3D Realms has part of its staff get laid off by Embracer Group

[Cacodemon345]

https://www.gamedeveloper.com/business/embracer-reportedly-cuts-staff-at-3d-realms-slipgate

 

 

 

 

 

[Kinsie]

Embracer are in full slash-and-burn mode to deal with the financial mess they put themselves into with their Saudi deal getting snuffed at the 11th hour (to say nothing of increased interest rates on loans, the drop in investor interest in games and tech, and all the other larger economic reasons every large tech company is bleeding personnel right now...), so they bear a good chunk of the blame... but not all of it, for once. 3D Realms/Slipgate Ironworks/Interceptor/Whatever Other Names They're Using have spent years putting themselves into a bad situation with lord knows how many mismanaged projects running simultaneously, resulting in lots of low-quality, low-selling, development-hell-mired releases beaten out of some incredibly talented people. Embracer definitely pulled the trigger themselves, but this decision was sadly on the wall for a long time, especially after Volition bit the dust.

 

There's already rumblings among their peers and contemporaries about things having been kinda bad there for a while, so I wouldn't be shocked if some less-than-great stories about how the place was run behind the scenes start coming out once people reach minimum-safe-distance.

 

 

I expect the chairs will be stacked and the company shut down entirely after their current slate of nigh-release projects like Wrath and Graven are kicked out unbidden into a largely uncaring world by a skeleton crew on their last crumb of morale. After that, the brand will be put into a box until the next vaguely-nostalgic sucker comes along, buys it, and releases the attached bad-project-management curse upon themselves, resuming the cycle.

[Individualised]

It's kinda sad what happened to Apogee. They should still be a big name in the games industry.

[Kinsie]

1 minute ago, Individualised said:

It's kinda sad what happened to Apogee. They should still be a big name in the games industry.

As mentioned in the tweet in the OP, Scott Miller re-established Apogee as an indie publisher after the revived 3DR was bought by Embracer. They seem to be doing okay, as far as I can tell.

[Biodegradable]

Sounds like 3DR's future is pretty grim. It'd be a sizeable blow to the indie scene if they folded entirely as losing them would mean losing Realms Deep, which was a really great publicity thing for upcoming games. If the worst comes to pass, I can only hope someone picks up that torch and carries it onward in some similar fashion.

[Panzermann11]

Man, I swear, Embracer is like EA. Almost every game studio they touch seem to eventually die. Probably won't be a while before Deep Silver roundhouse kicks the bucket aswell.

Edited December 15, 2023 by Panzermann11

[Biodegradable]

3 minutes ago, Panzermann11 said:

Man, I swear, Embracer is like EA. Almost every game studio they touch eventually die.

 

Are they though? I don't recall any other studio that they've done this to so far. This is the first I've heard of them doing literally anything beyond acquiring studios. Hell, we only just really learnt of Embracer's existence a year or so ago.

[Rudolph]

Yet another reason to get organized and start a union... Not just to protect you from getting laid off, but also to push back against studio mismanagement.

[Kinsie]

53 minutes ago, Biodegradable said:

 

Are they though? I don't recall any other studio that they've done this to so far. This is the first I've heard of them doing literally anything beyond acquiring studios. Hell, we only just really learnt of Embracer's existence a year or so ago.

Embracer's been around for a little bit under a couple of different names, most notably as THQ Nordic.

 

30 minutes ago, Rudolph said:

Yet another reason to get organized and start a union... Not just to protect you from getting laid off, but also to push back against studio mismanagement.

You'd think that, right?

[DNSKILL5]

I love how Scott Miller is pretending to care lol.

[Rudolph]

1 hour ago, Kinsie said:

You'd think that, right?

I call that a setback. The struggle continues.

 

Plus, in that case, it was just an indie studio (the kind that is unfortunately expected to go under in this ruthless economy), not some large corporation that keeps getting larger to the point where it has become essentially too big to fail.

Edited December 15, 2023 by Rudolph

[Faceman2000]

4 hours ago, Biodegradable said:

If the worst comes to pass, I can only hope someone picks up that torch and carries it onward in some similar fashion.

Well hey, maybe they can find some space at E3!

 

Oh wait…

[Mr. Freeze]

The grift is over. 

