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98-796: Coffee Stain Studios AB is a Swedish video game developer based in Skövde . Founded in 2010 by nine University of Skövde students, the company is best known for Goat Simulator , which was released in April 2014, and Satisfactory , released in September 2024. Their parent holding company also operates Coffee Stain Publishing, a publisher , and majority-owns developers Coffee Stain North (formerly Gone North Games) and Lavapotion. In November 2018,

196-672: A $ 525 million to establish its fifth operative group. The holding raised $ 164 million in April 2020 for future expansion and bought Deca Games as its sixth operative group for €25 million in August 2020. In the same month, the Embracer Group announced the acquisitions of Palindrome Interactive, Rare Earth Games and Vermila Studios under Amplifier Game Invest, 4A Games and New World Interactive under Saber Interactive, Pow Wow Entertainment under THQ Nordic, and Sola Media under Koch Media's film division. By November,

294-593: A database , Voice over IP , or add-in interface software; this is also known as middleware . Examples of this include SpeedTree and Havoc . Independents are software developers which are not owned by (or dependent on) a single publisher. Some of these developers self-publish their games, relying on the Internet and word of mouth for publicity. Without the large marketing budgets of mainstream publishers, their products may receive less recognition than those of larger publishers such as Sony, Microsoft or Nintendo. With

392-500: A public company in 2016 and was renamed Embracer Group in 2019. Until 2023, Embracer Group rapidly grew through major acquisitions and investments. After a US$ 2 billion investment unexpectedly fell through, the company was more than $ 2 billion in debt and began closing and selling multiple studios and while laying off people at others. On 22 April 2024, Embracer Group announced its intention to transform into three standalone publicly listed entities on Nasdaq Stockholm within

490-602: A subsidiary that would act as the publishing entity within the Coffee Stain group. The first title to be released through Coffee Stain Publishing was Huntdown by Swedish development team Easy Trigger Games. The following day, Coffee Stain acquired a minority stake in Danish developer Ghost Ship Games , becoming the publisher of their upcoming game, Deep Rock Galactic . In April 2017, Coffee Stain also invested in newly founded, Gothenburg -based studio Lavapotion, gaining

588-562: A 50% ownership in the company. In February 2018, THQ Nordic acquired the Austrian multimedia company Koch Media , which operated the Deep Silver video game label, for €121 million . Koch Media was set to operate independently under THQ Nordic, separate from THQ Nordic GmbH. To better reflect its holding function and to avoid confusion between THQ Nordic and its Viennese office, THQ Nordic stated that it planned to rename itself in

686-452: A culture of "toxic geek masculinity" within the workplace. In addition, the conditions behind crunch time are far more discriminating towards women as this requires them to commit time exclusively to the company or to more personal activities like raising a family. These factors established conditions within some larger development studios where female developers have found themselves discriminated in workplace hiring and promotion, as well as

784-571: A first-party company. As a balance to not being able to release their game for other platforms, second-party developers are usually offered higher royalty rates than third-party developers. These studios may have exclusive publishing agreements (or other business relationships) with the platform holder, but maintain independence so that upon completion or termination of their contracts, they are able to continue developing games for other publishers if they choose to. For example, while HAL Laboratory initially began developing games on personal computers like

882-497: A five-year licensing agreement with Epic for their Unreal Engine 3 technology. Sanctum as a standalone game was released in April 2011, and was followed by a sequel, Sanctum 2 , in May 2013. In February 2014, Coffee Stain acquired the rights for I Love Strawberries from Atari and re-released the game for iOS with some improvements. Coffee Stain gained significant recognition with their April 2014 release of Goat Simulator . While

980-410: A fixed period and generally work similar hours as full-time staff members, assisting across all areas of video game development, but as contractors, do not get any benefits such as paid time-off or health care from the employer; they also are typically not credited on games that they work on for this reason. The practice itself is legal and common in other engineering and technology areas, and generally it

1078-403: A game on schedule. The complexity of workflow, reliance on third-party deliverables, and the intangibles of artistic and aesthetic demands in video game creation create difficulty in predicting milestones. The use of crunch time is also seen to be exploitative of the younger male-dominated workforce in video games, who have not had the time to establish a family and who were eager to advance within

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1176-406: A game's profits. Current examples of first-party studios include PlayStation Studios for Sony, and Xbox Game Studios for Microsoft Gaming . Second-party developer is a colloquial term often used by gaming enthusiasts and media to describe game studios that take development contracts from platform holders and develop games exclusive to that platform, i.e. a non-owned developer making games for

1274-491: A karaoke bar in Watford , England, Nordic Games Publishing assembled a song list for a prospective game and started producing what would later become We Sing . Around this time, Nordic Games Publishing also released Dance Party Club Hits , a dance game that came bundled with a dancing mat. In 2009, Nordic Games Publishing had a turnover of 50 million kr, of which 75% were accounted for by sales of We Sing . For 2010,

