Embracer Group is a video game company which owns over 70 studios around the world. Things haven’t been looking good for its studios lately, as they have been suffering from layoffs and closures.
01.09.2023 - 22:07 / venturebeat.com / Lars Wingefors
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Embracer Group’s restructuring plan appears to have affected Gearbox Publishing. Following yesterday’s closure of development studio Volition, posts from Gearbox employees surfaced this week indicating that they were also laid off thanks to Embracer’s rebuilding efforts. Several employees report being laid off as far back as June.
Game Developer reported the LinkedIn posts, which include personal announcements of layoffs from as recently as early August. One former Gearbox employee, Allan Jacquemart, said, “Unfortunately, no one saw it coming, but my contract and those of my colleagues who started in June had to be terminated on the last day of our probation month (which also happened to be my birthday, yay). We were simply victims of the group’s restructuring.” Jacquemart was a French localization specialist at Gearbox’s Amsterdam location.
Embracer announced its restructuring plan in June, with CEO Lars Wingefors saying it was to “better optimize the use of our resources.” Among its other points, the plan included the points: “The closing of studios and termination of projects, that have not yet been announced and with low projected returns” and “Reduction of investments into external development with greater focus on internal development based on owned or controlled IP.”
Campfire Cabal, a studio that had not yet produced a game, was supposedly one of the first affected by the restructuring. As reported by IGN, former executive producer Bruno-Christian Belibou said on LinkedIn that Embracer laid off everyone at the studio in June. Earlier this year, Embracer allegedly lost a $2 billion partnership with Savvy Gaming Group. It’s unclear why the deal fell through.
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Embracer Group is a video game company which owns over 70 studios around the world. Things haven’t been looking good for its studios lately, as they have been suffering from layoffs and closures.
Less than 18 months after it acquired Baldur’s Gate: Enhanced Edition and Mythforce developers Beamdog, Embracer Group has reportedly laid off more than two dozen staff at the studio. Mere days after the release of its nostalgic co-op shooter, no less.
Canadian-based developer Beamdog has laid off 26 staff, former employees have reported.
Ascendant Studios, the developers of EA’s first-person-shooter-with-spells Immortals of Aveum, has laid off dozens of staff just weeks after the game’s release.
Just weeks following the launch of Immortals of Aveum, developer Ascendant Studios has laid off approximately 45% of its team, according to a report by Polygon’s Nicole Carpenter and testimony from some of the impacted employees. Ascendant CEO Bret Robbins explained the layoffs in a Twitter post as “a painfully difficult, but necessary decision that was not made lightly.”
Ascendant Studios has laid off nearly half of its staff less than a month after the launch ofImmortals of Aveum due to poor sales.
Ascendant Studios, the developer behind the EA published Immortals of Aveum, has laid off almost half of its staff.
California-based Ascendant Studios has laid off 45% of its employees.
Developer Ascendant Studios—which recently released Immortals of Aveum—has announced that it is laying off around 45 percent of its team. Studio CEO Bret Robbins made the announcement over social media platform X, calling it a difficult but necessary decision.
Just a few weeks after the release of its debut game Immortals of Aveum, a fantasy FPS that replaces guns with magical spells (that feel mostly like guns), Ascendant Studios has laid off nearly half its staff.
Rainbow Studios is apparently the latest studio in the firing line of Embracer's restructuring efforts.
Embracer Group is a large company that has its fingers in quite a few pies. In 2021, Gearbox Entertainment was acquired by Embracer for an eye-watering $1.3 billion. Despite the pricey purchase, it seems not all is well, and a report from Reuters claims that Embracer is considering its options with Gearbox.