150°

Embracer Group Announces Restructuring Program; Crystal Dynamics Says It's Not Affected

The Embracer Group announced a huge restructuring program that includes closing studios and canceling games. Crystal Dynamics is unaffected.

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italiangamer351d ago (Edited 351d ago )

Those guys just bought a gazillion studios/IP and now they have to close/cancel a lot of these. That's what happens when you flash your checkbook around but you don't even know what to do with the things you just bought. Reminds me of a certain american company...👀

ABizzel1350d ago (Edited 350d ago )

This happens with EVERY large scale acquisition regardless of the industry. When companies buy companies, there’s always a reduction of crossover staffing (usually corporate positions like HR, Marketing, Sales Reps, etc… all get the boot from the company being bought), in order to reduce the employee count and thus reduce the expense of paying all these new employees.

The restructure on game focus also makes sense. They have all these new IPs now, and spending time making B-tier titles like Evil West, doesn’t make sense, when they can be making Tomb Raider, Soul Reaver, Deus Ex, Marvel IPs (Avengers and Guardians of the Galaxy), Star Wars IPs (even though there are too many IMO), Borderlands, Dark Horse Comics Games like The Witcher, Stranger Things, Mob Psycho, Avatar, Hellboy, Sin City, and more.

They have the potential to go from a niche publisher, to becoming one of the more established publishers when it comes to A - AAA IP over the next 5 - 10 years, if to your point MS doesn’t try to buy them out first.

ThinkThink350d ago

Yeah, I get that same Google vibe from them as well.

Sonic1881350d ago

When you say certain American company are you talking about Microsoft?

porkChop350d ago

This is happening because a $2B deal fell through at the last minute.

Tacoboto350d ago

The certain American company partnered with Crystal Dynamics and CD is just fine.

How's Aspyr doing on that KOTOR Remake partnership with a certain Japanese company?

+ Show (2) more repliesLast reply 350d ago
XiNatsuDragnel350d ago

This what happens when you eat things evenly you know what happens at the end lol.

-Mika-350d ago

I really wished MS bought Crystal Dynamics. I hate that they're owned by this company. They clearly don't know what they are doing.

Sciurus_vulgaris350d ago

Crystal Dynamics is likely unaffected by the restructuring because of its development contract for Perfect Dark. The studio is receiving money from MS, and doesn’t yet have to rely on sales revenue to stay open.

350d ago
badz149350d ago

so...in short, you want a Xbox exclusive Tomb Raider running at 30fps?

ChasterMies349d ago

I hope that folks now understand why Square Enix sold all these studios for cheap. Paying developers is expensive. Glad to see Crystal Dynamix intact. “Guardians of the Galaxy” was a triumph.

ROCKY28349d ago

All companies will be affected in some way from this restructure - including the internal teams at CD
Department personal will be laid off based on internal budgets

50°

Steam Account Transfer Via Will on Death is Not Permitted, Valve Confirms

In case you were curious, a Steam account transfer via will is not permitted according to an official response from Valve.

anast16h ago

The games are theirs. People just pay to ride the ride.

Skuletor6m ago

Would be nice if the article's writer looked into and reported whether other digital game libraries could be transferred over via will (Xbox, Playstation, Nintendo, EGS, EA app, GOG, Ubisoft Connect, Rockstar Launcher etc) instead of this half-baked piece but it's probably the same for all of them anyway

130°

CDPR say Witcher 4 will be different from Witcher 3: "We don't want to be stuck in the same spot"

The next Witcher game will still be an RPG but players can expect new things as CD Projekt Red want to push boundaries and discover new ways of storytelling.

Terry_B14h ago

Each of the 3 existing Witcher games is pretty different from each other..

Kaii13h ago

My only issue with 3 was with the combat

bRuud831h ago

Combat was never the strongest part of the series.

Profchaos1h ago

I felt 3 was ok took a long for it to click but I tried 2 and I found combat controls to be my biggest barrier to actually enjoying it was about 50 times clunkier than 3

helicoptergirl13h ago

Bethesda seems like a studio that is "stuck in the same spot". Development wise. Glad CDPR are wary of that element in game design.

Hugodastrevas2h ago

This can either go very well or very badly. I hope the latter.

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320°

[Exclusive] Xbox Reaches Agreement With Batman: Arkham Trilogy Creators For A New AAA Game

Ex-Rocksteady directors' Hundred Star is collaborating with Xbox Game Studios Publishing for its first-ever AAA game.

Lightning7712h ago(Edited 12h ago)

Highly doubt it'll be an actual Batman game that IP belongs to WB Games along with other DC property.

They're making an action adventure game. IMO I think it needs to be another Marvel game despite MS already have Blade as that action Marvel game. Dead Pool? Punisher?

Realistically it'll probably be a new IP entirely.

The_Hooligan11h ago

I agree with you. I think I'll be a brand new IP. Now it could be a superhero themed, kind of like infamous. Speaking of which, Suckerpunch needs to make one after Ghost 2.

neutralgamer199210h ago

would love a infamous collection for ps5/pc

Lightning7710h ago

I definitely think it'll be super hero themed game 100%. Something MS needs in their portfolio.