1372-717: A large-scale restructuring programme focused on cost reduction, comprising layoffs, studio closures and divestments, and project cancellations until March 2024. The company closed the THQ Nordic studio Campfire Cabal in June and the Gearbox studios Volition in August and Free Radical Design in December. Other studios were subject to layoffs. By November 2023, Embracer Group had laid off 904 employees, roughly 5% of its workforce, and cancelled at least fifteen projects. As such,

1470-555: A minority stake. A second studio, Stockholm -based Kavalri, was invested in under this programme in November 2019. The following day, Coffee Stain acquired a majority stake in Gone North Games, a Swedish developer that had developed Coffee Stain-published A Story About My Uncle and downloadable content for Goat Simulator . With the acquisition, Gone North Games was rebranded as Coffee Stain North. On 14 November 2018,

1568-642: A minority stake. In July 2017, Daniel Kaplan, the first employee of Swedish developer Mojang , left Mojang to join Coffee Stain Publishing. On 30 January 2018, Coffee Stain announced Levelling the Playing Field, a funding initiative aimed at small companies that employ at least as many women as men and require at most 1 million kr (about $ 127,000 ) in funding. Through this initiative, Coffee Stain invested in Danish developer Other Tales Interactive (a team of two women) in exchange for

1666-481: A new limited company and, together with potential customers acting as investors, reformed Nordic Games under the name Game Outlet Europe. The new company saw success with purchasing unsold inventory from larger video game companies (such as Electronic Arts ), repackaging them on pallets in its Karlstad headquarters, and selling them on the international market and through other retail chains, including Jula, Coop , and ICA . In December 2008, Nordic Games Publishing

1764-581: A new co-op action IP. In August 2022, as part of a large purchase of properties, Embracer was confirmed to have acquired a "secret developer" for $ 100 million which would transition under Coffee Stain. In December, it was revealed by several news outlets that the purchase was of the Roblox game developer Shortcake AB and their game "Welcome to Bloxburg " for $ 100 million, and renamed as Coffee Stain Gothenburg. The game's creator, Coeptus, officially confirmed

1862-566: A newly established subsidiary office in Vienna , Austria. Several former JoWooD employees were hired by Nordic Games GmbH to work on the backlog sales of former JoWooD properties, and Nordic Games Publishing was integrated into Nordic Games GmbH to facilitate publishing operations. Nordic Games Licensing AB, also established in 2011, became the holding company within Nordic Games Holding (later known as Nordic Games Group), as well as

1960-437: A position in a medium to large video game company. An experienced game-development employee, depending on their expertise and experience, averaged roughly $ 73,000 in 2007. Indie game developers may only earn between $ 10,000 and $ 50,000 a year depending on how financially successful their titles are. In addition to being part of the software industry, game development is also within the entertainment industry; most sectors of

2058-592: A roundtable discussion with the International Game Developers Association (IGDA), the professional association for developers. Statements made by the IGDA's current executive director Jen MacLean relating to IGDA's activities had been seen by as anti-union, and Game Workers Unite desired to start a conversation to lay out the need for developers to unionize. In the wake of the sudden near-closure of Telltale Games in September 2018,

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2156-407: A single publisher; one canceled game may devastate a small developer. Because of this, many small development companies are short-lived. A common exit strategy for a successful video game developer is to sell the company to a publisher, becoming an in-house developer. In-house development teams tend to have more freedom in game design and content than third-party developers. One reason is that since

2254-403: A strong STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) background for women at the secondary education level, but there are issues with tertiary education such as at colleges and universities, where game development programs tend to reflect the male-dominated demographics of the industry, a factor that may lead women with strong STEM backgrounds to choose other career goals. There

2352-646: A unique case where nearly all parts of its labor force, including white-collar jobs such as video game development, may engage with labor unions under the Employment Protection Act often through collective bargaining agreements. Developer DICE had reached its union agreements in 2004. Paradox Interactive became one of the first major publishers to support unionization efforts in June 2020 with its own agreements to cover its Swedish employees within two labor unions Unionen and SACO . In Australia, video game developers could join other unions, but

2450-482: Is also a significant gap in racial minorities within the video game industry; a 2019 IGDA survey found only 2% of developers considered themselves to be of African descent and 7% Hispanic, while 81% were Caucasian; in contrast, 2018 estimates from the United States Census estimate the U.S. population to be 13% of African descent and 18% Hispanic. In a 2014 and 2015 survey of job positions and salaries,

2548-449: Is expected that this is meant to lead into a full-time position, or otherwise the end of the contract. But more recently, its use in the video game industry has been compared to Microsoft 's past use of " permatemp ", contract workers that were continually renewed and treated for all purposes as employees but received no benefits. While Microsoft has waned from the practice, the video game industry has adapted it more frequently. Around 10% of

