Embracer Group To Spin Off Asmodee ‘And Friends’ Into Three Companies
Embracer Group announced plans to restructure into three different companies, with board game giant Asmodee leading the charge.
Board game mega-publisher Asmodee has a surprising connection to video game companies like THQ Nordic, Crystal Dynamics, and even Dark Horse Comics. All of these are part of the massive, debt-ridden portfolio owned by industry villain Embracer Group. The media holding company conglomerate has been the profit-guzzling force behind many recent closures.
If you’ve heard about a once-beloved game studio closing, an anticipated game being canceled, been laid off, or know someone who has, the odds are that Embracer Group has been at the heart of it. The reasoning behind this was that the investment conglomerate basically had a plan. That plan was to buy up a bunch of studios during the pandemic gaming bubble, solicit billions from a Saudi-government-backed gaming company, ???, and make a profit.
It reads like an episode of South Park. Sure. But sadly, that’s just the standard “tech disruption playbook.” This has resulted in companies valued at billions of dollars actively hemorrhaging money across multiple industries, from Uber Eats and Doordash to WeWork to Snapchat to Tesla. The list goes on.
The trick is to not be the one holding the hot potato when the timer goes off.
This is why, when the Saudi deal fell through, Embracer started scuttling the studios they’ve acquired. Now, in the wake of all those woes, Embracer Group announced plans to spin off into three different companies. Presumably, they have hopes that “maybe one will pay off.” Because betting everything you have on one horse is a rookie move. Real gamblers know you bet on multiple horses across a variety of races. That way, when you lose all your money, nobody knows until much later. And by that time, you’ve already borrowed money with the promise to pay it back based on your future winnings.
That’s how you play to win at capitalism, baybee.
Embracer Group Splits Into Three
Per their announcement, Embracer Group will be splitting into three different publicly traded companies, each with a focus on one of three different money-making schemes “distinct equity stories”:
“The Board of Directors of Embracer Group AB (“Embracer Group”) today announces a transformative step for value creation through a separation of the group into three market-leading games and entertainment companies: Asmodee Group, “Coffee Stain & Friends”[1] and “Middle-earth Enterprises & Friends”[1]. The three entities will be separate, publicly listed companies, enabling each entity to better focus on their respective core strategies and offer more differentiated and distinct equity stories for existing and new shareholders. This will enable the entities to unlock value in the high-quality assets of Embracer Group following the successful completion of the restructuring program.”
They can’t even make an announcement without filling it with promises of ‘trust me this is going to pay off’. Enabling entities to “unlock value” is just corporate speak for your weird uncle telling you about how he’s going to make a killing by selling off the contents of one of the storage units his buddy just foreclosed on.
The spin-off companies are:
Asmodee, which will head up Embracer’s tabletop gaming publishing.
Coffee Stain & Friends, which will handle “diverse gaming” with a focus on premium and free-to-play games for PC/console and mobile with a “high degree of recurring revenues.”
Middle-earth Enterprises & Friends, which, as the name suggests, will handle all of their Lord of the Rings related content, as well as Tomb Raider and Dark Horse comics, get rolled into this as well.
What this means for the industry at large remains to be seen.
