In a recent fiscal report by Embracer Group, it was revealed that approximately 4,500 employees, of which 3,727 were game developers, were laid off over the past year, accounting for 27% of their global workforce.
The report also disclosed the shutdown of 80 projects. From January to March 2023, 221 projects were active, but by the same period in 2024, only 141 remained.
Despite these challenges, Embracer reported a 12% increase in full-year net sales, reaching $3.94 billion. However, net sales dropped 5% compared to the previous year, with the most significant decline coming from PC and console games.
Despite increased sales figures, the group’s debt has risen to SEK 16.4 billion ($1.53 billion) from SEK 15.6 billion ($1.46 billion) compared to the same period in 2023. The company highlighted a SEK 20.4 billion ($1.9 billion) impact on its earnings before interest and tax.
Of this, SEK 1 billion ($93.3 million) was attributed to the restructuring program, while SEK 11.4 billion ($1.1 million) was associated with the sales of Saber Interactive and Gearbox Entertainment.
The company implemented significant cost-cutting measures over the past year, including divestments and the closure of long-standing studios, following the collapse of a multi-billion-dollar deal with Saudi Arabia, which has had lasting effects.
Embracer suffered a staggering $840 million loss by selling Gearbox Software to Take-Two Interactive, despite having acquired the studio for $1.3 billion in 2021, the Embracer group were so desperate to offload Gearbox they sold the studio for just $460 million, effectively losing 65% of its value.
Saber Interactive also split from Embracer in a $250 million deal. As the conglomerate deals has to suffer the consequences of their actions by seemingly throwing money into the firepit hoping to monopolize smaller studios producing subpar content infused with woke ideologies, in hopes of long-term profitability.
The Embracer Group strongly advocates for Larry Fink’s ESG agenda. However, the games produced by their owned studios in recent memory have often been criticized for containing progressive ideologies or simply for their poor reception.
Embracer appears to prioritize quantity over quality, as evidenced by titles like “South Park: Snow Day” which has an impressive 4.4 user rating on Metacritic and Volition’s disastrous reboot of “Saints Row,” developed in collaboration with Sweet Baby Inc, which ultimately led to the dissolution of the developers.
DEI, commonly known as “Didn’t Earn It,” or more formally as Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion, is a practice that essentially mandates corporate behavior, tolerance, and compliance, as illustrated by a recent corporate email from Activision.
Embracer’s recent goals outlined in their ESG fact sheet indicate that the company aims to double the number of female managing directors and studio heads by 2025 compared to the Financial Year 2021/2022.
While the goal of promoting more women to leadership positions could be beneficial if the candidates were truly qualified, ESG and DEI initiatives often prioritize hiring based on gender or skin color over merit. This approach can potentially hinder a company by overlooking more qualified and talented candidates who could drive the organization to greater success.
Embracer claims that half of their subsidiary studios regularly address diversity and inclusion in their content. They also employ over 300 community managers to ensure that internal communications adhere to their community guidelines.
This is of course why modern games for the most part are woeful and plagued with progressivism.
Games are no longer made for the male demographic, more rather the misconception of half of all gamers being female thanks partly due to the fact that such surveys and studies incorporate mobile games into the mixture have resulted in the proliferation of modern games marketed specifically towards women and towards men with a feminine mindset.
Feminism has driven a significant push for more women to ascend the corporate ladder, often prioritizing gender over actual skillset. I believe all qualified individuals should have the opportunity to thrive, and some exemplary women, like AMD CEO Lisa Su, demonstrate this.
She has singlehandedly turned a company on the verge of bankruptcy into a dominant force, outperforming Intel across various sectors.
In the gaming industry, hiring decisions seem increasingly based on gender rather than talent. This shift is contributing to longer development times, increased budget, lack of innovation, and garbage story narratives in modern games. Many games now involve committees in story writing, often resulting in ideologically driven narration.
Consequently, games frequently release unfinished, broken, and unoptimized, yet still command a $70 price tag.
The infiltration of individuals interested in video games only because it’s trendy has contributed to the decline in quality of today’s games. Modern development studios are now filled with female employees, many of whom hold left-leaning political views, who often reject content they consider “sexist,” “misogynistic,” or “racist.”
Such as fictional women in video games who aren’t batshit ugly.
The Embracer Group continues to hemorrhage money despite increased net sales, laying off a significant number of staff due to overinvesting in an industry on its last legs. They aimed for easy profits through ESG and DEI initiatives but ended up with a vast array of underperforming products.