2646-533: Is generally illegal, companies often target their oldest workers first during layoffs or other periods of reduction. Older developers with experience may find themselves too qualified for the types of positions that other game development companies seek given the salaries and compensations offered. Some of the larger video game developers and publishers have also engaged contract workers through agencies to help add manpower in game development in part to alleviate crunch time from employees. Contractors are brought on for

2744-494: Is still their primary activity they are generally described as "publishers" rather than "developers". Developers may be private as well. In the video game industry , a first-party developer is part of a company that manufactures a video game console and develops mainly for it. First-party developers may use the name of the company itself (such as Nintendo ), have a specific division name (such as Sony's Polyphony Digital ) or have been an independent studio before being acquired by

2842-474: Is usually conducted in a casual business environment, with t-shirts and sandals as common work attire. Many workers find this type of environment rewarding and pleasant professionally and personally. However, the industry also requires long working hours from its employees (sometimes to an extent seen as unsustainable). Employee burnout is not uncommon. An entry-level programmer can make, on average, over $ 66,000 annually only if they are successful in obtaining

2940-659: The AFL–CIO writing an open letter to video game developers encouraging them to unionize. In January 2020, Game Workers Unite and the Communications Workers of America established a new campaign to push for unionization of video game developers, the Campaign to Organize Digital Employees (CODE), in January 2020. Initial efforts for CODE were aimed to determine what approach to unionization would be best suited for

3038-456: The International Game Developers Association (IGDA), are conducting increasing discussions about the problem; they are concerned that working conditions in the industry cause a significant deterioration in employees' quality of life. Some video game developers and publishers have been accused of the excessive invocation of "crunch time". "Crunch time" is the point at which the team is thought to be failing to achieve milestones needed to launch

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3136-516: The MSX , they became one of the earliest second-party developers for Nintendo, developing exclusively for Nintendo's consoles starting with the Famicom, though they would self-publish their mobile games. A third-party developer may also publish games, or work for a video game publisher to develop a title. Both publisher and developer have considerable input in the game's design and content. However,

3234-528: The Me Too movement and have tried to address the symptoms of these problems industry-wide, the video game industry has yet to have its Me Too-moment, even as late as 2021. There also tends to be pay-related discrimination against women in the industry. According to Gamasutra 's Game Developer Salary Survey 2014, women in the United States made 86 cents for every dollar men made. Game designing women had

3332-504: The Screen Actors Guild‐American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (SAG-AFTRA) union doing work for video games struck several major publishers, demanding better royalty payments and provisions related to the safety of their vocal performances, when their union's standard contract was up for renewal. The voice actor strike lasted for over 300 days into 2017 before a new deal was made between SAG-AFTRA and

3430-422: The dot-com bubble burst, Gameplay.com faced financial issues, and Nordic Games was sold back to Wingefors in May 2001 for a symbolic sum of 1 kr (at the time equivalent to £0.07 ). Wingefors brought in venture capitalists and reformed the company to only sell newly released games, but the company faced strong competition and finally filed for bankruptcy in 2004. Wingefors invested the money he had left into

3528-786: The video game industry . He told the Los Angeles Times : "Someone who was part of the co-creation of that world and those characters isn't getting a credit or a nickel for the work they put into it. Maybe we need unions in the video game industry to be able to protect creators." Embracer Group Embracer Group AB (formerly Nordic Games Licensing AB and THQ Nordic AB ) is a Swedish video game and media holding company based in Karlstad . The company comprises 9 operative groups: Amplifier Game Invest, Asmodee , CDE Entertainment, Coffee Stain , Dark Horse Media, Deca Games , Freemode, Plaion , and THQ Nordic . Embracer Group

3626-563: The 40% stake in Coffee Stain North from their founders and transition it to a fully-owned subsidiary of Coffee Stain. In August 2021, Embracer Group acquired Ghost Ship Games and Easy Trigger, having them both be under the umbrella of Coffee Stain Holding. In March 2022, Coffee Stain announced that they had partnered with Rare Earth Games, an Austrian developer owned by Coffee Stain's sister company Amplifier Game Invest, to publish

3724-437: The Coffee Stain group of companies and its intellectual property were acquired by Swedish holding company THQ Nordic AB (later known as Embracer Group ) for 317 million kr (about $ 34.9 million ), with the potential of additional payouts should they reach certain milestones. Coffee Stain continues to operate independently within Embracer Group, with Coffee Stain co-founder Westbergh remaining chief executive officer . At

3822-521: The Coffee Stain group was acquired by THQ Nordic AB (later known as Embracer Group ). Coffee Stain Studios was founded in 2010 in Skövde, Sweden , by a group of nine students at the University of Skövde : Anton Westbergh, Johannes Aspeby, Mikael Mård, Oscar Jilsén, Gustaf Tivander, Daniel Lundwall, Markus Rännare, Joakim Sjöö and Stefan Hanna. Their first game, I Love Strawberries , was released at