[hybridial]

I'm kinda hoping that with Hyperstrange, Apogee, New Blood, Fulqrum among others that if the worst were to happen to 3D Realms, the spirit of what they revived together would still go on. The people over at 3D Realms did a lot to promote indy gaming (Even if technically they ceased being independent when Embracer acquired them) and I will always be grateful for that. 

[OniriA]

So they got...Nuked?

 

[Bucket]

what a surprise that some faceless holding company hoarding IPs like pokemon had an unfortunate conclusion

[Kinsie]

It continues.

 

[Rudolph]

Bummer. I did not know about Combustion, but I was moderately curious about Core Decay.

[Doom64hunter]

On 12/15/2023 at 12:41 PM, Kinsie said:

There's already rumblings among their peers and contemporaries about things having been kinda bad there for a while, so I wouldn't be shocked if some less-than-great stories about how the place was run behind the scenes start coming out once people reach minimum-safe-distance.

 

I still remember the day KillPixel announced his departure from Wrath, long before Embracer even entered the picture, and people were just going "This is fine" when the person that started the whole project just leaves.

 

The writing was on the wall for a long time.

[mrthejoshmon]

Speaking of Wrath we are getting super iffy on that release, current date is set at 27th of February but we'll just have to see if Embracer decides to cap them when we aren't looking. Also they've canned multiplayer so sounds like we are getting desperate.

 

I ain't even talkin shit mind you, I am saying it out of worry, the replies to the tweet from ex-developers is an awful read and it breaks my bloody heart. Here is to hoping they don't can the team the moment Wrath releases but I suspect our pals at Embracer are plotting such things.

Legitimately, it looks like they are rushing out what they can and anything that ain't ready yet/soon seems to be getting the axe, I only hope that they do not turn on those who finish soon.

[Kinsie]

2 hours ago, mrthejoshmon said:

Speaking of Wrath we are getting super iffy on that release, current date is set at 27th of February but we'll just have to see if Embracer decides to cap them when we aren't looking.

Official word from the latest dev blog is that the game is effectively done and just getting run through localization.

 

2 hours ago, mrthejoshmon said:

Here is to hoping they don't can the team the moment Wrath releases

Oh, that is absolutely 100% happening. That project was a mismanaged boondoggle even before the Embracer acquisition and has gone through at least three full teams by this point. If any major post-release patches happen, let alone the proposed console support, it'll be a Tiny Christian Miracle.

[boris]

At least they have to release the source code for WRATH (current repository is here), so with some luck the community might make updates if necessary.

[Biodegradable]

I was hoping that things might be different this time around. I wanted to be optimistic for a change in the face of Embracer buying up all these developers, but my cynicism wins out yet again as corpos continue to chew up our favourite game studios and spit out their bones.

 

Now I'm starting to feel wary again about Atari acquiring Nightdive...

 

A little silver-lining though: Combustion's dev says they're undeterred regarding 3D Realms pulling funding.

 

Edited January 4 by Biodegradable

[ReaperAA]

Not that I like what Embracer is doing, but new-3D Realms had it coming for a long time. Frederik Schreiber is a fool in more than one way. From losing the rights to Duke Nukem to trying to tackle 2-dozen-something projects, only to have them be half baked on perma-stuck in early access.

 

Even Scott Miller founded new-Apogee because he wants to distance himself from Fred. Hence DNSKILL5's comment about Scott "pretending" to care (because he really doesn't :p)

[mrthejoshmon]

8 hours ago, ReaperAA said:

Not that I like what Embracer is doing, but new-3D Realms had it coming for a long time. Frederik Schreiber is a fool in more than one way. From losing the rights to Duke Nukem to trying to tackle 2-dozen-something projects, only to have them be half baked on perma-stuck in early access.

 

Even Scott Miller founded new-Apogee because he wants to distance himself from Fred. Hence DNSKILL5's comment about Scott "pretending" to care (because he really doesn't :p)

Nu3DR is a complete disaster of a company.

They've got like 16 fuckin things in EA/Development, everything routinely gets delayed...

 

Ironically, it seems that after they lost the Duke license they decided to see how many Duke Nukem Forever dev cycles they could get stuck in all at once.

[Asphalt]

Man, I'm so hating all this shit. Truly.

To me Core Decay was possibly the only interesting game expected to come out in 2024, and it appears they canned it. 

The trailers were impressive, and it gave me a ton of original Deus Ex vibes.

 

Then who knows what will happen to Cultic Chapter Two and Phantom Fury...