ThinkThink8h ago

Please, no more super hero games.

PhillyDonJawn7h ago(Edited 7h ago)

Dead Pool or Punisher would be amazing!!!
Don't tease me like that man lol. I see them making a new IP that's like an arkham knight clone

Dirty_Lemons3h ago

I loved the old Punisher game back in the day. Those executions never got old.

porkChop2h ago

I don't think it needs to be Marvel. It needs to be a totally new IP. That's what Rocksteady should have done after Arkham City. They've pigeonholed themselves as DC devs.

+ Show (1) more replyLast reply 2h ago
MIDGETonSTILTS1710h ago(Edited 10h ago)

I hope these devs needed support to start/finish (like Stalker 2), vs are basically done with the game but wanted to secure an exclusivity-bonus because they know Xbox needs a system seller (like Titanfall).

It’s a bit strange that they’d rather invest in this game than Tangoworks’ TWO canceled projects; or just trust a single dev from their existing massive stable of talent to emerge with a system-seller themselves anytime soon.

Either way, it is just cool that we’ll likely get a new IP from the geniuses behind the Arkham Trilogy. I wonder how creative they’ll get now that they aren’t married to an established franchise.

darthv7210h ago

This is about the former co-founders of Rocksteady and their new studio. So naturally it makes people think its Batman related with the way its worded, even though its not.

-Foxtrot10h ago

Exclusive? Sure

This year alone Microsoft has changed their plans so much with Xbox regarding multiplatform releases as they step closer to just being a full blown third party publisher and it's only been 4-5 months, imagine where we'll be once this game is finished. It will be a completely different landscape.

ThinkThink8h ago

I don't think MS will ever go completely full 3rd party with all of their games. I can see them looking towards expanding their own mobile store and moving into Mac as ways of expanding. I'm sure ms will bring more exclusives over to ps and nintendo, but I don't think it'll be as many games as you think it will. I hope I'm wrong.

Lightning777h ago

The ever contradictions thoughts and actions of MS definitely says otherwise MS changed up so much on the past 6 months of the year I lost count.

Though I'm more declined to believe they also won't go full 3rd party also.

But.

This year they're having Renaissance a super bowl of gaming with Gamepass this year. BO6, older ABK games, Avowed, Indy and other 3rd party exclusives all to grow and expand gamepass. If these games don't grow the service or grow only a little bit. Then you can fully expect MS to hit the red button and put everything everywhere. Satya will have full Xbox take over doing what he wants from that point on next year.

It's up to Xbox to advertise these games and gamepass in the next 6 months or so get the word out.

Profchaos7h ago

The more the news evolves the more I'm inclined to believe we will see MS embrace full third party status but not call it third party in their word soup ways.

It will be Xbox everywhere plays best on a Xbox.

Next gen Xbox is rumoured to be a reference design similar to the 3d0 where any company can make and sell it.

If you're offloading hardware costs to a third party yet still profiting from the games then you've cut out losses on the hardware you still have a store front that users can use and still make a 30 percent cut on that.

Your games sell for a profit on PS and Nintendo platforms and on Xbox reference hardware along with PC

You lose .kney on DLC and games sold on a competitor storefront they are seemingly already comfortable with this.

The ms bean counters are coming for the ROI that was promised they don't care if they kill the brand as it stands Xbox was never a profitable business it was always just done for reputation

PhillyDonJawn6h ago

@Lightning the would end the console then. No one would buy Xbox over PS at that point cause now you get both with just a PS. If GP flop for them, Logically, rolling back on GP would be the smarter than to do. No more day 1 title. Less quality titles. They'd lose subs but people would go back to buying the games.

Lightning775h ago

@Philly They could scale back gamepass put Indies only, AAA 1st party games coming 4 to 6 months from release. The thing is MS will have to tell their fans to buy their games again and that's gonna take years and years to condition them to buy games again. MS will lose money from that also. They'll lose out on gamepass revenue, lose out on games sales because their fans don't buy as many games anymore.

I can't see them scaling back or axing gamepass it does make them allot of money, they just want more money from it. They're not gonna condition their fans to start buying games either.

As I said they'll go full 3rd party and yes you ate right, if they do that then there would be no reason to buy the next Xbox. I know j won't be, you better hope the next 6 months they advertise the games and GP there little hearts out because this could be it.

+ Show (1) more replyLast reply 5h ago
purple1019h ago

Spawn (as well as master chief) are the only characters I associate with Xbox. Are there more I can’t remember?

rlow19h ago

Gears is another big game one.

purple1018h ago

Yeh big game, do you know the name of the lead character. Or team of lead characters. I don’t

rlow18h ago

Marcus, Dom, Cole Train. And I can’t remember the fourth.

Profchaos6h ago(Edited 6h ago)

Also the chick from gears 5 seems to pop up on all their modern advertising I can't remember her name either.

Cars also feature heavily in a Xbox ad it's always master chief front and centre with cars and maybe a gears character hanging around

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