3920-446: The IGDA found that people of color were both underrepresented in senior management roles as well as underpaid in comparison to white developers. Further, because video game developers typically draw from personal experiences in building game characters, this diversity gap has led to few characters of racial minority to be featured as main characters within video games. Minority developers have also been harassed from external groups due to

4018-604: The Year. In February 2019, THQ Nordic issued 11 million new Class B shares and raised 2.09 billion kr. At the end of its first fiscal quarter of 2019, THQ Nordic bought Game Outlet Europe for 10 million kr from Nordic Games Group, which was still majority-owned by Wingefors. THQ Nordic then bought the investment arm of Goodbye Kansas, Goodbye Kansas Game Invest (GKGI), and its investments in five startup developers—Palindrome Interactive, Fall Damage, Neon Giant, Kavalri Games and Framebunker—for 42.4 million kr. GKGI

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4116-535: The acquisition of Activision Blizzard , stated it supported these unionization efforts. After this acquisition, the employees of Bethesda Game Studios , part of Zenimax under Microsoft, unionized under the Communications Workers of America (CWA) in July 2024. Over 500 employees within Blizzard Entertainment 's World of Warcraft division also unionized with CWA that same month. Sweden presents

4214-572: The advent of digital distribution of inexpensive games on game consoles, it is now possible for indie game developers to forge agreements with console manufacturers for broad distribution of their games. Other indie game developers create game software for a number of video-game publishers on several gaming platforms. In recent years this model has been in decline; larger publishers, such as Electronic Arts and Activision, increasingly turn to internal studios (usually former independent developers acquired for their development needs). Video game development

4312-459: The chief executive officer of THQ Nordic, the large number of acquisitions represented a portfolio diversification that contrasted the reliance of larger publishers like Electronic Arts on a few keystone titles. Embracer Group announced three major acquisitions in February 2021: Gearbox Entertainment (including Gearbox Software ) for $ 1.3 billion and Easybrain for $ 640 million as

4410-431: The closest equity, making 96 cents for every dollar men made in the same job, while audio professional women had the largest gap, making 68% of what men in the same position made. Increasing the representation of women in the video game industry required breaking a feedback loop of the apparent lack of female representation in the production of video games and in the content of video games. Efforts have been made to provide

4508-518: The company announced that a $ 2 billion investment deal, which had been verbally agreed on in October 2022, had unexpectedly failed to materialise as the investing partner walked away from the deal after protracted negotiations. Shortly following the announcement, the company's shares fell by 40%. According to Axios , this partner was Savvy Games Group. Embracer Group consequently announced in June 2023 that it would immediately begin implementing

4606-474: The company generated 5 million kr in revenue. With growing income throughout the 1990s, Nordic Games was turned into a retail chain and opened seven locations across Sweden. The company also acquired the store Spel- & Tele shopen in Linköping that Pelle Lundborg had opened four years earlier. Towards the end of the 1990s, Nordic Games was suffering from a poor corporate structure. Although Wingefors

4704-420: The company had also purchased 34BigThings, Mad Head Games , Nimble Giant Entertainment , Sandbox Strategies, Snapshot Games and Zen Studios via Saber Interactive, A Thinking Ape Entertainment and IUGO Mobile Entertainment via Deca Games, Flying Wild Hog via Koch Media, Purple Lamp Studios via THQ Nordic, Silent Games via Amplifier Game Invest, as well as Quantic Lab directly. According to Klemens Kreuzer,

4802-558: The company had reduced its debt from $ 2 billion to $ 1.5 billion , though warned that further layoffs and studio closures were likely. In February 2024, it was reported that Embracer Group was finalising the sales of Saber Interactive and Gearbox Entertainment. The sale of Saber Interactive was announced in March 2024. Beacon Interactive, a company owned by Saber Interactive's co-founder Matthew Karch, bought Saber Interactive for $ 247 million alongside its satellite studios and

4900-516: The company projected a turnover of 200 million kr, while at the same time, Lundborg was looking for new investors to make the company independent of Game Outlet Europe. By March 2011, Nordic Games Holding had been established as a holding company , with Game Outlet Europe and Nordic Games Publishing aligned as its subsidiaries. In June 2011, Nordic Games Holding acquired the assets of the insolvent publisher JoWooD and its subsidiaries. The acquired assets were transferred to Nordic Games GmbH ,

4998-416: The console manufacturer (such as Rare or Naughty Dog ). Whether by purchasing an independent studio or by founding a new team, the acquisition of a first-party developer involves a huge financial investment on the part of the console manufacturer, which is wasted if the developer fails to produce a hit game on time. However, using first-party developers saves the cost of having to make royalty payments on

