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The Swedish gaming company Embracer Group AB is canceling a video game in the beloved Deus Ex series after two years of development and will lay off a number of employees as part of an ongoing initiative to cut costs, according to people familiar with the moves.
Eidos, the Montreal, Canada-based studio behind the game, will instead focus on an original franchise. The canceled Deus Ex project, which had not yet been announced, was slated to enter production later this year, said the people, speaking anonymously because they are not authorized to talk to the press.
The company did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Following a period of massive expansion during the pandemic, Embracer Group has lately been making widespread layoffs, game cancellations and studio closures.
The sci-fi Deus Ex series has been critically acclaimed and sold more than 14 million units worldwide. It was acquired by Embracer in 2022.
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Fuck Embracer. I was following the rumors for quite a bit and this is such a massive disappointment. Deus Ex has to be one of the most mismanaged video game franchises of all time. I don’t understand why they’d give up on a loyal fanbase in favor of an “original franchise”.
As a mass effect and dragon age fan, I empathize so much with you. Love deus ex too, so many rpgs just left ignored.
I really don’t understand it. All of these games would be smash hits. Let’s be honest even if they weren’t very good the franchises are known so well that they would all be bought, and older game sales would swell too. To me it’s a no brainier, make the game, it prints money. They’re just so terrified of having to… Invest in something to get a payout.
To my understanding, Deus Ex has never “printed money”.
The only one remotely close to being a hit was the first reboot. I guess it depends on whether you count the “I can’t believe it’s not Deus Ex” franchises they kept spinning up for a while. The first Dishonored probably did very well.
It makes even less sense considering the pivot to an “original franchise.” If they’re cynically trying to print money, why not cash in on something with an established active fanbase? Seems like less of a risk.
I’d have bought a new Deus Ex game, regardless if it got badly reviewed. Not really interested in whatever they’re cooking up now. I’m sure most of us fans probably feel the same way.
I’m not saying that the game would’ve been kept off Eidos was still at SE, but I’m so tired of big corporations acquiring companies just for their IP while killing their projects and laying off their staff.
Embracer has a long history of acquisitions, and I am kind of wondering how long it will take until they decide to just “loan” out the IP they’ve bought instead of putting out any games at all.
I am honestly not super sure about this strategy of buying your way into being a major publisher by vacuuming up IP nobody else was bidding for. What did they think would happen? Did they think the old majors were leaving a ton of money on the table and then realized too late that these really weren’t that profitable? Or was it just a bid that the low interest rates would last forever and the portfolion would just pay for itself if they bundled it large enough?
I don’t know what the business plan was meant to be, and it’s kinda killing me that I don’t fully grasp it.
Did they think the old majors were leaving a ton of money on the table and then realized too late that these really weren’t that profitable?
It always struck me as Moneyball. That yes, the big publishers were leaving a ton of money on the table by not catering to customers that are there but have been long abandoned in favor of the true goliaths like Call of Duty and Assassin’s Creed. The way the big publishers used to operate was by making a lot of bets and then building on what worked while making other new bets. Instead, AAA portfolios went from dozens of games per year down to single digits. When you make a lot of bets, some of them inevitably won’t work.
Or was it just a bid that the low interest rates would last forever and the portfolion would just pay for itself if they bundled it large enough?
Yes, not mutually exclusive with the above strategy, lol.
The IP they bought was largely neglected in the first place, so I’m not sure there’s much of a market for it. More likely they cast a large net with the properties they own, and the winners are the ones that survive the current economic conditions.
the thing is, cyberpunk 2077 released and did gangbusters (after perhaps the rockiest launch cycle in recent memory, but still. game sold well). Deus Ex taps into a lot of the same themes and aesthetics that got cyberpunk 2077 to sell well, it just seems like embracer doesn’t see it as a safe bet, and their definition of safe is informed heavily by their recent fuck-up with their sauid acquisition gambit. It’s a function of a bunch of executives with eyes bigger than their stomach and then having to ballast every possible IP they can manage in order to not ruin the ~shareholder value~ they’re working so hard to not shunt into the atmosphere.
