A few years ago, Embracer Group emerged as a new, major gaming publisher and immediately set to work acquiring as many up-and-coming studios as it possibly could. Many were concerned that the organization would outstrip the likes of EA and Activision-Blizzard and become an even worse force within the industry. Well, Embracer Group has indeed attained absolutely massive size, yet has somehow not inspired the same kind of dislike that the other major players get. It also hasn’t been profitable enough to maintain its current size, leaving it with only one option: downsizing.

As reported by TweakTown.com, Embracer Group is currently figuring out how to deal with its business after a proposed $2 billion deal fell through. The publisher was reportedly counting on that money in order to fund new projects and keep the organization afloat. Now that that money won’t be coming in though, it seems the company has no choice but to scale back. The TweakTown article referenced a recent earnings report from the company’s CEO wherein he states that Embracer Group will almost certainly be cancelling the development of more than a few games and shutting down some studios in order to reign-in costs. He didn’t which projects and studios would be affected, but it’s almost certainly worrisome news for everyone affiliated with the publisher at the moment.

I’m no businessman, but I wouldn’t say that this is all that surprising. Embracer Group and its financiers took a big risk in growing the organization as quickly as they did. Had they seen the success they were looking for, then they would have almost instantly become one of the biggest players in the AA and AAA sectors of the business. If not, well then this happens.

All the major players: Sony, Microsoft, EA and Activision (before selling itself to Microsoft) have all been trying to find success in growing ever-bigger and concentrating their resources into ever-larger and ever-more expensive super games; games that need to sell double-digit millions of copies (on top of ever-more internal monetization) in order to turn a profit. It’s a strategy that should have proven itself ineffective years ago, yet they all still keep trying to do it. Sure, Call of Duty and the like are raking-in record profits, yet that doesn’t seem to have kept the likes of Activision healthy. After all, if a company is fine, why on earth would it seek a buyout? It doesn’t add up.

While gamers may indeed always want better games, I’m thinking that we’d all be better served with smaller projects that don’t go crazy on the visuals and try to offer smaller experiences focused on good gameplay rather than the near-unsustainable (and shallow) behemoths all of these publishers are relying on. I absolutely love seeing the likes of Baldur’s Gate 3 of course, but that one’s kind of an exception among the usual stuff we see in AAA these days. I dunno, this all just doesn’t seem like it’s really working for anyone anymore.

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What’s your take on the state of the industry? How about AAA games in general?

Image from the Embracer Group website