Embracer boss Wingefors says "peak" of layoffs is over
The CEO of troubled Swedish games firm Embracer Group, Lars Wingefors, has said that he thinks we have seen the peak of layoffs within the industry.
Speaking to GI.biz, the exec said that the worst is over when it comes to both the "restructuring" program within his own company and the wider games market as a whole. In total, Embracer laid off around 1,400 people in an effort to right the ship after a $2 billion deal with Saudi Arabia's Savvy Games Group fell through.
"It's hard to talk for others, but I believe personally we have seen the peak," Wingefors said.
"There is more optimisation coming through from the industry in the course of the year, but I think we saw the peak of that restructuring at the end of last year, or early this year."
Furthermore, the Embracer boss doesn't see the recent wave of layoffs as anything unusual; rather he thinks this is just the way the industry is.
"The industry has been this way for decades," he explained. "I think it's the nature of it, because it's a global, growing, high margin industry, and it just attracts a lot of capital when it does well. It also attracts a lot of the world's largest corporations, and if the whole capital market and [those large] corporations are engaging at the same time, it becomes a crowded space. So the question is, would that happen again?
"I believe in gaming and the industry, and I think it is here to stay and grow, but will we see the capital market returning and the corporate [investing] their capital again? We haven't seen it yet, but I'm sure there are more [boom and bust] waves coming in in the future."
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