{"id":26046,"date":"2022-12-27T12:41:26","date_gmt":"2022-12-27T12:41:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mailinvest.blog\/index.php\/2022\/12\/27\/why-embracer-is-acquiring-tomb-raider-and-other-video-games\/"},"modified":"2022-12-27T12:41:26","modified_gmt":"2022-12-27T12:41:26","slug":"why-embracer-is-acquiring-tomb-raider-and-other-video-games","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mailinvest.blog\/index.php\/2022\/12\/27\/why-embracer-is-acquiring-tomb-raider-and-other-video-games\/","title":{"rendered":"Why Embracer is acquiring ‘Tomb Raider’ and other video games"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/a>\n<\/p>\n

KARLSTAD, Sweden\u00a0\u2014\u00a0<\/span> <\/p>\n

Like so many on-screen action heroes, she was elbowed aside when newer stars appeared and started grabbing more viewers with bigger weapons, better special effects and more elaborate adventures.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s when Lars Wingefors spied an opportunity and swooped in.<\/p>\n

Earlier this year, the little-known Swedish billionaire bought the rights to British archaeologist Lara Croft and the vehicle that turned her into a household name. After debuting 26 years ago, \u201cTomb Raider\u201d went on to become one of the biggest-selling video game franchises of all time, spawning lucrative spinoffs and movies starring Angelina Jolie<\/a> and Alicia Vikander<\/a>, before faltering as bigger games and mobile apps appeared and gaming moved away from its core teenage male audience to young girls, college students and families.<\/p>\n

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\"Two <\/source><\/picture>\n
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Mirage Game Studios staffers work on an upcoming game called \u201cSpace for Sale.\u201d Mirage, based in Karlstad, Sweden, is one of 132 game studios owned by Embracer.<\/p>\n

(Jenny Ingemarsson \/ For The Times)<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

Wingefors\u2019 company, Embracer, purchased \u201cTomb Raider\u201d from San Mateo-based Crystal Dynamics, along with the rights to dozens of other game titles and development studios belonging to its parent company in May <\/b>for $300 million \u2014 spare change in the $220-billion worldwide gaming industry. The goal? To buy relatively cheap, remake, relaunch and profit big.<\/p>\n

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\"A <\/source><\/picture>\n
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Lara Croft in the 2006 game \u201cTomb Raider: Legend.\u201d<\/p>\n

(Associated Press)<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

In a matter of years, Embracer has snapped up hundreds of game companies, publishers and intellectual property rights from Los Angeles to Mumbai, allowing Wingefors, its co-founder and chief executive, to quietly build Europe\u2019s biggest gaming group. Today, Embracer is a $5.7-billion publicly traded company headquartered here in Karlstad, Sweden \u2014 Wingefors\u2019 sleepy hometown of 65,000 people, about 160 miles west of Stockholm \u2014 and owns more video game studios than any other corporation in the world.<\/p>\n

A growing number of them are in California, where modern gaming was born in the Bay Area with Atari and \u201cPong\u201d<\/a> in the 1970s before Japan took over the gaming console world with Nintendo, Sega and PlayStation. In the last two decades, the power centers of gaming have become more international, and some of the biggest game makers are once again on the U.S. West Coast.<\/p>\n

They include Xbox maker Microsoft in Redmond, Wash., and Activision Blizzard<\/a>, the creators of the current bestselling game series \u201cCall of Duty,\u201d in Santa Monica. In February, Super Nintendo World<\/a>, an immersive theme park based on the Mario Bros. franchise, will open at Universal Studios Hollywood. <\/p>\n

For Wingefors and the programmers across the world who dream of having the next hit game, the Golden State is a prime destination.<\/p>\n

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Embracer fo-found and Chief Executive Lars Wingefors.<\/p>\n

(Jenny Ingemarsson \/ For The Times)<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

\u201cA lot of what is happening in the world originates in California. Gaming is not an exception to this,\u201d says Wingefors, 45. \u201cWe\u2019re in this space now that we call transmedia \u2014 games that are relevant to Hollywood, movies that can become games. That\u2019s where we want to be and how important this state is.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe want a lot of games and to make them the best,\u201d Wingefors adds. \u201cSo we make acquisitions.\u201d<\/p>\n

