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Games

Square Enix Sells All of Its Western Game Studios, Games To Embracer (arstechnica.com) 11

Hmmmmmm shares a report from Ars Technica: On Monday, Japanese game publisher Square Enix confirmed that it was selling all three of its Western video game studios, along with many significant game series and intellectual property attached to those studios, to the European game publisher Embracer. The sale includes game studios Crystal Dynamics, Eidos Montreal, and Square Enix Montreal. All three had previously been wholly owned by Square Enix, and Embracer will acquire their entire staffs, combined at roughly 1,100 people, along with popular IP such as Tomb Raider, Deus Ex, and Legacy of Kain, and a game-publishing catalog of "over 50 games," for $300 million.

Not all of the deal's IP has been confirmed thus far, however, and an announcement from Square Enix indicates that its Western operations "will continue to publish franchises such as Just Cause, Outriders, and Life Is Strange." This suggests that Square Enix will retain some of its Western-specific IP and that its future collaborations with Western game makers will come via publishing deals with outside developers.
The report notes that Embracer "will likely also claim the rights to Tomb Raider's legacy as a Hollywood film series."

They also confirmed that "development has already begun on 'the next mainline Tomb Raider game,' complete with 'next-generation storytelling and gameplay experiences,' while several other 'AAA' projects were teased as being in development by the combined studios." Furthermore, Eidos Montreal confirmed that its next major game would be set in the world of Deus Ex.
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Square Enix Sells All of Its Western Game Studios, Games To Embracer

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  • Whelp, gotta go install Deus Ex 1 again.
  • by _xeno_ ( 155264 ) on Monday May 02, 2022 @06:07PM (#62497848) Homepage Journal

    What the summary fails to mention is that Square Enix is explicitly selling off their underperforming "traditional" game publishes so that they can focus their remaining efforts on "blockchain" games and selling NFTs.

    I'm not going to comment on that plan, but this is another example of Square Enix failing to make games that catch on with people and struggling to come up with financing to keep going. The fact that they ditched them for only $300 million should tell you all you need to know about how well Square Enix is doing.

    • by trparky ( 846769 )

      As long as they don't touch the Final Fantasy series of games, I don't care.

      • by _xeno_ ( 155264 )

        My understanding is that they've dropped the Final Fantasy games into the MMO division for some reason and that the lead of the MMO division has stated that he's "very excited" by the concept of blockchain games and NFTs but that the current games likely won't incorporate them at this time.

  • Apparently the Thief IP was part of this deal. I would love to see a new game in the Thief franchise that played like the first three games and not a hand-holding, quicktime event mess like the reboot.
  • Given what they've been releasing for the last few years, this will probably improve the quality of their productions.

    Any company that thinks NFTs and blockchain is a good avenue to take games down should be out of business ASAP.

  • Well we know the next 2 things to happen to Tomb Raider, Deus Ex, etc.

    Oh wait, this isn't Microsoft.

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