Square Enix Sells Three Development Studios and a Bunch of IPs to Embracer Group for $300 million to Invest in NFTs

[Skeletonpatch]

https://www.eurogamer.net/square-enix-sells-off-western-studios-and-ip-including-tomb-raider-and-deus-ex

 

 

Crystal Dynamics, Eidos Montreal and Square Enix Montreal, along with a number of franchises including Tomb Raider, Theif, Deus Ex and Legacy of Kain among others are being sold to Embracer Group for $300 000 000.

 

Every major acquisition of this kind I've heard about in the games industry tends to amount to billions of dollars. My (admittedly limited) understanding of how these things are supposed to work does not at all compute with the absurdity of this. Like, is Tomb Raider not at least worth more than $300 000 000 on its own or something?

 

And the icing on the ketchup and poprock cake, the money Square Enix is getting from this is apparently intended to be invested in the blockchain and NFTs. Like, that thing most gamers vocally despise and do not want and has garnered little to no success in the gaming market. That thing.

 

Obviously, I am very confused about this and was excited to see what others here thought about it only to find that the thread hadn't been made yet. So, I'd like to hear what those who are more informed on these things than I have to say about this.

[Doomkid]

Only related in a parallel sense, but: I fucking hate how a bunch of ultra-dodeca-rich corporations have forced NFTs to become a "viable thing" despite the fact that 99.9999% of humaity said, in one uniform voice, "FUCK THIS SHIT" when the very concept was announced to the public.

 

Even though they're probably gonna be a way to get rich quick/be a pure leech who contributes NOTHING to society while making bank, a la Bitcoin 10 years back, I will never have anything to do with them. I'd rather die poor but with a soul that isn't coated in fucking plaque.

[rzh]

53 minutes ago, Skeletonpatch said:

Tomb Raider, Theif, Deus Ex and Legacy of Kain.

4 out of 4 ouch my soul

Not like the first 2 weren't already ruined and the last one dead and forgotten but still

[Rymante]

So yeah, I'm also in the camp of "NFTs need to fucking die already" but with this news I've been more focused on the franchises & studios being sold off here.

 

I'm of the opinion that Square Enix has mismanaged these studios & IPs over the years.  Somehow these big franchises like Tomb Raider & Deus Ex manage to sell several million copies each & yet they always fall short of Square Enix's sales expectations, whatever those were.

 

Deus Ex Mankind Divided is a great game IMO, but in the run up to it's release, it was a little hard to focus on that with things like the ridiculous Augment Your Pre-Order campaign, a campaign met with such backlash it was cancelled.  On top of that, because the game "didn't meet expectations" there hasn't been a new Deus Ex game since Mankind Divided, which came out back in August 2016.

 

Meanwhile, companies & studios under the Embracer Group banner have been reviving long dormant games & franchises, relisting games that had been delisted to which they now own the rights (like Free Radical's Second Sight returning to Steam to give just one example), releasing a full remake of obscure PS2 & Xbox game Destroy All Humans, and announcing Outcast 2: A New Beginning, a sequel to a fairly obscure PC game from 1999 (that I also happened to rather enjoy).

 

I guess what I'm trying to say is, these franchises & studios might have more of a chance to continue under new management.

[Jaccident]

As long as Thief 5 is better than Thi4f we should be alright. NFTs are fucking annoying but so far investments in NFTs are a brilliant way to lose money (I'm looking at you, Jack Dorsey's first tweet!), so hopefully Square Enix lose all of their investment and Embracer actually treat the IPs well. Any chance for a new Deus Ex game (but with competent management) would be wonderful, quite frankly.

[Avoozl]

Deus Ex: Mankind Divided wasn't a bad game (I enjoyed it in fact) but I feel the singleplayer microtransactions did hurt it quite a bit which is why it didn't do as well as it could have. However I hope it does get a sequel under the new ownership and that they don't fuck it up.

