepared on time. The Board of Directors shall further ensure that the Company complies with applicable laws and regulations, Nasdaq Stockholm Rulebook for Issuers, the Swedish Corporate Governance Code, the Company’s articles of association and the rule of procedures for the Board.

The Board of Directors of the Company is responsible for Embracer Group’s organization and the management of its business worldwide and is obliged to follow directives provided by the shareholders meeting. The Board of Directors may appoint committees with specific areas of responsibility and furthermore authorize such committees to decide on specific matters in accordance with instructions established by the Board of Directors. Currently, the Board of Directors has established the Audit and Sustainability Committee and the Remuneration Committee.

In short your article is lying by omission and presents half truths using IMHO weasel words.

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Quoting: dziadulewiczDidn't know what this game was about. The first impression from those atmospheric pics was something story rich and no violence. Then, again the same thing also in this game: zombies. Just no. They ruin everything and are everywhere still on and on. WHY!?

Because if people don't get things to kill a game gets demoted to "walking simulator".

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Quoting: Arehandoro

Quoting: F.Ultra

Quoting: BalkanSpy"transform us from our current heavy-investment-mode to a highly cash-flow generative business this year"

Gotta love that corporate doublespeak. Which new gibberish will they invent next?

Not so sure exactly what it is here that you think sounds doublespeak? This just means that they have halted their expansion and will now concentrate on generating income instead.

They could have thought that the lack of funding, or not getting a deal, could happen and start being a highly cash-flow before that to prevent this. They could also give the middle finger to investors and say they won't be returning their money any time soon, and keep the studios and their workers. The high execs could also freeze their super high salaries for an X amount of time to palliate the problem.

But no, they directly prefer cutting costs to the expense of workers.

To me, the doublespeak is undermining the effect of these cuts on those affected, like if it was the most normal thing in the world, and the fact that they lost $2bn investment, by trying to positively say that it will allow them to be highly cash-flow generative.

There is no way that a public company can give the finger to investors. Remember that the investors, aka the share holders, are the actual owners of the company, the CEO and other execs are only running the company per the will of the shareholders.

Still don't get how any of that turns the quote into doublespeak. It's quite clear what they mean and it also exactly describes the situation and what they are going to do.

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From their recent Q4 report:

"In Q2 2022/23 we outlined our ambition to close a
number of partnership and licensing deals that would
be jointly transformative for Embracer. We have already
entered into multiple partnerships and licensing agree-
ments with industry partners on both AAA games and
movies based on some of our iconic IPs. Except for
the already announced deals that have more limited
short-term financial value, we have been working on
one groundbreaking strategic partnership agreement
that would have set a new benchmark for the gaming
industry.

Negotiations have been taking far longer than originally
anticipated considering we had a verbal commitment
already in October 2022. The specific deal included
more than USD 2 billion in contracted development
revenue over a period of six years. The deal would have
enabled a catch-up payment at closing for already capi-
talized costs for a range of large-budget games, but also
notably improved medium-to-long-term profit and cash
flow predictability for the duration of the game develop-
ment projects.

The transaction had many of the highest rated global
advisories onboard with several hundred people
engaged on both sides. All documentation was finalized
and ready to go as of yesterday. We asked for the exe-
cution of the agreement before our Q4 announcement.
However late last night we received a negative outcome
from the counterparty. This decision was unexpected to
the management and the Board of Directors of Embracer.
Capitalizing on our collective value through our partner-
ship approach remains a key priority for the Group. We
will continue to seek partnerships and collaborations
with third parties across all our segments, including
opportunities within transmedia. The demand for content
has never been greater, and Embracer is well-positioned
to meet that demand. We still have ongoing discussions
about additional partnership and licensing deals, but the
impact of potential deals is not included in the manage-
ment forecast for the current financial year. That said, our
ambition is still to increase the share of externally funded
game development.

We have a solid pipeline of ongoing development proj-
ects, but multiple projects will need more time to live up
to our high expectations of quality and to reach their full
commercial potential. There have recently been several
changes in expected release dates moving forward for
unannounced titles in FY 2023/24. Consequently, several
games with the potential to generate more than SEK
1 billion in net sales are now slated for FY 2024/25. Due
to these delays and without the significant, transformative
partnership deal, we expect to generate SEK 7 billion to
SEK 9 billion (previously SEK 10.3 billion to SEK 13.6 billion)
in Adjusted EBIT with improving cash conversion for FY
2023/24 and a healthy growth outlook in the following
years.
"

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Quoting: Eike

Quoting: dpanter'Huge hit' is a substantial understatement, more than 50% of their market value was destroyed in one fell swoop. Consequences arrive quickly when you're hurting.

I understand "partnership that has been negotiated for seven months will not materialize" as there hasn't been (much) actual money lost?

Perhaps not much money lost but the news that this huge deal had been cancelled made their stock drop AND they use not only cash but also their stock to buy new studios so when the stocks plummeted this means both that buying new studios will be more expensive (aka they have to pay double the number of stocks) AND it also means that they studios that they have already bought have seen the value of the stocks they got halve in value leading to sour grapes everywhere.

edit: the broken deal is also lost income of roughly USD 2bn so even if they didn't loose any money they lost a lot of projected income here.

Quoting: BalkanSpy"transform us from our current heavy-investment-mode to a highly cash-flow generative business this year"

Gotta love that corporate doublespeak. Which new gibberish will they invent next?

Not so sure exactly what it is here that you think sounds doublespeak? This just means that they have halted their expansion and will now concentrate on generating income instead.

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Quoting: ArdjeAnd you can't just go and ask the market for Linux developers as they are 10x more expensive.

