• alyaza [they/she]@beehaw.orgOPM
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    1 year ago

    this seems soon-to-be the Embracer cut. this company fucking sucks man. hate this shit

    VGC reported earlier this month that Free Radical was at threat of being closed just two years after it was established, as part of huge company-wide cuts at Embracer and its owned publishers.

    Although Embracer has yet to publicly confirm Free Radical’s position, sources told VGC that Wingefors has now acknowledged in a company e-mail that the Nottingham, UK-based company could be closed on December 11, following the completion of a consultation process.

      • ampersandrew@kbin.social
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        1 year ago

        Borrowing money was cheap until it wasn’t. When they bought the old Eidos stuff, everyone thought Square Enix was taking crazy pills. Now, given that everyone’s cutting back right now, it looks more like they knew something Embracer didn’t.

        • Spitfire@pawb.social
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          1 year ago

          Wasn’t Embracer depending on a huge cash deal with the Saudis that fell through? Likely had an impact.

          • nromdotcom@beehaw.org
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            1 year ago

            I think regardless of that deal, they were already on the debt-go-round for long enough it would’ve caught up to them eventually. I can’t imagine this was gonna be “one last job then we go clean.” The market would continue to demand more and faster growth until they hit the wall one way or the other.

          • ampersandrew@kbin.social
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            1 year ago

            People were taken aback by how little they sold for. IO Interactive bought themselves back from Square Enix some time ago.

              • ampersandrew@kbin.social
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                1 year ago

                2017 is ancient history compared to the current economic climate, and that sale came out of an attempt to make games episodic to their detriment. $300M seemed low considering the buyer makes that money back with probably 1.5 Tomb Raider games, and Deus Ex and all of those other Eidos properties are a bonus. Yes, the deal seemed crazy for Square Enix at the time.

                  • ampersandrew@kbin.social
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                    1 year ago

                    They sold 9 million copies of Shadow of the Tomb Raider. I think I’m in the ballpark. And again, that’s only Tomb Raider, when they’re not blowing their money on a live service Avengers game that everyone knew was a bad idea.