Edited May 3, 2022 by Avoozl

[Rancid Sam]

Holy fucking shit if they sold Brave Fencer Musashi out from under me when I've been trying to buy it from them for YEARS I am going to be PISSED.

I offered them like 3 bucks, that's more than that series has been worth for over a decade.

[yakfak]

wasn't FFXII the last square enix game? am i missing something? giggle

i will boycott all these games. companies shouldn't get this big

[Daytime Waitress]

I'm writing a sitcom about a group of managers, real elite "masters of corporate espionage" types. They infiltrate this unfathomably large holding company and consistently do everything they can to tank it. They try to sink beloved products by attaching them to whatever the heck is popular that month. They use company resources to gobble up vast amounts of foreign assets without any plan on how to use them successfully. And in the season finale, they throw the company off the Cliff of Very Obviously Stupid Investments, in front of God and everybody.

 

The kicker? Customers are wildly in love with the company's sole product of note, Spiky-Haired Sword Guy Cupcakes, and continue to hurl so much cash at the company that it simply will not die. Every episode ends with our beleagured managers face-palming and uttering their catch phrase: "Why can't we kill it?!" Cue canned laughter.

 

Call it: I Dream of Squeenix.

 

Which of you Doomworld maestros has got dibs on the theme music?

[Roebloz]

1 hour ago, Daytime Waitress said:

Which of you Doomworld maestros has got dibs on the theme music?

I'll do the Final Fantasy Opening theme with my mouth and the gibbing sound as the sole instrument.

[Murdoch]

Fuck me stupid. I am sure I have heard something dumber than this but... nothing immediately springs to mind. NFTs are going to crash and burn sooner or later. It is absolutely inevitable. That Squeenix would invest in this nonsense just defies belief. Complete lunacy.

[Graf Zahl]

Hey, just be glad that these morons sold their assets to someone competent! :D

 

I think their failure to do real business and their interest in something as vapid as NFT goes hand in hand.

 

[Murdoch]

2 minutes ago, Graf Zahl said:

Hey, just be glad that these morons sold their assets to someone competent! :D

 

I think their failure to do real business and their interest in something as vapid as NFT goes hand in hand.

 

 

Yes I would have more faith in Embracer than Squeenix any day of the week.

[nrofl]

I’m also in the same boat as most people here. I’m not an economist but tangible assets under NFT’s sounds like a bad move. It’s in the name “Non-Fundable-Token”. 
 

I have nothing wrong with NFT’s/crypto but I don’t think you should be putting $300M into NFT’s

 

But hey, at least Enix will have the dopest collection of bored apes. Silver lining to everything I guess

[Azuris]

Japanese Companies hardly want to be Part of the next big Thing and force doing BS.

 

Go Square Enix, go make some Pachinko too and go the Konami Way.

[Mr. Freeze]

gaming rn

[Woolie Wool]

6 hours ago, Doomkid said:

Only related in a parallel sense, but: I fucking hate how a bunch of ultra-dodeca-rich corporations have forced NFTs to become a "viable thing" despite the fact that 99.9999% of humaity said, in one uniform voice, "FUCK THIS SHIT" when the very concept was announced to the public.

 

Even though they're probably gonna be a way to get rich quick/be a pure leech who contributes NOTHING to society while making bank, a la Bitcoin 10 years back, I will never have anything to do with them. I'd rather die poor but with a soul that isn't coated in fucking plaque.

The entire world economy is a giant hustle to cover up the fact that the earth is pretty much tapped out of natural resources, and the real economy of material commodity production peaked in the west in the 1970s and is peaking in the rest of the world now, and the consequences of admitting there is nothing left but long-term, permanent decline for a system that depends on perpetual growth are so dire that capitalists will do anything, anything at all, to prevent Wile E. Coyote from looking down long enough to complete their doomsday bunkers. There is no plan, there is no solution, they're just winging it quarter by quarter desperately trying to delay the inevitable.

