European Black Hole – THQ Nordic Still Devours IPs
THQ Nordic incorporates about two hundred different video game franchises. Among them are Gothic, Kingdome Come, Delta Force, Darksiders, Red Faction and many others. What's the story of one of the most ravenous companies out there?
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But what to make of all this?
It's pretty clear that the Embracer Group, as Lars Wingefors' company is now, perhaps amusingly, called doesn't have enough production capacity to revive all the purchased brands. Even Lars doesn't shy away from admitting that some of the brands are no longer business-attractive today. Others, in turn, would require a lot of consideration before being reestablished.
We need time to understand the IP really well, we need to talk to fans and the old creators – perhaps they can't join the team, but they can give us some input. We also need to find people who are passionate about the IP
Lars Wingefors for gamesindustry.biz
Is this the right approach? Well, the teaser of the remake of the first Gothic, recently released on Steam, reaped quite decent reviews, but we remain rather skeptical. Of over 6500 reviews 77% were positive. The decision to first create a demo, collect feedback, and only then begin full-scale work seems significant, however. Such strategy is common for smaller studios, but in case of a major publisher, it certainly is praiseworthy. For a cult game (at least in a few countries), this approach may prove much more efficient than the standard procedure, where players only get to try the product once it's out.
Lars, however, doesn't want to be another typical AAA publisher. If you look at companies like EA, Ubisoft, or Activision, you will see that they now create fewer titles, but each one is bigger, more expensive, and more ambitious. Wingefors prefers to have a more diverse portfolio.
Today
At the moment, THQ Nordic is set to release games such as Desperados 3, Biomutant, Comanche and Scarf. Last May, it was reported that the group has up to 80 different games in production. Given the rate of growth, there may be even more at the moment. How many exactly? It's hard to say.
However, the most interesting question regards the future of Lars Wingefors ' empire. As we followed the news of subsequent acquisitions, we couldn't shake off associations with Tencent, who customarily devours new companies around the world. But that's pretty much where the similarities with the technological giant from the China end. It's also hard to compare Embracer Group with "traditional" publishers and hardware developers. It seems we're dealing with the birth of the industry's first major publisher of medium-sized games, but only time will tell if this is the right label.
