Gearbox Studios, game developers like Borderlands and also editors of things like the new Christmas Planet titles, has was bought by the Embracer Group, the same Swedish company that owns THQ Nordic and Koch Media.
The acquisition makes Gearbox the company’s seventh video game holding company, alongside other companies like DECA and Saber Interactive.
The purchase includes plans to expand Gearbox operations, adding new studios and staff, “creating new brands” and looking for more properties (to like Christmas Planet) purchase.
Currency exchange chief Randy Pitchford – who will remain head of the company – issued a statement, beginning with a mention of Embracer CEO Lars Wingefors, who says:
Lars’ vision of Embracer as an allied partner group, committed to fueling and accelerating the ambitions of a series of decentralized and successful entrepreneurial companies, while expanding the collective value and the advantages of diversification across the group is the most brilliant strategy and design for short and medium and long term success in this sector that I have found in my 30 years in this sector. The feeling at Gearbox is that we are just getting started and this transaction is not only a stimulus to our company’s talent, but a driver for the exciting future we have planned.
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Gearbox is behind other successes like the Brothers in arms series, and there is a Borderlands film in progress, which undoubtedly contributed to Embracer’s interest. No word on whether the sale was also influenced by Aliens: Colonial Marines and Duke Nukem Forever, though, or the fact that Gearbox’s Born for battle hang up forever this week.
The initial purchase price was $ 363 million, half in cash and half in Embracer shares, with an additional $ 1 billion to be paid ($ 360 million in shares and the remainder in cash) if Gearbox is able to achieve the “agreed financial and operational goals over the next six years”.