After years of expanding and buying up studios, Embracer Group has now hit a bump in the road, forcing the company to ‘restructure' in an effort to reduce costs and become more efficient. Embracer owns a lot of great IP at this point, but it seems to be planning to heavily lean on The Lord of the Rings in the coming years.
Embracer has already announced that five LOTR-based projects are in the works but that number is going to continue to grow as Embracer seeks profitability. Former Saber Interactive CEO and current Embracer Chief Operating Officer, Matthew Karch, commented directly on this, noting plans to ‘exploit' the Lord of the Rings IP.
Speaking initially on the restructuring plan, Karch says he has a “high degree of confidence that this entire process is going to easily translate into better product selection that's more profitable”. Karch added that the company needs “to be exploiting Lord of the Rings in a very significant fashion” in an effort to turn it into one of the biggest game franchises in the world.
Whether or not Embracer can turn LOTR into one of gaming's biggest franchises still remains to be seen.
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KitGuru Says: Obviously this is a businessman quote, so I wouldn't read into words like ‘exploit' too much. At the end of the day, Embracer just spent billions acquiring this franchise and it will need to start making that money back eventually. We'll have to keep our fingers crossed that the new wave of LOTR games we get can offer diversity and quality. However, Embracer also needs to be careful to not put all of its eggs in one basket.