Embracer, owners of Saints Row, Tomb Raider, Dead Island, and the rights to set games in Tolkien’s Middle-earth, isn’t a very popular video game company these days. After spending a decade, between 2013 and 2023, buying up multiple studios and publishers, and even digging up the remains of THQ, the company partially collapsed following the last-minute cancellation of a $2 billion development deal. Now, after some corporate shuffling, Embracer CEO Phil Rogers hopes players and devs will start trusting the company again, even as he teases that more acquisitions could happen in the future.
In a new interview with The Game Business, Rogers, who joined the company near the tail end of its infamous 2020-to-2023 spending spree, explained that the last few years have been a very “humbling experience.” The company has spent the last few years, since that big deal fell through and everything started going wrong, rearranging its assets, selling off parts of itself, and laying off a ton of people. Now, most of its game studios and publishers are part of Fellowship Entertainment, alongside Embracer’s ownership of the Middle-earth and Lord of the Rings IP, which the studio bought up in 2022.
“There’s a lot of reflection on that in terms of how the industry changed and could we have not all predicted this?” said Rogers. “We know we’re on a journey. Internally, it’s about getting in front of [employees] and talking more plainly, which we’ve tried to do. People need to understand what’s going on in the industry, how it impacts us, what we’re doing, what do we want to do more of, perhaps what we want to do less of…so they understand some of the logic.”
As it becomes a more stable company and starts letting its studios have more independence while providing them with the needed resources and access to various IP, like giving Kingdom Come: Deliverance studio Warhorse the chance to make a Lord of the Rings RPG, Rogers seems to hope that Embracer’s image is changing.
“I’d hope trust is improving,” said Rogers. “In the industry, if you poll 100 people [asking] what they think about Embracer…whatever that score is, I want it to be better in a year, two years, five years, and that’s the pragmatism. Lots of companies in this industry have had tough times, and then reset and rethink things, and then improve. We’re absolutely in that camp.”
Embracer ain’t done buying up game companies
Of course, in this same interview with Game Business, Rogers goes on to suggest that Embracer, a company that became hated by many over the last few years after buying up a large chunk of the game industry and handling those assets poorly, is still open to future acquisitions and mergers. However, it would now be done with “learnings.”
“Funding for any [acquisition] would come through organic cash flows, which is really important to mention. The Embracer [segment] has a lot of businesses that have created good positions. Some of them are very specialized. And again, if M&A can help grow those businesses, then it’s in the cards,” said Rogers.
“If you’re making profits, you’re making cash. And that will give us an opportunity to look at M&A as an option.”
You know how Lucy would hold that football and let Charlie Brown try to kick it and would swear she totally wouldn’t yank it away at the last moment? That she was better now, or had learned something, or whatever? That image is popping into my mind as I listen to the CEO of Embracer, of all companies, suggest it wants to buy more companies in the future while telling everyone it has learned and hopes you all trust them more.