Embracer Group is playing a game of Monopoly, and we’re all on the board. This morning the mega-group announced it is acquiring a whole lot of stuff. The biggest of these is Middle-earth Enterprises, the group that owns the rights to the motion pictures, video games, board games, merchandising and more of the Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit franchises. They also have some right to Middle-earth literary works that the Tolkien estate authorizes, but not the publication of J.R.R. Tolkien’s books.
This is pretty massive news for obvious reasons. Prior Lord of the Rings works including the video games and Peter Jackson’s iconic movies were just licensing the rights from the former owner, The Saul Zaentz Company. Now, however, Embracer owns it all.
That isn’t everything though! Embracer Group has also acquired Limited Run Games, the distributor of physical video games, focusing on limited edition releases. This has no immediate effect on the company, but it will be interesting to see what Embracer Group does with these rights in future. The CEO of Embracer Group, Lars Wingefors, considers himself an “avid collector”, so we’re sure to see plenty more collectors’ editions of physical games from Limited Run.
That’s all for now… is what we’d say if Embracer Group hadn’t also acquired Tripwire Interactive, Tuxedo Labs and Singtrix today too. Besides the latter which is vocal processing technology, Embracer Group is clearly serious about dominating the gaming industry in future. Tripwire Interactive are the developers of Killing Floor, and Tuxedo Labs are the developers of sandbox game Teardown.
Embracer Group made news just a few weeks ago for its purchase of Eidos-Montréal, Crystal Dynamics and Square Enix Montréal from Square Enix Holdings. This gave it the rights to Tomb Raider, Deus Ex, Thief, Legacy of Kain and more. Today’s announcements only add to this massive catalog of game rights they now own.
The press release page on Embracer Group’s website has more details should you wish to dive deeper into individual announcements. In total, today’s acquisitions cost $576 million. This includes a mystery acquisition, which is yet to be announced.
How do you feel about Embracer Group’s spending spree? Have you said your goodbyes to your families before Embracer Group acquires them too? Let us know in the comments below. For more gaming industry news, keep your eyes here on GameLuster, brought to you by Embracer Group. Eventually.