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5096-508: The console. This established the use of licensing fees as a model for third-party development that persists into the present. The licensing fee approach was further enforced by Nintendo when it decided to allow other third-party developers to make games for the Famicom console, setting a 30% licensing fee that covered game cartridge manufacturing costs and development fees. The 30% licensing fee for third-party developers has also persisted to

5194-444: The developer if the game is not meeting expectations. When each milestone is completed (and accepted), the publisher pays the developer an advance on royalties . Successful developers may maintain several teams working on different games for different publishers. Generally, however, third-party developers tend to be small, close-knit teams. Third-party game development is a volatile sector, since small developers may depend on income from

5292-417: The developers are the publisher's employees, their interests align with those of the publisher; the publisher may spend less effort ensuring that the developer's decisions do not enrich the developer at the publisher's expense. Activision in 1979 became the first third-party video game developer. When four Atari, Inc. programmers left the company following its sale to Warner Communications , partially over

5390-421: The development of games that would fill gaps in the video game market. Wingefors and Lundborg had noticed that the line-up of games for Nintendo platforms was lacking karaoke games similar to SingStar , which was exclusive to PlayStation consoles. Based on 100-page requirement documents from Nintendo, which included that the game's microphones should be produced by Logitech , and four months of research at

5488-475: The end of that year for iOS by Atari . In 2010, Coffee Stain participated in "Make Something Unreal", a modding competition for Unreal Tournament 3 held by Epic Games and Intel , with their mod, Sanctum . The mod was received well, leading Coffee Stain to adopt the Unreal Development Kit to develop Sanctum into a standalone game. In March the following year, the company struck

5586-467: The entertainment industry (such as films and television ) require long working hours and dedication from their employees, such as willingness to relocate and/or required to develop games that do not appeal to their personal taste. The creative rewards of work in the entertainment business attracts labor to the industry, creating a competitive labor market that demands a high level of commitment and performance from employees. Industry communities, such as

5684-516: The first video game-specific union, Game Workers Unite Australia, was formed in December 2021 under Professionals Australia to become active in 2022. In Canada, in a historic move, video game workers in Edmonton unanimously voted to unionize for the first time in June 2022. In January 2023, after not being credited in The Last of Us HBO adaptation, Bruce Straley called for unionization of

5782-470: The future, but this option was cancelled on September 13, 2024. The divestiture also comprised 2,950 employees (21% of Embracer Group's workforce), including all staff in Russia. According to Jason Schreier of Bloomberg News , Beacon Interactive plans to exercise its option for a combined purchase price of $ 500 million . In March 2024, Take-Two Interactive acquired Gearbox Entertainment, which

5880-600: The future. In June 2018, the company issued 7.7 million new Class B shares to raise US$ 168 million for future acquisitions. The company bought the Coffee Stain group, including houses developer Coffee Stain Studios , for 317 million kr in cash. Coffee Stain became THQ Nordic's "third leg", operating independently like Koch Media. Through the two acquisitions and continued sales from THQ Nordic GmbH, THQ Nordic's net sales rose by 713%, to $ 447.6 million , in its 2018 fiscal year . In December 2018, GamesIndustry.biz named Wingefors as one of their People of

5978-404: The gaming industry, while a 2017 IGDA survey found that the female demographic in game development had risen to about 20%. Taking into account that a 2017 ESA survey found 41% of video game players were female, this represented a significant gender gap in game development. The male-dominated industry, most who have grown up playing video games and are part of the video game culture , can create

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6076-457: The industry by working long hours. Because crunch time tends to come from a combination of corporate practices as well as peer influence, the term "crunch culture" is often used to discuss video game development settings where crunch time may be seen as the norm rather than the exception. The use of crunch time as a workplace standard gained attention first in 2004, when Erin Hoffman exposed

6174-431: The lack of respect that the new management gave to programmers, they used their knowledge of how Atari VCS game cartridges were programmed to create their own games for the system, founding Activision in 1979 to sell these. Atari took legal action to try to block the sale of these games, but the companies ultimately settled, with Activision agreeing to pay a portion of their sales as a license fee to Atari for developing for

6272-559: The movement again called out for the industry to unionize. The movement argued that Telltale had not given any warning to its 250 employees let go, having hired additional staff as recently as a week prior, and left them without pensions or health-care options; it was further argued that the studio considered this a closure rather than layoffs, as to get around failure to notify required by the Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act of 1988 preceding layoffs. The situation

6370-501: The name change was undergone to capitalise on the good reputation of THQ's past, although they avoided naming the companies just "THQ" to avoid connections to the bankrupt publisher's more recent troubled history. THQ Nordic undertook its initial public offering on 22 November 2016 and became a public company listed on the Nasdaq First North stock exchange, being valuated at 1.9 billion kr, while Wingefors retained

