Embracer Group has today announced its intention to split into three separate companies - 'Asmodee Group', 'Coffee Stain & Friends' and 'Middle-earth Enterprises & Friends'. The three companies will handle different aspects of Embracer's operations, as explained in a new blog post from the huge gaming entity.
Asmodee Group will handle the company's tabletop games and partnerships, Coffee Stain & Friends will be in charge of Embracer's "A/AA premium and free-to-play games for PC/console and mobile", while Middle-earth Enterprises & Friends will take charge of the team's "powerhouse in AAA game development and publishing for PC and console" - with the latter also becoming "the stewards of The Lord of the Rings and Tomb Raider intellectual properties".
"Following a careful and thorough review, it is the assessment of the Board of Directors that the current Group structure does not create optimal conditions for future value creation both for Embracer Group’s shareholders and other stakeholders.
To continue the transformation of Embracer Group into the future for the benefit of all employees, gamers and shareholders, the Board of Directors and the executive management have therefore decided to propose a separation of Embracer Group, creating three separate publicly listed entities: Asmodee, “Coffee Stain & Friends” and “Middle-earth Enterprises & Friends”."
For now, this whole split is Embracer's "intention", and the group will seemingly have to go through regulatory approval before all of this can be confirmed. If this all goes through, you can expect to hear from these three companies in future, rather than Embracer Group as a whole.
Embracer has gone through lots of change recently, including multiple rounds of significant layoffs, so we're not surprised to see a shake-up at the top level. Hopefully, if this split happens, it allows the team's operations to become more digestible, and ultimately, result in less turmoil for developers involved in creating Embracer games.