I just have to ask about this one because that doesn't match my own experience (and we only employ Linux developers), perhaps this is a regional difference, but AFAIK the Windows devs tend to be more expensive since they all usually come with tons and tons of various certifications while the Linux devs are mostly self taught and mostly happy that they are allowed to work for a Linux company instead of slaving away at some Windows shop.

I tried to google around a bit and got very different values but for e.g the US the top Windows devs have an average salary of $166k while it was $150k for the Linux devs. And for the average Windows dev it was $130k vs $123k for the average Linux dev (all of which to me is fantasy numbers but then devs tend to earn a lot more in the US for some reason, or their numbers are before some taxes are drawn like they are here in Europe).

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Quoting: Cyril

Quoting: F.Ultra

Quoting: CyrilWith this behavior some have "don't care about native, just want to play games", I'm really surprised some people don't say the same thing about other software (non-gaming) too, or won't be surprised if that happen one day actually. Why making a big difference between software and games? Surely I don't want this...

Games by their very nature are closed source proprietary pieces of bad code that should have no interaction with the rest of the system so that is among the reasons why e.g I see games as being differently. Aka I would never ever use a closed source application on any of my systems, but for games that battle was over before it started.

About the close vs open source apps installed on your system I surely agree, but that was not the subject of what I said.
I was thinking about native apps vs just run all Windows apps through Wine for example.

Plus, no, I don't think games are closed source by nature, it's mostly an economic issue, it could be different.

Well it wasn't the subject as such but for me it kinda is. Let me explain. While you might not agree that games are closed source by their very nature they sure are to 99.9999% when it comes to the ones on Steam, so in order to be able to play games at all I already have to back down from my normal "open source only" mentality that I usually adhere to. And since open vs closed is way way way way way way way way way way way way way way way way more important to me than Windows vs Linux I now no longer really care if the game is Linux native or a Windows binary running under WINE/Proton (aka the bigger battle is lost here).

When it comes to applications though I simply refuse for many reasons (security being one, me also being able to fix/contribute which I do for hundreds of projects is another one) to even run closed source applications on my system, so there even the thought of running a Windows application is (to me) a foreign concept, aka WINE/Proton for Linux applications is not even on my radar.

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Quoting: CyrilWith this behavior some have "don't care about native, just want to play games", I'm really surprised some people don't say the same thing about other software (non-gaming) too, or won't be surprised if that happen one day actually. Why making a big difference between software and games? Surely I don't want this...

Games by their very nature are closed source proprietary pieces of bad code that should have no interaction with the rest of the system so that is among the reasons why e.g I see games as being differently. Aka I would never ever use a closed source application on any of my systems, but for games that battle was over before it started.

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Quoting: Purple Library Guy

Quoting: F.UltraSo until that changes (aka when we get enough market share) I'll rather take a well working game in Proton over a half-hearted native port that quickly gets abandonware.

I'm not sure if we have any actual statistics about that, so my anecdotes would be as good as anyone's. I would like to note that nearly all my Steam games are native and work fine. And I've only tried a few games with Proton or Wine, and have usually had trouble getting them to work, or just failed. Maybe there's something about my setup that doesn't work well with Proton, I dunno.
Mind you, it's true that my old Loki Alpha Centauri doesn't work, while I did recently get a Windows version that does run on Wine, although I have to do something weird every time.

Mad Max, no longer works, it just segfaults.

Life is Strange: Before the Storm, no longer works on a modern version of glibc but I have managed to manually patch it myself to get it to work.

AR-K: The Great Escape, I never managed to get the native version to work.

Borderlands 2, never got support for the new textures and multiplayer stopped working.

Conarium, the non-missable achievements never worked.

Dying Light for many years had lots of problems refusing to launch and at least for me have a game breaking bug in The Following DLC that makes progress impossible.

Steel Storm: Burning Retribution, no longer launches.

Lots of the Feral ports that had multiplayer never worked with players from other platforms.

Probably lots of more examples for people who have more games, this was what I found with a quick look at my inventory in Steam.

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Quoting: Lofty

Quoting: JowseyAt least it still works well with Proton, so nothing significant lost!

On the flip side we could look at it and say something is gained. Now that the steam deck is here and pretty much people are exclusively using proton to game on modern titles, the motivation to make their next game work on proton may be higher as it is not seen as a 'moving target' like Linux is often portrayed as by developers and it must be easier to test if their build works on proton.
Of course there is the issue with anti-cheat, but again given the success and popularity of the steam deck, hopefully they are now aware of this and make the adjustments necessary.

Quoting: DrMcCoy

but the ultimate reason is pretty much the same as always — Linux and Steam Deck together hold a less than 2% user share on Steam

Sorry, but no, that's wrong. The reason is this:

due to the Linux version being on an older version of the PAYDAY 2 engine

I.e. a terrible development environment, the developers being bad at their job.

That quote right there, that tells me that they kept the Linux codebase in a separate fork. That's bad praxis, that's objectively incompetent.

Forking the codebase to put in support for another platform is fundamentally wrong, and we see, time and time again, that this leads to the codebases growing apart with the developers not being able to keep up keeping them in sync, and then abandoning the other platform. 90% of the time were we had Linux support being wiped away was because of this very reason. Why aren't people learning? You don't do that.

Instead, you need to make portability a feature of your code outright, you need to make the same single codebase run on all the individual platforms. No forks, just one portable repository that can run everywhere. That's not new knowledge either, we've known that for decades!

While that is a terrible way to perform development it unfortunately is quite the norm. The studios do this with basically every single port, be it for the switch or ps5, which ultimately leads to them having several different versions of the same game instead of a single codebase where fixes for one platform means fixes for all. The reason of course is that it is initially much easier to do it this way, aka write your game for PS2 first then when it becomes popular send off the entire codebase to another company to port it to the Gamecube and once Gamecube is no longer a viable platform management can happily terminate that contract and the code is thrown in the can.

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