Take-Two is buying ‘Borderlands’ developer Gearbox for $460 million

After several weeks of rumors of a sale transmission the Embracer Group recently confirmed the purchase of the developer from Take-Two, the parent company of Rockstar Games, for $460 million.

Maybe Gearbox is feeling relieved after seeing that they have a new home, as Embracer Group, the Swedish company formerly known as THQ Nordic, is apparently going through a serious crisis due to a series of devastating operations. He actually owns it Embracer Group acquired Gearbox three years ago for $1.3 billion and spent another three hundred million on the acquisition of Crystal Dynamics, Eidos-Montréal and Square Enix Montréal, which were under Square-Enix until 2022.

Without excluding other factors, it seems that the fact that a large part of Embracer Group’s acquisitions were made using the bubble of the COVID-19 pandemic ultimately caused the failure of most of them, although we also have to account for the questionable quality of some of the products launched. That was the case with the last one Saints Row, which was a commercial failure after the game was highly regarded by critics and the public. This led to the closure of Volition, the developer responsible for the investigation period since its inception in 2006.

Embracer Group sold Gearbox for less than half the price it paid to acquire the developer at the time, but that’s because it didn’t get rid of everything. Take-Two took over the Gearbox studios located in Quebec, Montreal and Texas The Swedish company has retained Gearbox Publishing San Francisco, which will be renamed due to intellectual property issues, in addition to Cryptic Studios, Lost Boys Interactive, the soul-like shooter franchise. Residue, Hyper Light Breaker and other titles that have not been announced.

Take-Two, for its part, followed suit with its two-title version Bordertwo titles Homeworld and “at least one interesting new intellectual property” currently in development. These projects will continue to be led by Gearbox CEO Randy Pitchford within Take-Two’s 2K division.

In addition to closing Volition and selling Gearbox, Embracer Group sold Saber Group to a company called Beacon Interactive for $247 million and laid off employees at Lost Boys Interactive and Eidos Montreal, both of which have been done so far. 2024.