How many studios now have either been shuttered or massively downsized because Embracer scooped up half the midshelf games industry, made one really bad deal that fell through, and then laid waste to everything else they’d bought up just to get their fucking share price back up?
I’m still wondering how burning the companies you bought makes anything better.
These are game factories. Your business, on paper, is making games. How make game if no factory?
When Infogrames bought Atari to wear its name like a cursed artifact, and later wound up hocking all the properties that made Atari, Atari, at least I understood that selling off IP is a source of revenue. This is just spending followed by not-spending. You gain nothing. You’ve obviously lost something. Specifically, you lost a thing that makes you gain things.
Was there actually a community around Elex? I tried to play it on launch with high-end hardware and faced constant issues. I only recently found out Elex II was a thing when I got it in Humble Choice.
Not saying Embracer is right here; just curious if the studio was able to pull weight.
It sold reasonably well in Germany, just like other titles from this studio. It was never as popular as any of the Gothic or even Risen games though, but a small community still formed around it.
I had no issues with it when it launched, on fairly modest hardware. Quite an enjoyable open world game with great world design and somewhat clunky, if highly skill-based combat and movement, as to be expected from this studio. The way the jet pack is a core part of the game design is remarkable, if you actually make use of it as intended.