Embracer Group announced the purchase of five companies at once, including Dark Horse and Perfect World Entertainment. The latter will become part of Gearbox Entertainment, and the deal itself will cost $ 125 million.Neverwinter
Perfect World Entertainment
Embracer will pay $60 million in cash and $65 million in shares to the European division of Perfect World, which owns PWE.
- Perfect World Entertainment is the American division of the Chinese media company Perfect World.
- She specializes in MMORPGs.The American company will become a “daughter” of Gearbox.
- Recall that in February Embracer acquired the authors of Borderlands for $ 1.38 billion.All 237 employees of PWE will move under the wing of Gearbox.
- The company has two main assets — PWE Publishing and Cryptic studio. They will retain their creative independence and continue to produce video games.PWE Publishing publishes games based on the Star Trek and Dungeons & Dragons franchises.
- Other games in the publisher’s portfolio include Remnant: From the Ashes and the Torchlight series.Cryptic Studios, founded in 2000, operates three MMOs — Neverwinter, Star Trek Online and Champions Online.
- According to Embracer Group, all these titles make a profit every year. The deal to buy Perfect World Entertainment is due to close in February 2022.
- Dark Horse
The amount of the transaction was not disclosed.
- 80% of Dark Horse shares will be bought from sellers from Hong Kong and China. Embracer Group will acquire the remaining 20% directly from the general and operational directors of the company (both will retain their positions).Dark Horse will be the tenth operating group inside Embracer.
- The other nine are Amplifier, Asmodee, Coffee Stain, DECA Games, Easybrain, Gearbox Entertainment, Koch Media, Saber Interactive and THQ Nordic.The Swedish holding will get three main divisions of the American publishing house:
- Dark Horse Comics (release of comics, artbooks and other products), Dark Horse Entertainment (films and TV series), as well as Things From Another World (sale of comics and collectibles).Dark Horse has been around since 1986.
- The company has over 300 brands at its disposal, many of which are suitable for creating cross-media products. According to Embracer, some IP companies will become the basis for new games in the future.By the end of 2021, Dark Horse’s revenue will be approximately $98.5 million, and net profit will be $14.2 million.
- Other purchases
The game studio Shiver Entertainment will come under the wing of Saber Interactive (the amount of the transaction was not disclosed).
- Before that, she worked on Scribblenauts Showdown and Mortal Kombat 11, and now she is developing her own titles.Through Saber, the Swedish holding also made the purchase of the animation studio DIGIC.
- She is known for creating CGI trailers and cinematics for games. As part of Embracer, the studio will work on Saber, Gearbox, THQ Nordic, Coffee Stain and Koch Media games.Koch Media will become the owner of Spotfilm Networx, a German company that specializes in video streaming.
- It has 20 AVOD channels and two subscription services at its disposal.