Embracer Group - Lost $431 Million last Year

Yeah Marvel Adventures was not a good idea for Eidos-Montréal but Square was the overlord and they meddled with their affairs. It also put on ice the Deus Ex sequel.

Originally Posted by Couchpotato
I concede I'm probably off but the quality still doesn't justify a budget that high.

Based on Elex and not Elex 2, I also have my doubts. Maybe it would have been wiser to scale down on content and size and double their coding and animation departments to clean up their tech and upgrade their animations to "solid".
(Yes, I know the reviews say they improved many things from E1 to E2. But I don't have the impression the gap to AAA closed at all. Plus E2 seems to run like shit on more than one platform.)

Elex 1 took longer to build/release than Elex 2 I thought. Being a sequel it was always going to sell similar or less copies unless there was a major shakeup in the game design/marketing. Elex 2 is almost identical to Elex 1 so whoever budgetted made a big mistake!

I would have thought Elex 2 would of been lower cost than Elex 1 but I guess if they re-used nothing that would not be the case.

Originally Posted by Couchpotato
Yeah Marvel Adventures was not a good idea for Eidos-Montréal but Square was the overlord and they meddled with their affairs. It also put on ice the Deus Ex sequel.

Yes. Maybe they can give the Marvel games to a cheaper studio like the guys who did the Crysis remasters.

Originally Posted by danutz_plusplus
This is indeed, the most worrying part of this deal. That's basically the black pill of death. I hope they can get out of the Marvel deal.

Marvel probably has an exit option in case of a company sale. So embracer has to talk to Marvel.

PB confirmed they are working on Elex 3 as well. Doesn't surprise me with that ending.

Originally Posted by Gorath
Yes. Maybe they can give the Marvel games to a cheaper studio like the guys who did the Crysis remasters.

I believe the Marvel IP was not part of the sale. I could be wrong again?

As I thought that was mentioned in various articles last month.

One factor that remains unclear, however, is the status of these developers' most recent Marvel titles, Marvel's Avengers and Marvel's Guardians of the Galaxy. These IPs were licensed from Marvel Comics through The Walt Disney Company, and are not properties of Square Enix. The future of these IPs remains unclear heading into the sale of the developers and titles between Embracer Group and Square Enix.

Originally Posted by bjon045
Elex 1 took longer to build/release than Elex 2 I thought. Being a sequel it was always going to sell similar or less copies unless there was a major shakeup in the game design/marketing. Elex 2 is almost identical to Elex 1 so whoever budgetted made a big mistake!

I would have thought Elex 2 would of been lower cost than Elex 1 but I guess if they re-used nothing that would not be the case.

That's a mystery for me too. It seems they re-used half the world and many assets. Then why 4.5 years?

Originally Posted by Couchpotato
I believe the Marvel IP was not part of the sale. I could be wrong again?

As I thought that was mentioned in various articles last month.

No, it's indeed unclear, I think.
I guess the key point for Squeenix is: they got rid of it. Either Embracer gets the licenses and has to fullfill the contracts with Disney or Disney says no and terminates. In both cases Squeenix gets out.
It's hard to say whether Embracer wants the Marvel license or not.

Originally Posted by Couchpotato
PB confirmed they are working on Elex 3 as well. Doesn't surprise me with that ending.

It wouldn't surprise me if THQ helps them refocus, to motivate them to ship E3 quicker.

Originally Posted by Couchpotato
I concede I'm probably off but the quality still doesn't justify a budget that high.

Like you both said the money paid the 30+ workers. Obsidian spent around the same or less for Pillars 2, and they even used crowdfunding. That game unperformed as well.

That certainly is a problem

Hmm..I see nothing wrong in that comment.

Ladies and Gentlemen! This means that $431 million were paid out as salaries and were used on costs for development teams and bonuses only to produce goods that were good for nothing. Can you imagine a car factory building cars that fall apart under you, when you are trying to drive them?
Can you imagine your freshly bought super-duper washing machine falling apart at after you cram all your dirty clothes and start the WASH program?

Well, that was unexpected.

Anyone anticipating that Elex 2 would be a 65/100 game at best, and an overall massive failure would have been a genius.

Can't wait for the PB circlejerk to come out to blame NASA, Covid, or immigrants for it.

Originally Posted by Gorath
That's a mystery for me too. It seems they re-used half the world and many assets. Then why 4.5 years?

Something must have gone wrong I assume

Originally Posted by Pladio
Something must have gone wrong I assume

If I remember right they had to re-organize work due to the Covid-situation, they introduced more quality assurance and new consoles came later than expected.

I think the Embracer strategy is paying off. You won't always get a Valheim; but for every 10 titles say 3 of them do okay, 6 fail, and 1 is a breakout success. As long as you are making cost of production on half of your titles that odd big success will keep you profitable. The risk for publishers is that every title is expensive to produce because they only produce AAA level games. This is not the case for Embracer development studios and that mid level budget makes diverse offerings a priority, which is good for gamers and hopefully the bottom line.

Originally Posted by Gorath
Sorry, I'm not sure what exactly you're refering to.
THQ Nordic is the owner and publisher of Piranha Bytes. They are also one of the 10 or so branches of the Embracer Group. So Elex 2 was an internal project.

Nevermind my comment.

Yes, I'm well aware of the overall structure of this group; I was first referring to your comment on THQ Nordic which is only a subsidiary so I was wondering if I had missed something, since the loss was related to the holding (was it said it was mainly due to THQ?). But then I realized the Elex games were published by THQ Nordic, saw the link and edited my post again instead of removing that part.

I know THQ for a completely different types of games, wasn't expecting to find Elex in their catalogue.

As you said, maybe the timing was not the best one, though seeing the game reviews and the particular nature of the game, I'm not sure it would have made a big difference. Let's hope they'll keep Piranha Bytes despite this setback.

Originally Posted by Redglyph
I know THQ for a completely different types of games, wasn't expecting to find Elex in their catalogue.

That would be the old THQ before it was bought out by by Embracer under the name Nordic Games. Later renamed to THQ Nordic and so they have so many names.

Originally Posted by Couchpotato
That would be the old THQ before it was bought out by by Embracer under the name Nordic Games. Later renamed to THQ Nordic and so they have so many names.

No, just the ones I looked or played recently. I'm not a big game player so I must be missing a lot of what is going on. Yeah, I suppose they must have a long list of games.

Those I know are more a mix of tactical / strategy, like the Expeditions and the Jagged Alliance series, and I keep an eye on Knights of Honor II: Sovereign too. I checked a few others like This Is the President, but wasn't interested enough.

Never heard of this group before, yet I'll hope they'll stay the course, as what was lost can easily be acquired in the future. The business philosophy seems sound, be a little diverse, try different approaches and when you find something that resonates with your audience, take your ques from there.