Cyberpunk 2077 had the expectations of the Witcher 3 that a Deus Ex never had a prayer of catching, because at a macro level, those two games are not structured the same despite the shared DNA. Embracer probably doesn’t see it as a safe bet, because it’s not a safe bet in the current economic climate. Tomb Raider probably is. Gunfire Games is probably plenty safe in the wake of Remnant II, and I’m sure the developers of Titan Quest II, Alone in the Dark, Outcast: A New Beginning, and Tempest Rising are all hoping that fans of those genres are as hungry for the games they’re making as possible, because it will likely take a Remnant-sized success to keep them safe from layoffs. In the meantime, they seem to be spared, because it’s all hands on deck to make those games great before they release.
Can embracer just finally fuck off for good please?
I never thought I’d hate a gaming publisher more than EA or Ubisoft, but here we are…
I mean, was it better when these devs were put to work on an Avengers game that no one wanted?
Hey, at least that game came out. Plus Eidos Montreal also made the actually really, really damn good Guardians of the Galaxy game nobody played. I’d make that trade.
Man, these guys really can’t catch a break. That sucks, they make pretty solid stuff.
Hey, at least that game came out.
Hindsight is 20/20, but they would have saved a lot of money if it hadn’t.
Well, it depends on when they cancelled it and on how much it cost. That thing didn’t sell THAT poorly, but Square, as usual, was aiming way above what’s realistic. Estimates on Steam alone put it above 1 million copies sold. You can assume PS5 was at least as good.
Based on those same estimates it actually outsold Guardians. Which is an absolute travesty and I blame anyone who hasn’t played it personally.
https://gamerant.com/square-enix-marvel-games-loss/
Personally, I didn’t play Guardians of the Galaxy because I’m very, very Marvel-ed out, and I didn’t like Guardians Vol. 2.
Well, then you’re my enemy, because that game is great, Marvel connection or not. In fact it’s a fantastic companion piece ot the third Guardians movie, because they’re both really good at their respective medium but they are pushing radically oppposite worldviews (one is a Christian parable, the other a humanist rejection of religious alienation).
And yeah, holy crap, they made a Marvel game about grief and loss and managing them without turning to religion and bigotry and it was awesome and beautiful and nobody played it and you all suck.
Sorry, man. I didn’t watch Andor either, for very similar reasons. Sometimes I’ve just had too much of the thing.
FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK
FUCKING F U C K !!
I did NOT ask for this.
I know people like the originals more than the newer ones, but I really enjoyed those too, I really love Adam Jensen and all the stereotypes on him, and Mankind Divided ended in a huge cliffhanger. I guess I’ll never know how it ends =/
My PS4 copy of Mankind Divided is still wrapped. I refuse to have blue balls on the cliffhanger
The group isn’t certainly an “embracer”, this is disappointing.
it’s literally in their name
“Embracer, extend, and extinguish”
I don’t think they do the second part.
They’re extinguishing a lot of acquired IPs though
My ass is what they can embrace.
When I watched Embracer hoovering up all those studios, I knew they’d end up burning everything to the ground.
How’s that infinite growth treating you, you fucking dumbasses?
A Space Force meme? I thought I was the only person who watched that show
There are dozens of us!
This is the kind of thing Bob Page would do.
This is just terrible. I love Deus Ex and was hoping to see a new game in the next 5 years.
Cut costs now, but they’re not gonna get sales later. Have fun explaining the lack of exponential growth to the shareholders.
That’s not how it works. Making money today is the only thing these ghouls care about, ruining a company or brand is just dandy because they won’t be holding the bag when it bursts. They’ll have passed it to someone else. Someone else who will then work to gut the company even more before selling it to someone who will gut it and close it down.
And nothing of real value will have been made, but lots of rich asshats will be slightly richer.
Well they aren’t making money now for sure.
Cutting costs and laying people off makes the books look slightly better (more cash on hand) which makes the stock price jump, which is all these ghouls want because they’re going to sell off on the high, and then bail out.