 

In short,

Edited May 3, 2022 by Woolie Wool

[HavoX]

1 hour ago, Azuris said:

Japanese Companies hardly want to be Part of the next big Thing and force doing BS.

 

Go Square Enix, go make some Pachinko too and go the Konami Way.

Except Konami was FAR worse than that. I read a news article long ago that they treated their employees like shit. They wouldn't even let them use email while at work or contact their friends/family. Fucking assholes.

 

...And don't get me started on Balan Wonderworld. I already heard about that lawsuit Yuji Naka filed, and it does seem to have some merit.

[CrocMagnum]

2 hours ago, Graf Zahl said:

Hey, just be glad that these morons sold their assets to someone competent! :D

 

I think their failure to do real business and their interest in something as vapid as NFT goes hand in hand.

 

Absolutely! And now with the Deus Ex franchise out of Square Enix hands, I can finally have some reasonable hope for a sequel. ^^

 

For the record, most DX fans want a closure for Adam Jensen's story (which is still unfinished). 

[Doomkid]

1 hour ago, Woolie Wool said:

 

Be careful with that kind of talk, Woolie. Doing anything even close to acknowledging the faults of a system built on the (inherently nonsensical) concept of “perpetual growth” gets you labeled as a communist these days.
 

 

I guess it shouldn’t be surprising since McCarthyism is back in a big way right now. I’m frankly nowhere near being a communist, but I’ve been called one many times for merely pointing out that some rules and regulations are probably a good thing for human rights compared to the pretty much no-holds-barred capitalism we have in the US, or for pointing out that we’ve fucked up huge swaths of the ecosystem by the way we currently operate. The second one isn’t even a matter of opinion, but stating the facts makes some people feel a deep rage. I think maybe because they have their ego wrapped up in the idea that humans are mostly harmless, so evidence the contrary is unpleasant for them. Just guessing though.

[Electro Rage]

So... I can't really discuss much on the matter, however, this is sad. I don't know enough about NFTs past "it sucks" to say anything.

[Somniac]

So sick of hearing about NFTs, the entire concept is fundamentally stupid as fuck  and anyone with two brain cells to rib together can see it's all just a big scam. 

[Solmyr]

I don't know anything about NFTs, but i find the concept of a big name videogame company famous for it's JRPGs selling off quite a bit of their assets to invest in pictures of bored looking cartoon chimps, hilarious. 

[magicsofa]

14 minutes ago, Solmyr said:

a big name videogame company famous for it's JRPGs

You can bet that the people involved in this decision were not in the room when the famous games were being developed...

[LadyMistDragon]

Another headline that belongs in the Onion. I swear, there'll be stories written one day about the follies of large corporations who invested in NFTs. Though civilization will probably have fallen apart before that point, so maybe that's immaterial.

[mrthejoshmon]

You mean to tell me that a company that is deadset on releasing absolute disasters one after the other decides to sell off their neglected popular western titles to a company that might just do something valuable with them whilst they railroad themselves into a pyramid scheme in an attempt to evolve as the dodo did?

 

 

Good, hurry up and croak.

[Mr. Freeze]

They were a good studio.  *lip smack* What a rotten way to die. 

[vyruss]

As a person who absolutely fucking adored Legacy of Kain series, this makes me tingle with a joy I haven't felt in a looooong time.  Finally got sold to hopefully a company that might do something with it, although not sure what it might be.  Glad Squeenix did this, and glad Squeenix put there money in a place where they might have to innovate beyond continuing to milk the everloving tits of Final Fantasy and all of its shit sequels (true for everything after 9).

[SplinkWizard]

I'm thinking we need to make dating sims popular. My theory is that if we can make it seem mainstream, we will get the most hilarious stuff ever.

[Lizardcommando]

I'm so sick of these NFT shits being shilled by everyone. From artists to actors to major game companies to politicians (probably, I dunno about that, but it wouldn't surprise me). I hope everyone who follows this shit ends up getting scammed and fucked over.