Embracer Group Acquires Limited Run Games, Tripwire Interactive, and More - News

Limited Run is the global leading brand within its nische/business, a premium publisher of physical games founded in 2015 by Josh Fairhurst (CEO) and Douglas Bogart (COO). The company is based in North Carolina, USA, and employs 69 persons. In an increasingly digital world, Limited Run has become the preferred partner for physical releases and lives by the motto: Forever Physical. Since its inception Limited Run has published over 1,000 digital games to physical release. Partners include niche indie studios as well as major publishers.

Limited Run is well-known for its collector's editions and operates a direct-to-consumer model with a big loyal audience of collectors. The company evolved its business model with vinyl records and other merchandise, and distributed titles helping other publishers bring physical versions of their games to market through the Limited Run site and retailers.

Tripwire Interactive

Embracer Group through its wholly owned subsidiary Saber Interactive, has entered into an agreement to acquire 100 percent of the shares of award-winning US developer and publisher Tripwire Interactive from its four current owners. Tripwire Interactive is well-known for the Killing Floor and Rising Storm series and their recent best-seller Maneater, as well as their publishing division Tripwire Presents.

"Tripwire is a unique studio. Since their founding in 2005, they have grown, through tremendous leadership and vision, into one of the last great independent developers. I have looked up to Tripwire as an example of how to design and execute on games. Saber has Tripwire to thank for many of our own successes and I am proud to welcome them into our family," said Matthew Karch, CEO of Saber Interactive.

Founded in 2005 in Roswell, GA, Tripwire has continually developed successful titles, with the Killing Floor series boasting over 35 million players, Rising Storm series over 14 million players and Maneater over 16 million players. Their publishing division, Tripwire Presents, continues to be a major growth area that has strong partnerships with various developers. They recently launched Chivalry 2 which has sold over 2 million units and upcoming titles include Espire 2 (VR) and Deceive Inc. The company has today grown to 113 employees in its Georgia office.

Co-founder and CEO Alan Wilson will stay on in his role and continue to run Tripwire along with Bill Munk, Co-founder and Lead Combat Designer, and David Hensley, Design Director. Co-Founder John Gibson will be pursuing opportunities outside of Tripwire.

The acquisition adds an extremely experienced development group with its collection of four strong franchises: Maneater, Killing Floor, Rising Storm, and Red Orchestra. The group has an exciting AAA title in production, as well as a rapidly-growing publishing division.

Within the Embracer Group, Tripwire Interactive will operate as a subsidiary under the Saber Interactive operative group. Post transaction business will remain as usual with the team focused on developing future projects.

Tuxedo Labs

Embracer Group AB ("Embracer"), through its wholly owned subsidiary Saber Interactive[1], has acquired 100 percent of the shares of Swedish developer Tuxedo Labs. Tuxedo Labs is best known for creating the hit voxel-based destruction PC game Teardown. Embracer adds Dennis Gustafsson, Tuxedo Labs' founder and CTO, who is a highly technical visionary with a specialty in physics, and his team of 5.

"Tuxedo Labs has created revolutionary technology that opens up vast possibilities for emergent gameplay and user-created content. Their hit title Teardown has the potential to become the standard-bearing platform for physics simulation in games. Many of us at Saber and our subsidiary 3D Realms have worked with Dennis since the mid-2000's. We are super excited to welcome Dennis, their CEO Marcus Dawson, and the rest of the Tuxedo Labs team into the Embracer family," said Matthew Karch, CEO of Saber Interactive.

 

"This is a perfect fit for us because of our shared interests in physics-driven game design and Saber's resources to help us achieve our long-term vision. We will now be able to rapidly expand and accelerate our plans for Teardown, including bringing it to new audiences, while simultaneously focusing on evolving voxel-based technology for our next generation of games," said Dennis Gustafsson, founder of Tuxedo Labs.

Founded in 2019 in Malmo, Sweden, Tuxedo Labs has six team members led by Dennis Gustafsson, a highly-technical visionary. Their first title, Teardown, has received universal critical acclaim since its initial release in Steam Early Access in 2020 and has built a thriving modding community. The game exited early access in April 2022 and has sold over a million copies on Steam to date.

Dennis Gustafsson is the founder of Tuxedo Labs and Chief Technology Officer; he recently brought on Marcus Dawson, former CEO of Illusion Labs, as the company's new Chief Executive Officer. Gustafsson has a Master of Science degree in technological media from Linköpings University, and previously worked on the object-oriented physics engine Meqon and co-created the popular game Smash Hit in 2014 (200m downloads).

Tatsujin

We are also proud to officially announce that we recently acquired Tatsujin which is Embracer's first studio located in Japan. Tatsujin is led by Masahiro Yuge, one of the founders of the iconic arcade games studio Toaplan known for games such as Truxton, Snow Bros and Flying Shark. Acquiring the rights to the Toaplan catalogue separately in another deal means Tatsujin with several employees that once created the Toaplan games can now curate these classics and shepherd them into the future.

Bitwave Games

Freemode also acquired Bitwave Games, a Swedish studio with passion for retro games. With the backing of Freemode, Bitwave can expand the internal development team and build a publishing team. Bitwave will bring the highly regarded shoot 'em up games from Toaplan to PC and publish the NES/Famicom classic platformer Gimmick! on console and modern consoles in the west.

Singtrix

Embracer Group through its wholly owned subsidiary Freemode, has entered into an agreement to acquire Singtrix LLC from its founders.

Singtrix, based in the Los Angeles area, is an award-winning creator of industry leading vocal processing effects technology for karaoke, gaming, and entertainment. Through the transaction, Freemode gains a world class group of entrepreneurs and creators, adding to its innovation group in the US. The Singtrix team has a 25-year history of developing iconic music games and is noted as the first to patent the core technology behind the Guitar Hero Franchise.

 

"The Singtrix team is one of the most highly regarded innovators in music gaming, vocal processing, and entertainment. Their proven track record behind groundbreaking mass music franchises and inspiring singing experiences is without parallel and makes them a perfect fit for Freemode's plan to vastly expand its entertainment offerings", says Lee Guinchard, CEO of Freemode.

Singtrix creator and CEO John Devecka is a music gaming pioneer. In 1996, John patented and invented the first music video game, MTV Drumscape, which became a top-10 attraction in arcades. His foundational music gaming patent portfolio was ultimately acquired by Activision for its smash hit Guitar Hero, where he worked with top gaming and development studios introducing new music gaming technology. After leaving Activision, Devecka reinvented karaoke with Singtrix and its industry leading studio quality vocal effects. Together, with his co-founders Al Roque and Eric Berkowitz, the Singtrix team plan to bring the next pop culture musical experience to the world.

 

Through the acquisition, Freemode welcomes a highly innovative team of 5 and its extensive network that will strengthen Freemode's game development and present new opportunities for music and audio gaming products. Management expects that Singtrix will expand its vocal technology platform into a broad range of new music games, streaming, and mobile franchises. In addition, Singtrix's presence in Los Angeles further builds on Freemode's footprint in the US and provides a new major hub of entertainment creator talent on the West Coast.