Embracer Group Buys The Lord of the Rings, More Studios, And Industry Talent

As has been covered by the Game Mess Mornings, Embracer Group has made an aggressive push to acquire more development houses, IPs, and other talent in the video game industry. The most notable of these purchases includes the video game rights to The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit IPs. Other purchases include Singtrix, Tripwire Interactive, LLC, Tuxedo Labs, and Limited Run Games. This, along with the console manufacturers also snapping up independent studios has seriously narrowed the field of smaller non-AAA development houses.

Many thanks to @marino for updating the site's company wiki page for the Embracer Group as it now includes an annotated list of their 11 subsidiaries and all the studios within each subsidiary.

Nine development companies were given to the (Emb)race of men, who above all else desire power. And Garfield Kart.

This has probably been discussed numerous times but does anyone sense this going the path of early 2000s EA where they would purchase a bunch of studios and then one game later merge them into other studios or close the whole thing down? It just seems like so many names for someone effectively purchasing the current b-tier crowd.

@demigodraven: The major difference was the shift to HD gaming for EA at the time, with the rising cost of development they were spending a fortune.

Dead Space 2 for instance had budget of $60m for a game that previously sold only 1.4 million copies. EA was trying to turn their games into blockbuster titles by giving them a budget to match.

Embracer on the other has been running theirs studios pretty much as they were with modest budgets, just look at the new Saints Row. Embracer is also quite keen on re-releasing their back catalogue of games.

Tomb Raider is probably the only real AAA atm which is a legacy from Square Enix their next game will not look as good.

Correction, it's not just the video game rights.

"...motion pictures, video games, board games, merchandising, theme parks and stage productions relating to the iconic fantasy literary works The Lord of the Rings trilogy and The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien, as well as matching rights in other Middle-earth-related literary works authorized by the Tolkien Estate...".

What they're paying is currently undisclosed, but the value of the LOTR is estimated to be $2 billion.

For whatever it’s worth, the CEO of Saber Interactive is quite happy to have been embraced.

https://www.theringer.com/video-games/2022/8/19/23308468/video-games-acquisitions-mergers-microsoft-sony-tencent-embracer

As for this specific deal? Kinda wild that it’s happen just before the Amazon show debuts and just after the “Gullum” game got delayed. Somebody of course will always make money off Middle Earth but in practical terms it’s easy to wonder why sell right this minute.

oh wow, it's not just the game rights but the whole IP?

well that's a mouthful to swallow. 😅 2022 really is the year of a bunch of companies buying up lots of other companies.

@armoredmachine: People are saying it's the whole thing but i was hesitant to say that and just copied the statement from Embracer, it specifies "other Middle-earth-related literary works" which made me think maybe they don't get the original books, but they might as well cus they seem to own everything else.