One other firm has escaped the gaping, acquisition-hungry maw that’s writer Embracer Group, as Borderlands developer Gearbox Software program has been bought to Take-Two Interactive. This strains up with Kotaku’s earlier reporting on the matter in February, by which sources instructed us Gearbox was nearing a sale. Embracer is promoting the corporate at a major loss after shopping for Gearbox for $1.3 billion in 2021, with Take-Two solely paying $460 million to carry the Texas-based firm into the fold.
Embracer does retain the rights to some components of Gearbox’s enterprise as per the gross sales phrases, together with Gearbox’s San Francisco Publishing department (which might be renamed), publishing rights to the Remnant franchise, and the upcoming Hyper Mild Breaker from Coronary heart Machine. Embracer can even nonetheless publish some “unannounced” video games which might be a part of Gearbox’s portfolio, however no additional particulars have been disclosed within the official announcement. Embracer can also be preserving Cryptic Studios, which develops Neverwinter On-line and Star Trek On-line, Misplaced Boys Interactive, which not too long ago did help work on Tiny Tina’s Wonderlands, and 3D modeling firm Captured Dimensions. The deal says all of those corporations are “anticipated to contribute with a optimistic money move going ahead.”
Your entire deal might be paid in newly issued Take-Two shares, with closing anticipated to be accomplished by the top of Embracer’s fiscal first quarter, which ends in June 2024. As for what’s subsequent for Gearbox underneath Take-Two, a separate press launch from the writer reveals Gearbox is actively creating a brand new sport within the Borderlands collection, in addition to the following sport within the real-time technique franchise Homeworld.
This transfer comes simply two weeks after Embracer additionally bought off Saber Interactive, which itself adopted the cancellation of practically 30 video games in Embracer’s portfolio and the lack of over 1,300 jobs. Embracer’s years-long acquisition spree has affected the lives of hundreds of employees within the online game business, and all it has to indicate for it’s misplaced jobs, canceled video games, and promoting these corporations for lower than half of what it paid for them. What a shitshow.
