Swedish gaming giant Embracer Group announced this week that it entered into an agreement to acquire Middle-earth Enterprises and with it the worldwide rights to motion pictures, video games, board games, and more in-relation to the iconic ”Lord of the Rings”/“Middle-earth” intellectual property by J.R.R. Tolkien. After making his excitement for the franchise known, Lars Wingefors, Founder and Group CEO of Embracer Group, goes on to state “…we also look forward to collaborating with existing and new external licensees of our increasingly stronger IP portfolio.” This statement and IP acquisition carry extra weight heading into September where Amazon is set to release the most expensive single season of a tv show ever made in “The Lord of the Rings: Rings of Power.”
In addition to this massive purchase, Embracer Group kept the train rolling with a handful more including Tripwire Interactive (Maneater, Killing Floor, etc.), Tuxedo Labs (Teardown), Singtrix (a variety of music-based titles), Bitwave (WunderlingDX, PictoParty), Gioteck (controllers and headsets) and last, but not least Limited Run Games (a publisher who publishes older games in new age collections). But wait…there’s more! Embracer concluded their spending spree with the hint of another acquisition announcement to come soon, stating, “Embracer has entered into agreement to acquire another company within PC/Console gaming that, for commercial reasons, is not disclosed today.” Embracer goes on to give one more slight hint, “The purchase price for this undisclosed acquisition is in the range of being among either third or fourth largest of the Transactions.”
While most of the video game world focuses on Microsoft’s proposed acquisition of Activision-Blizzard, Embracer Group has silently worked their way up to approximately 120 internal development studios with access to over 850 IP licenses/franchises to their name. Embracer currently has ~220 games in development and is in talks with additional studios for acquisition as well.
Image from: The Lord of the Rings