6468-448: The nature of the video game culture. The industry also is recognized to have an ageism issue, discriminating against the hiring and retention of older developers. A 2016 IGDA survey found only 3% of developers were over 50 years old, while at least two-thirds were between 20 and 34; these numbers show a far lower average age compared to the U.S. national average of about 41.9 that same year. While discrimination by age in hiring practices

6566-886: The new partnership in January 2023. Ghost Ship Holding, the holding business for developer Ghost Ship Games, was acquired by Embracer Group in August 2021 and placed under Coffee Stain Holding. It operates as a separate subsidiary. Video game developer A developer may specialize in specific game engines or specific video game consoles , or may develop for several systems (including personal computers and mobile devices ). Some focus on porting games from one system to another, or translating games from one language to another. Less commonly, some do software development work in addition to games. Most video game publishers maintain development studios (such as Electronic Arts 's EA Canada , Square Enix 's studios, Activision 's Radical Entertainment , Nintendo EPD and Sony's Polyphony Digital and Naughty Dog ). However, since publishing

6664-652: The newly purchased Bitwave Games, Clear River Games, Gioteck, and Tatsujin. The latter was subsequently expanded with the acquisitions of Limited Run Games , Singtrix, and Middle-earth Enterprises , which owns the media rights for The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit . Savvy Gaming Group (later Savvy Games Group ), a company wholly owned by Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund , invested about $ 1 billion into Embracer Group in June 2022, gaining an 8.1% stake. Embracer Group transitioned from Nasdaq First North to Nasdaq Stockholm on 22 December 2022. In May 2023,

6762-540: The news, there have typically been followup discussions towards the potential to form a union. A survey performed by the International Game Developers Association in 2014 found that more than half of the 2,200 developers surveyed favored unionization. A similar survey of over 4,000 game developers run by the Game Developers Conference in early 2019 found that 47% of respondents felt the video game industry should unionize. In 2016, voice actors in

6860-438: The next two years. The "Middle-earth Enterprises & Friends", a placeholder name and the legal successor to Embracer Group, will be used for triple-A game development and publishing for its major IP properties, and will include Crystal Dynamics, Dambuster, Eidos Montreal, Flying Wild Hog, Tripwire, Vertigo Games, Warhorse Studios and 4A Games, as well as publishers Plaion, Dark Horse Comics, and Freemode. The Asmodee Group will be

6958-591: The next two years: a board game segment under the Asmodee group, an indie games segment under Coffee Stain Publishing, and a segment to manage its library of licensed intellectual properties include that of Tolkien's Middle Earth . The Swedish entrepreneur Lars Wingefors started several sales businesses during his teenage years, including the second-hand comic book seller LW Comics at age 13, which made close to 300,000 kr annually. At age 16, Wingefors founded Nordic Games to sell used video games. In its first year,

7056-479: The parent company of Nordic Games GmbH. In April 2013, Nordic Games Licensing bought several assets of the bankrupt publisher THQ to be managed by Nordic Games GmbH. It obtained the "THQ" trademark in June 2014, intending to use the name as a publishing label for its THQ properties. Subsequently, in August 2016, the company changed its name to THQ Nordic, while Nordic Games GmbH became THQ Nordic GmbH. According to Wingefors and THQ Nordic GmbH's Reinhard Pollice,

7154-694: The present, being a de facto rate used for most digital storefronts for third-party developers to offer their games on the platform. In recent years, larger publishers have acquired several third-party developers. While these development teams are now technically "in-house", they often continue to operate in an autonomous manner (with their own culture and work practices). For example, Activision acquired Raven (1997); Neversoft (1999), which merged with Infinity Ward in 2014; Z-Axis (2001); Treyarch (2001); Luxoflux (2002); Shaba (2002); Infinity Ward (2003) and Vicarious Visions (2005). All these developers continue operating much as they did before acquisition,

7252-414: The primary differences being exclusivity and financial details. Publishers tend to be more forgiving of their own development teams going over budget (or missing deadlines) than third-party developers. A developer may not be the primary entity creating a piece of software, usually providing an external software tool which helps organize (or use) information for the primary software product. Such tools may be

7350-405: The publisher of board and card games from Asmodee and its studios. "Coffee Stain & Friends", a placeholder name, will include the indie game publishers and studios, including Coffee Stain, THQ Nordic, Ghost Ship, Tuxedo Labs, Tarsier, and Amplifier Game Invest. The latter two companies are expected to be split off within 2025. Wingefors will own all three companies and remain as the group CEO once

7448-429: The publisher's wishes generally override those of the developer. Work for hire studios solely execute the publishers vision. The business arrangement between the developer and publisher is governed by a contract, which specifies a list of milestones intended to be delivered over a period of time. By updating its milestones, the publisher verifies that work is progressing quickly enough to meet its deadline and can direct

