“As a director and owner, sometimes you have to take the blame and have the humility to recognize whether you made a mistake and whether you could have done something differently,” he says in an interview with Games Industry. Lars Wingeforshead of a Swedish holding company Hug group.
Last year, Embracer went through a difficult restructuring due to its very poor financial position, which resulted in the loss of jobs of 1,400 staff and the closure of several studios. Sales went to Gearbox Entertainment and Saber Interactive. The European giant recently announced a plan to split into three separate companies.
I take most of the blame on myself.
“It hurt. But I still believe in what we are doing, I believe in our teams and in the vision that we have set for ourselves,” Wingefors remains hopeful. “I still feel that I have the trust of key representatives and directors (…) We can’t make all the games we wanted to make three years ago, but we have to adapt. We’re still going to make games, we still have one of the largest, if not the largest portfolio of future ones. games in the industry. And we have big plans for the coming years and decades.”
“I’m sure I deserve a lot of criticism, but I don’t think our team or individual companies should be subject to that kind of criticism. I take most of the blame on myself. But at the end of the day, I have to believe in the mission that we have set for ourselves. We believe that the new structure will help to realize it,” he continues.
At every moment you make decisions that you think are right. The result is different and we have to adapt to it.
“At every moment you make decisions that you think are right. When we were at the top in 2020, 2021, we made decisions about acquisitions, about starting companies or about investments… and we supported all of them. I firmly believed in this. Because it takes many years to make games, the results are different, painful, and we have to adapt,” Wingefors explains, “but looking back, yes, we went into debt. [při akvizici Asmodee]that was painful. I think it’s too early to say what was right or wrong in this case.”
Lars Wingefors says he loves the gaming business and would like to spend many more years in it. In subsequent years, he will lead three gaming companies that will emerge from Embracer. Words of encouragement came to him from Saber’s boss. Matt Karch: “[V Embraceru] they are the nicest people you will ever meet. Lars has an archive of video games. He loves games. He lives by playing games. He doesn’t like ties, although he wears ties to stock market presentations. He’s a player. In my opinion, no one had a greater sense of justice and reason than Lars.”
Source :Indian TV
