Embracer's Lars Wingefors on the "brutal truth" of the AAA market
Embracer Group's latest financials showed the stark contract between two of the firm's biggest releases from its past fiscal year.
On the one hand, Deep Silver's Dead Island 2 was the biggest seller, with three million sales and seven million players since its launch in April 2023. On the other, THQ Nordic's Alone in the Dark "performed below management expectations" after it debuted in March.
"It's a tricky market if you don't really have something standing out, catching the eye of the consumer," Embracer CEO Lars Wingefors tells GamesIndustry.biz.
The two games are not directly comparable, but there are similarities – established IP, roots in the horror genre, sizeable budgets (Alone in the Dark stars Jodie Comer and David Harbour, which are unlikely to have been cheap to cast), and released in the quieter first half of the year rather than vying for attention in the pre-Christmas rush. While Wingefors emphasises that there are still differences between them, he says the reality of the market applies to both equally.
"Whatever you produce, if it isn't the absolute best game in that genre or really hitting something unique to the players, it's very, very challenging," he continues. "Consumers have a lot of other things to spend their time and money on.
"I believe Alone in the Dark was a quality product, and [the developers] went all in to deliver on that. It's very unfortunate to see that it didn't catch enough consumers out there willing to engage again in that IP and product. It's just a brutal truth. It was a big investment and, ultimately, we need to get those right."
"I'm not saying you can't increase the price... If you create an enormous RPG, for example, with 100 or 150 hours of gameplay, very polished and unique, would the consumer be willing to pay more?"
Consumer choice is certainly a major factor – a recent Newzoo report revealed that over 60% of playtime in 2023 was spent on games six years old or older. Factor in annual releases and other factors, and the
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