7546-415: The publishers. While this had some effects on a few games within the industry, it brought to the forefront the question of whether video game developers should unionize. A grassroots movement, Game Workers Unite , was established around 2017 to discuss and debate issues related to unionization of game developers. The group came to the forefront during the March 2018 Game Developers Conference by holding

7644-621: The same month, Embracer Group announced its tenth operative group with the acquisition of Dark Horse Media, the parent company of Dark Horse Comics and Dark Horse Entertainment , and Gearbox Entertainment purchased Perfect World Entertainment , including Cryptic Studios , for $ 125 million . In May 2022, Square Enix and Embracer Group entered into an agreement for the latter to purchase Crystal Dynamics , Eidos-Montréal , and Square Enix Montreal , alongside intellectual properties like Tomb Raider , Deus Ex , Thief , and Legacy of Kain , for $ 300 million . The acquisition

7742-866: The seventh and eighth operative groups, as well as Aspyr (under Saber Interactive) for $ 450 million . These acquisitions were completed by April 2021. Embracer Group began issuing additional stock in March 2021 and raised another $ 890 million to further its acquisition strategies. That year, the company also bought 3D Realms , Demiurge Studios , Fractured Byte, Slipgate Ironworks and SmartPhone Labs through Saber Interactive, Appeal Studios, Kaiko and Massive Miniteam through THQ Nordic, Frame Break through Amplifier Game Invest, CrazyLabs through Deca Games, Ghost Ship Games and Easy Trigger Games through Coffee Stain, DigixArt through Koch Media, as well as Grimfrost directly. Asmodee , which principally distributed board games, became Embracer Group's ninth operative group for €2.75 billion in December 2021. In

7840-618: The splits are complete. In May 2024, Nintendo announced their acquisition of Shiver Entertainment from Embracer, subject to closing conditions. In June 2024, Embracer closed Alone in the Dark (2024) developer Pieces Interactive following the game's disappointing performance. In July, it was reported that Piranha Bytes was quietly shuttered at the end of June. In November 2024, Embracer said that they had reduced their number of employees from 15,701 to 10,450. That same month, they announced that they would divest Easybrain to Miniclip for

7938-468: The structuring had led to the loss of 4532 employees, the closure of 44 studios, and cancellation of 80 in-development projects, including new DeusEx , TimeSplitters and Red Faction games. Despite these steps, the company still faced $ 1.5 billion in debt. In April 2024, Embracer Group announced that it would split up into three separate publicly-traded companies on the Swedish stock market within

8036-524: The subsidiaries 3D Realms, Bytex, Digic Pictures , Fractured Byte, Mad Head Games , New World Interactive, Nimble Giant Entertainment, Sandbox Strategies, Slipgate Ironworks, SmartPhone Labs, and Stuntworks. 34BigThings, 4A Games, Aspyr, Beamdog , Demiurge Studios, Shiver Entertainment, Snapshot Games, Tripwire Interactive , Tuxedo Labs , and Zen Studios remained with Embracer Group, to be integrated with other operative groups, although Beacon Interactive received an option to acquire 4A Games and Zen Studios in

8134-545: The target of sexual harassment. This can be coupled from similar harassment from external groups, such as during the 2014 Gamergate controversy . Major investigations into allegations of sexual harassment and misconduct that went unchecked by management, as well as discrimination by employers, have been brought up against Riot Games , Ubisoft and Activision Blizzard in the late 2010s and early 2020s, alongside smaller studios and individual developers. However, while other entertainment industries have had similar exposure through

8232-435: The time, the Coffee Stain group had 45 employees, of which Coffee Stain Studios employed 24. This number rose to 25 by August 2019. Coffee Stain expanded Levelling the Playing Field in September 2020 to cover teams including racially and ethnically diverse people, women and non-binary people . Happy Broccoli Games became the third investment under this initiative. On November 18, 2020, Embracer announced they would purchase out

8330-454: The title received mixed critical reviews, as it was released in a purposely buggy state to take advantage of its ragdoll physics , it became highly successful through Let's Play videos and live streamers . By August 2014, Goat Simulator had outperformed all sales of the studio's previous games combined, and had generated over US$ 12 million in revenue by March 2016. On 23 February 2017, Coffee Stain announced Coffee Stain Publishing,

8428-484: The toxic nature of the video game culture. This racial diversity issue has similar ties to the gender one, and similar methods to result both have been suggested, such as improving grade school education, developing games that appeal beyond the white, male gamer stereotype, and identifying toxic behavior in both video game workplaces and online communities that perpetuate discrimination against gender and race. In regards to LGBT and other gender or sexual orientations,

8526-487: The use of crunch time at Electronic Arts , a situation known as the "EA Spouses" case. A similar "Rockstar Spouses" case gained further attention in 2010 over working conditions at Rockstar San Diego . Since then, there has generally been negative perception of crunch time from most of the industry as well as from its consumers and other media. Game development had generally been a predominately male workforce. In 1989, according to Variety , women constituted only 3% of

