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Embracer says it has left rumoured Savvy deal behind

Embracer says it has left rumoured Savvy deal behind

Swedish games firm Embracer Group has said it is moving on from the collapsed $2 billion partnership it announced at back in May.

Speaking to investors, CEO Lars Wingefors (pictured) said that he would not be commenting on who the partner was in the wake of reporting that said it was Saudi Arabia's Savvy Games Group. The exec said that the deal fell apart because this mysterious partner wanted to do something in the future, but not at the time.

"You don't comment on business partnerships unless both partners would like to do that," Wingefors said.

"But again, as stated, when announcing the news last quarter, the background given to us why the partnership didn't happen was not because of the terms or the pipeline of games. It was more, 'Yes, they would like to do something in the future, but not now,' which became a 'no' for us."

Pressed for further details about the deal, Wingefors said that these kinds of large strategic partnerships are "still valid" despite the aforementioned deal not coming to fruition.

"We do that with industry partners already today, but this was on the greater scale and Embracer again, being the only company with such a broad pipeline, including a significant priority of IPs, well-known IPs, licensed IPs, I think it's a very interesting proposal for players," he said.

"Now that's history. Now we have taken control in our own hands. We are adapting, adjusting, and we have left this behind us. I personally have done a lot of learnings, and it's been, I have to say, painful. But as an entrepreneur, you learn as you go."


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PCGamesInsider Contributing Editor

Alex Calvin is a freelance journalist who writes about the business of games. He started out at UK trade paper MCV in 2013 and left as deputy editor over three years later. In June 2017, he joined Steel Media as the editor for new site PCGamesInsider.biz. In October 2019 he left this full-time position at the company but still contributes to the site on a daily basis. He has also written for GamesIndustry.biz, VGC, Games London, The Observer/Guardian and Esquire UK.