Well, it’s become clear that Embracer had absolutely no idea what they were doing when they bought all those studios, and now we’re seeing it all fall apart again.
That’s just a load of BS!
Embracer acquired Gearbox at the beginning of 2021, so you can assume that discussions about this probably started (much) early. Video games have been big business during the pandemic, and Embracer has been busy acquiring IPs for a while longer.
We are now in the post-pandemic period, where we have a recession. Interest rates are rising, not only on mortgages, but also on investment vehicles, which are safer as investments than tech/video games and generally pay more in this economic situation. As a result, all investors who previously could not get a decent return on their assets anywhere will disappear, so they will have to invest, among other things. Invested technology / video games. Now one of those investors has withdrawn $2 billion and Embracer will have to fill that gap itself, because there aren’t any investors willing to do that at the moment (if any).
In addition, the video game market is not as strong as it was during the pandemic. But Embracer (still) turned a profit in fiscal 2023. The question, of course, is: will they continue to do so…
Gearbox has X value, the question would be, how much can they sell it for and how much has Gearbox produced in the last 2.5 years? I doubt we’ll all see those numbers, but just saying that Embracer doesn’t know what they’re doing based on the fact that they want to sell Gearbox back to reduce debt because the investor “vaporized” is preposterous.
Embracer is building an enormous portfolio of intellectual property and this requires long-term thinking. I think Gearbox is the easiest to sell, the most profitable, with the lowest IP “value”. Gearbox Entertainment is a completely separate division, encompassing not only Gearbox’s publishing/properties/software/studios, but also Captured Dimensions, Cryptic Studios, and Lost Boys Interactive. If you read between the lines, they’re selling for more now than they did two and a half years ago.