8624-508: The video game industry typically shares the same demographics as with the larger population based on a 2005 IGDA survey. Those in the LGBT community do not find workplace issues with their identity, though work to improve the representation of LGBT themes within video games in the same manner as with racial minorities. However, LGBT developers have also come under the same type of harassment from external groups like women and racial minorities due to

8722-678: The video game industry. Whereas some video game employees believe they should follow the craft-based model used by SAG-AFTRA which would unionize based on job function, others feel an industry-wide union, regardless of job position, would be better. Starting in 2021, several smaller game studios in the United States began efforts to unionize. These mostly involved teams doing quality assurance rather than developers. These studios included three QA studios under Blizzard Entertainment : Raven Software , Blizzard Albany , and Proletariat; and Zenimax Media 's QA team. Microsoft , which had previously acquired Zenimax and announced plans to acquire Blizzard via

8820-504: The workforce in video games is estimated to be from contract labor. Similar to other tech industries, video game developers are typically not unionized . This is a result of the industry being driven more by creativity and innovation rather than production, the lack of distinction between management and employees in the white-collar area, and the pace at which the industry moves that makes union actions difficult to plan out. However, when situations related to crunch time become prevalent in

8918-668: Was argued to be "exploitive", as Telltale had been known to force its employees to frequently work under "crunch time" to deliver its games. By the end of 2018, a United Kingdom trade union, Game Workers Unite UK, an affiliate of the Game Workers Unite movement, had been legally established. Following Activision Blizzard 's financial report for the previous quarter in February 2019, the company said that they would be laying off around 775 employees (about 8% of their workforce) despite having record profits for that quarter. Further calls for unionization came from this news, including

9016-442: Was asked to either seek new partners or bring in venture capital , he opted to sell the company to Gameplay Stockholm, the Swedish subsidiary of Europe-wide retailer Gameplay.com , in March 2000 for stock valued at £5.96 million . Under Gameplay.com, Nordic Games failed to generate much revenue. It tried to establish mobile game , digital distribution and cable TV box businesses, all of which did not gain traction. When

9114-496: Was closed by August 2022 and the assets transferred to CDE Entertainment. Square Enix Montréal was briefly rebranded as Onoma but closed in November 2022 in a cost reduction measure. Additionally, Embracer Group created the Embracer Group Archive video game preservation effort in May and established its eleventh operative group, Freemode, from C77 Entertainment, Game Outlet Europe, Grimfrost, Quantic Lab, and

9212-615: Was established as Nordic Games Licensing within Nordic Games Group in 2011. The latter had previously purchased assets from the bankrupt publisher JoWooD and established Nordic Games GmbH (a subsidiary of Nordic Games Licensing) to manage them. Nordic Games Licensing continued to purchase intellectual property from defunct publishers, notably several THQ products in 2013, followed by the "THQ" trademark in 2014. In August 2016, Nordic Games Licensing and Nordic Games GmbH changed their names to THQ Nordic. The parent company became

9310-519: Was established as the video game publishing subsidiary of Game Outlet Europe. The subsidiary started out with seven people, including primary shareholder Wingefors, based in Karlstad, and chief executive officer Lundborg, who had since moved to Málaga with his wife. Nik Blower in London was added to the management team in February 2010. The idea behind Nordic Games Publishing was to invest in

9408-696: Was later rebranded Amplifier Game Invest to reflect its new ownership. To avoid further confusion with THQ Nordic GmbH and clarify its position as a holding company, THQ Nordic assumed the name "Embracer Group" at its annual general meeting on 17 September 2019, while the branch in Vienna retained its name. In the following months, Embracer made several acquisitions and openings: Amplifier Game Invest bought Tarsier Studios for 99 million kr. in December 2019 and opened River End Games and C77 Entertainment in January 2020. Embracer Group acquired Saber Interactive and its five satellite studios in February 2020 for

9506-508: Was moved under the 2K label. After the sale closed, Gearbox Entertainment retained Gearbox Software, Gearbox Publishing, Gearbox Studio Montreal, Gearbox Studio Quebec, Gearbox Properties and the Borderlands , Homeworld , Risk of Rain , Brothers in Arms and Duke Nukem franchises, while Embracer Group retained Gearbox Publishing San Francisco (including Gearbox Shanghai), which

9604-471: Was renamed Arc Games; Cryptic Studios ; Lost Boys Interactive; and Captured Dimensions alongside several titles. Retained companies were integrated into other parts of Embracer Group. With the sale of Gearbox, Embracer CEO Lars Wingefors stated that the company restructuring was complete, and had no short term plans to restart mergers or acquisitions, instead focusing on "simply making better products and games" to improve cash flow. From June 2023 to May 2024,

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