Embracer Group
Embracer Group AB is a Swedish video game and media holding company based in Karlstad. The company comprises six operative groups: CDE Entertainment, Dark Horse Media, Deca Games, Freemode, Plaion and THQ Nordic.
Embracer Group was established as Nordic Games Licensing within Nordic Games Group in 2011. The latter had previously purchased assets from the bankrupt publisher JoWooD and established Nordic Games GmbH to manage them. Nordic Games Licensing continued to purchase intellectual property from defunct publishers, notably several THQ products in 2013, followed by the "THQ" trademark in 2014. In August 2016, Nordic Games Licensing and Nordic Games GmbH changed their names to THQ Nordic. The parent company became a public company in 2016 and changed its name to Embracer Group in 2019. Until 2023, Embracer Group rapidly grew through major acquisitions and investments. After a investment unexpectedly fell through, the company was more than in debt and began closing and selling multiple studios and while laying off people at others.
On 22 April 2024, Embracer Group announced its intention to transform into three standalone publicly listed entities on Nasdaq Stockholm within the next two years: a board game segment under the Asmodee group, an indie games segment under Coffee Stain Group, and a segment to manage its library of licensed intellectual properties including that of Tolkien's Middle-earth under Fellowship Entertainment, all three entities will be under the new holding company Embracer AB.
History
The original Nordic Games as video game retailer (1990s–2004)
The Swedish entrepreneur Lars Wingefors started several sales businesses during his teenage years, including the second-hand comic book seller LW Comics at age 13, which made close to annually. At age 16, Wingefors founded Nordic Games to sell used video games by mail order; which generated in revenue in this first year. With growing income post 1994, Nordic Games was turned into a retail chain and opened seven locations across Sweden. In 1998, the company acquired Spel- & Tele shopen, a store in Linköping that Pelle Lundborg had opened at age 16 in 1994.Towards the end of the 1990s, Nordic Games was suffering from a poor corporate structure. Although Wingefors was asked to either seek new partners or bring in venture capital, he opted to sell the company to Gameplay Stockholm, the Swedish subsidiary of Europe-wide retailer Gameplay.com. In March 2000 for stock valued at, with Wingefors becoming part of the European management. Under Gameplay.com, Nordic Games failed to generate much revenue. It tried to establish mobile game, digital distribution and cable TV box businesses, all of which did not gain traction. When the dot-com bubble burst, Gameplay.com faced financial issues, and Nordic Games was sold back to Wingefors in May 2001 for a symbolic sum of. Wingefors brought in venture capitalists and reformed the company to only sell newly released games, but the company faced strong competition and finally filed for bankruptcy in 2004.
The new Nordic Games as video game publisher (2004–2011)
Wingefors invested the money he had left into a new limited company and, together with potential customers acting as investors, reformed Nordic Games under the name Game Outlet Europe. The new company saw success with purchasing unsold inventory from larger video game companies, repackaging them on pallets in its Karlstad headquarters, and selling them on the international market and through other retail chains, including Jula, Coop, and ICA. In December 2008, Nordic Games Publishing was established as the video game publishing subsidiary of Game Outlet Europe. The subsidiary started out with seven people, including primary shareholder Wingefors, based in Karlstad, and chief executive officer Lundborg, who had since moved to Málaga with his wife. Nik Blower in London was added to the management team in February 2010.The idea behind Nordic Games Publishing was to invest in the development of games that would fill gaps in the video game market. Wingefors and Lundborg had noticed that the line-up of games for Nintendo platforms was lacking karaoke games similar to SingStar, which was exclusive to PlayStation consoles. Based on 100-page requirement documents from Nintendo, which included that the game's microphones should be produced by Logitech, and four months of research at a karaoke bar in Watford, England, Nordic Games Publishing assembled a song list for a prospective game and started producing what would later become We Sing. Around this time, Nordic Games Publishing also released Dance Party Club Hits, a dance game that came bundled with a dancing mat. In 2009, Nordic Games Publishing had a turnover of, of which 75% were accounted for by sales of We Sing. For 2010, the company projected a turnover of, while at the same time, Lundborg was looking for new investors to make the company independent of Game Outlet Europe. By March 2011, Nordic Games Holding had been established as a holding company, with Game Outlet Europe and Nordic Games Publishing aligned as its subsidiaries.
