Embracer Group, which owns Deep Silver, THQ Nordic, Gearbox, and many more, announced that it is preparing to buy much more. Embracer Group, in a newly released financial report, said they were currently in more than 20 talks, collecting 7.6 billion SEK ($913 million) recently to fund the ongoing spending spree. There’s no clue as to which companies they’ve been talking to, but estimates are that one of the most popular games of the last five years will be a mid-sized studio and publisher.
Embracer Group announces fiscal year earnings
Embracer Group announced its fourth quarter and fiscal year earnings. It showed that the company’s aggressive buying strategy supports profitable growth more than profit margin.
For the year ended March 31, Embracer Group increased net sales by 72% to 9.02 billion SEK ($ 1.09 billion), while net profit was less than 2% to 287 million SEK ($ 34.6 million). For Embracer Group, the fourth quarter was quite successful in terms of the Early Access launch of Iron Gate Studio and the release of Coffee Stain’s 6.8 million copies sold game, Valheim.
Alongside Valheim, Embracer Group’s top-selling games of the year include SpongeBob Squarepants: Battle for Bikini Bottom Re-Hydrated (over 2 million sold), SnowRunner (nearly 2 million sold), and Destroy All Humans (over 1 million sold).
Embracer Group has contracted with more than 150 companies
In its end-of-year financial report, Embracer said that they had signed with more than 150 companies to join them in the January-March period alone. He stated that they are currently in final stage negotiations with more than 20 of these companies.
Embracer’s institutional structure is divided into eight workgroups that form smaller studios beneath them with relative autonomy. Embracer Group currently has 68 development studios and more than 7000 employees worldwide. In recent years, they have acquired companies such as Piranha Bytes, Gunfire Games, Aspyr, Warhorse Studios, Flying Wild Hog, Saber Interactive, 4A Games, New World Interactive, and Zen Studios.
Recently, Embracer also announced that they are creating a new version of the defunct British studio Free Radical behind TimeSplitters. Together with some of the original founders, they will be making a new game in the time-traveling shooter series.