He buys games that are either little-known or past their prime but have dedicated followings, such as \u201cTomb Raider,\u201d \u201cLegacy of Kain,\u201d \u201cDuke Nukem\u201d and a handful of \u201cSpongeBob SquarePants\u201d titles, which haven\u2019t seen new releases for years. This month, Amazon Games announced a deal to publish the next \u201cTomb Raider.\u201d<\/p>\n

Embracer-owned studios are also upgrading properties such as \u201cGoat Simulator,\u201d a PC and console game whose concept is exactly as it sounds \u2014 simulating the life of a goat, albeit one in the city with the task of creating as much havoc and destruction as possible.<\/p>\n

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Simon Rojder is a programmer who is the founder of Mirage Game Studios.<\/p>\n

(Jenny Ingemarsson \/ For The Times)<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

In the last year, Wingefors has set his sights beyond games, purchasing the rights to the \u201cLord of the Rings\u201d franchise from the Bay Area group that manages derivatives of <\/b>J.R.R. Tolkien<\/a>\u2018s literary works, acquiring a French company that\u2019s among the world\u2019s largest board and card game makers and buying the Oregon-based publisher of \u201cBuffy the Vampire Slayer,\u201d \u201cHellboy\u201d and \u201cSin City\u201d comics.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019re no Microsoft or Sony. But it seems like they are just trying to get their hands on everything,\u201d says John Hardie, a longtime game collector and co-founder of the National Videogame Museum in Frisco, Texas.<\/p>\n

Or as the tech-oriented website the Verge<\/a> put it: \u201cEmbracer Group, the company forging one IP portfolio to rule them all.\u201d<\/p>\n

The strategy has sparked both criticism and confusion in the gaming world. Some gamers accuse Embracer of sacrificing artistry, while others find the company\u2019s approach scattershot and incoherent.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you look at them from afar, you might wonder what the company is doing,\u201d said Simon Rojder, a programmer who is the founder of Mirage, a game studio in Karlstad that Embracer absorbed in 2016. \u201cWhat he [Wingefors] does is find people who know what they are doing and then leaves them alone. <\/p>\n

\u201cThis company is called the big dragon monster of gaming because they soak up everything. But they give you space to do your work. We feel quite independent, even if on paper we are not.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Jukka Kovalainen, a technical engineer at the Embracer Games Archive, works on soldering a power supply for an old game system.<\/p>\n

(Jenny Ingemarsson \/ For The Times)<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

Today, Embracer oversees 237 games being developed across 132 studios on every continent except Africa and Antarctica. More than 15,000 employees work for Embracer or a company under its umbrella.<\/p>\n

In California, Embracer has a foothold in San Francisco, where it owns a studio that developed the free game \u201c<\/b>Star Trek Online.\u201d Irvine is home to a recently acquired karaoke company, Singtrix, while SpringboardVR, a company focused on arcade development, is in Los Angeles. In Agoura Hills, Embracer runs global marketing for Vertigo Games, a Dutch games studio and virtual reality group. It also has a distribution contract with Exploding Kittens, an L.A. game studio named after the card game, which shot up in popularity<\/a> after launching on Kickstarter seven years ago.<\/p>\n

Embracer\u2019s rapid expansion comes as tech, gaming and moviemaking collide in a content race to grab the attention and dollars of any consumer they can. Fueled in part by a boom during pandemic-era lockdowns, the gaming industry\u2019s price tag now rivals those of Hollywood and music.<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople used to treat gaming as something teen boys did alone in their rooms and nobody else really cared about, and that was accurate for a very long time,\u201d Hardie says. \u201cBut the reality today is nowhere close to that, so every company out there is trying to get a piece of the action.\u201d<\/p>\n

Until Embracer\u2019s sudden rise, Europe played only a bit role in the global world of gaming, which routinely pits American game-makers against those in Asia \u2014 namely China and Japan, home to Tencent<\/a> and Sony, respectively. Wingefors is scrambling to carve out room for Sweden, a nation of only 10.5 million people that nonetheless has produced hit games and gaming personalities. If you\u2019ve heard of \u201cMinecraft<\/a>\u201d or \u201cCandy Crush Saga,\u201d you\u2019ve encountered games created by Swedes. <\/p>\n

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\"A <\/source><\/picture>\n
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Staffers at the Mirage Game Studios office play a strategy board game during a break from work.<\/p>\n

(Jenny Ingemarsson \/ For The Times)<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