Nordic Games as holding for acquisitions and expansion (2011–2018)
In June 2011, Nordic Games Holding acquired the assets of the insolvent publisher JoWooD and its subsidiaries. The acquired assets were transferred to Nordic Games GmbH, a newly established subsidiary office in Vienna, Austria. Several former JoWooD employees were hired by Nordic Games GmbH to work on the backlog sales of former JoWooD properties, and Nordic Games Publishing was integrated into Nordic Games GmbH to facilitate publishing operations. Nordic Games Licensing AB, also established in 2011, became the holding company within Nordic Games Holding, as well as the parent company of Nordic Games GmbH. Nordic Games acquired the Scandinavian business of retailer Game in May 2012. In April 2013, Nordic Games Licensing bought several assets of the bankrupt publisher THQ to be managed by Nordic Games GmbH. It obtained the "THQ" trademark in June 2014, intending to use the name as a publishing label for its THQ properties. Subsequently, in August 2016, the company changed its name to THQ Nordic, while Nordic Games GmbH became THQ Nordic GmbH. According to Wingefors and THQ Nordic GmbH's Reinhard Pollice, the name change was undergone to capitalise on the good reputation of THQ's past, although they avoided naming the companies just "THQ" to avoid connections to the bankrupt publisher's more recent troubled history.THQ Nordic undertook its initial public offering on 22 November 2016 and became a public company listed on the Nasdaq First North stock exchange, being valuated at, while Wingefors retained a 50% ownership in the company. In February 2018, THQ Nordic acquired the Austrian multimedia company Koch Media, which operated the Deep Silver video game label, for. Koch Media was set to operate independently under THQ Nordic, separate from THQ Nordic GmbH. To better reflect its holding function and to avoid confusion between THQ Nordic and its Viennese office, THQ Nordic stated that it planned to rename itself in the future. In June 2018, the company issued 7.7 million new Class B shares to raise for future acquisitions. The company bought the Coffee Stain group, including houses developer Coffee Stain Studios, for in cash. Coffee Stain became THQ Nordic's "third leg", operating independently like Koch Media. Through the two acquisitions and continued sales from THQ Nordic GmbH, THQ Nordic's net sales rose by 713%, to, in its 2018 fiscal year. In December 2018, GamesIndustry.biz named Wingefors as one of their People of the Year.
Holding rebranded as Embracer Group and rapid growth (2019–2022)
In February 2019, THQ Nordic issued 11 million new Class B shares and raised. At the end of its first fiscal quarter of 2019, THQ Nordic bought Game Outlet Europe for from Nordic Games Group, which was still majority-owned by Wingefors. THQ Nordic then bought the investment arm of Goodbye Kansas, Goodbye Kansas Game Invest, and its investments in five startup developers—Palindrome Interactive, Fall Damage, Neon Giant, Kavalri Games and Framebunker—for. GKGI was later rebranded Amplifier Game Invest to reflect its new ownership.To avoid further confusion with THQ Nordic GmbH and clarify its position as a holding company, THQ Nordic assumed the name "Embracer Group" at its annual general meeting on 17 September 2019, while the branch in Vienna retained its name. In the following months, Embracer made several acquisitions and openings: Amplifier Game Invest bought Tarsier Studios for. in December 2019 and opened River End Games and C77 Entertainment in January 2020. Embracer Group acquired Saber Interactive and its five satellite studios in February 2020 for a to establish its fifth operative group. Saber co-founders Matthew Karch and Andrey Iones became Embracer's largest shareholders after Wingefors, with Karch joining the board. The holding raised in April 2020 for future expansion and bought Deca Games as its sixth operative group for in August 2020. In the same month, the Embracer Group announced the acquisitions of Palindrome Interactive, Rare Earth Games and Vermila Studios under Amplifier Game Invest, 4A Games and New World Interactive under Saber Interactive, Pow Wow Entertainment under THQ Nordic, and Sola Media under Koch Media's film division. By November, the company had also purchased 34BigThings, Mad Head Games, Nimble Giant Entertainment, Sandbox Strategies, Snapshot Games and Zen Studios via Saber Interactive, A Thinking Ape Entertainment and IUGO Mobile Entertainment via Deca Games, Flying Wild Hog via Koch Media, Purple Lamp Studios via THQ Nordic, Silent Games via Amplifier Game Invest, as well as Quantic Lab directly. According to Klemens Kreuzer, the chief executive officer of THQ Nordic, the large number of acquisitions represented a portfolio diversification that contrasted the reliance of larger publishers like Electronic Arts on a few keystone titles.
Embracer Group announced three major acquisitions in February 2021: Gearbox Entertainment for and Easybrain for as the seventh and eighth operative groups, as well as Aspyr for. These acquisitions were completed by April 2021. Embracer Group began issuing additional stock in March 2021 and raised another to further its acquisition strategies. That year, the company also bought 3D Realms, Demiurge Studios, Fractured Byte, Slipgate Ironworks and SmartPhone Labs through Saber Interactive, Appeal Studios, Kaiko and Massive Miniteam through THQ Nordic, Frame Break through Amplifier Game Invest, CrazyLabs through Deca Games, Ghost Ship Games and Easy Trigger Games through Coffee Stain, DigixArt through Koch Media, as well as Grimfrost directly. Asmodee, which principally distributed board games, became Embracer Group's ninth operative group for in December 2021. In the same month, Embracer Group announced its tenth operative group with the acquisition of Dark Horse Media, the parent company of Dark Horse Comics and Dark Horse Entertainment, and Gearbox Entertainment purchased Perfect World Entertainment, including Cryptic Studios, for.
In May 2022, Square Enix and Embracer Group entered into an agreement for the latter to purchase Crystal Dynamics, Eidos-Montréal, and Square Enix Montreal, alongside intellectual properties like Tomb Raider, ''Deus Ex, Thief, and Legacy of Kain, for. The acquisition was closed by August 2022 and the assets transferred to CDE Entertainment. Square Enix Montréal was briefly rebranded as Onoma but closed in November 2022 in a cost reduction measure. Additionally, Embracer Group created the Embracer Group Archive video game preservation effort in May and established its eleventh operative group, Freemode, from C77 Entertainment, Game Outlet Europe, Grimfrost, Quantic Lab, and the newly purchased Bitwave Games, Clear River Games, Gioteck, and Tatsujin. The latter was subsequently expanded with the acquisitions of Limited Run Games, Singtrix, and Middle-earth Enterprises, which owns the media rights for The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit''.