In aninterview with IGN,Saber InteractiveCEO, owner and founder Matthew Karch shared some of his thoughts onEmbracer Group, following the separation of the two companies.
Saber Interactive was acquired by Embracer in 2020 for $525 million. Last month,Saber was sold to Beacon Interactive, a company created by Karch, for an estimated $247 million.
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As Homegrown As You Can Find
Despite industry criticism of Embracer Group’s practice of mass acquisition and subsequent mass layoffs, Karch is sympathetic towards Embracer and the group’s CEO, Lars Wingefors. Karch is splitting from Embracer on “very good terms,” and suggests the market is overly harsh towards his ex-parent company.
“I was walking around GDC getting congratulated by people and having people telling me that Embracer is the evil empire,” Karch began. “Embracer is as small-town and homegrown of a large organisation as you’re ever going to see. It’s not a company which wants to spit out a thousand Lord of the Rings games regardless of whether or not those Lord of the Rings games are going to hurt the license. That’s not the way Embracer operates. It’s not the way Lars operates. He loves IP. He loves games….”
Embracer’s ownership of the Lord of the Rings IP has resulted in some notable sub-par releases, like the disastrousLord of the Rings: Gollumfrom Daedalic, and theunderwhelming Return to Moriafrom North Beach.
Karch claims the market “lost patience” with Embracer after economic shifts, resulting in layoffs. He says the layoffs at Embracer are no more or less widespread than industry-wide layoffs.
Embracer Group’s recently concluded ‘restructuring’ has resulted in over 1,300 job cuts and the cancellation of over 25 games.
Embracer Group’s restructuring included the sale of Gearbox Software to Take-Two Interactive for $460 million.
“You could state that a lot of jobs lost were jobs that wouldn’t have otherwise been created. Some of the studios we’re taking with us would never have been able to grow the way they’ve grown,” Karch explained. “We’ve created a lot of jobs, and they may have, especially in this market downturn, been out of business in any event because capital has just dried up, not just at Embracer, but everywhere.”
Karch concedes that Wingefors may have been naive in his belief that economic conditions would remain favourable, but urges the world to “give this guy [Wingefors] a break.”
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