\u201cHopefully, one day, this city of Karlstad can be kind of a gaming city,\u201d says Wingefors, who, with his crisp suits, slicked-back brown hair and penchant for talking about synergies, intellectual property and return on investment, sounds more like a financier than a gamer.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s because that\u2019s what he is.<\/p>\n

Raised by divorced parents outside this woodsy city, which is home to several major paper companies, he hawked mail-order comics as a teenager to make spending money. He built up a collection of 50,000 comics before selling them in order to start flipping used video games, mainly old Nintendo cartridges, and dropped out of high school to run a business that he called Nordic Games. It was a seven-shop retail chain in Sweden in the late 1990s, which he sold for more than $7 million.<\/p>\n

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\"Global <\/source><\/picture><\/a> <\/div>\n

This story is part of our Global California project <\/p>\n

Our correspondents are traveling the globe, sharing stories that examine the complex relationship between the West Coast and the rest of the world.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n

In the early 2000s, he launched Game Outlet Europe, which bought excess gaming cartridges and CDs and resold them internationally, and financed the development of \u201cWe Sing,\u201d a karaoke game for Nintendo Wii. It was a hit, topping Christmas gaming charts in 2009. Within years, Wingefors was investing in international gaming studios, hoping to repeat the win with other games through a company that became Embracer.<\/p>\n

For Wingefors, who owns a 21% stake in Embracer, it\u2019s business, rather than a passion for games, that drives him. <\/p>\n

\u201cI grew up playing \u2018Commodore 64.\u2019 I liked games like any other young person growing up in Sweden. But for me it\u2019s been more about the people, the industry, the business that gets me excited,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

The thirst for a good deal and profits has brought controversy.<\/p>\n

Over the summer, Embracer accepted a $1-billion investment from the Saudi Arabian government, a move that critics decried because of the oil-rich kingdom\u2019s dismal record on human rights and free speech<\/a>. Asked about the 8.1% stake of Embracer that the Arab nation owns through its investment arm, Wingefors said only that he understood there were \u201cdifferent views\u201d on the matter and that his corporation would strive for \u201cinclusion, humanity, freedom and openness.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\"A <\/source><\/picture>\n
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Archivists Natalia Kovalainen, left, and Mikel Rylander, right, play the Neo Geo AES game \u201cKing of Fighters \u201995\u201d in the game room at the Embracer Games Archive.<\/p>\n

(Jenny Ingemarsson \/ For The Times)<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

In another move that has puzzled observers, Wingefors has hired a team to collect every video game ever made for every platform throughout history. The Embracer Games Archive, announced in May, houses 60,000 games in a 16,000-square-foot industrial warehouse on the outskirts of Karlstad. So far, it has spent $2 million amassing its collection.<\/p>\n

Four archivists unload pallets of plastic-sealed games purchased in bulk from auctions and log them into a growing database. David Bostrom, a Swedish YouTuber famed for streaming videos of himself playing from his retro game room in the city of Orebro, runs the operation. <\/p>\n

On any given day, his team could be unpacking the Japanese-language catalog for the Famicom \u2014 the precursor to the Nintendo system that has made Mario and Luigi as famous as Mickey Mouse<\/a> for generations since the 1980s \u2014 or dusting off old copies of \u201cFinal Fantasy,\u201d the 3D role-playing game that sold millions of CDs in the 1990s for PlayStation systems. <\/p>\n

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\"A <\/source><\/picture>\n
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Workers at the Embracer Games Archive unpack a box of newly delivered games.<\/p>\n

(Jenny Ingemarsson \/ For The Times)<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

\u201cWe are trying to create a kind of history or heritage museum,\u201d says Bostrom. \u201cEmbracer has so many games and studios but far from everything out there, so we want to give a picture of the complete story of gaming.\u201d<\/p>\n

Archives and museums are usually open to researchers or the public. For now, Embracer\u2019s is private.<\/p>\n

Some have criticized the effort as simply another way for Embracer to collect intellectual property. If he can\u2019t outright own the rights to games, critics say, Wingefors can at least own the last remaining copies of them.<\/p>\n

Not surprisingly, Wingefors sees it differently.<\/p>\n

\u201cLegacy is part of the DNA of gaming companies, of gaming altogether, because this industry is about stories,\u201d he says. \u201cSo whether we are bringing a title back to the market or growing an archive, it is our duty to be part of that legacy.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n