Embracer Group isn't actually evil, just a company "that everyone likes to pick on", Saber founder says

You know Embracer Group? That company that’s rather gotten a bad rap for selling off studios and laying lots of people off over the past year or so? Well, according to Saber Interactive founder Matthew Karch, we’ve all got the publisher wrong. It’s, er, not evil.

That company, regardless of what you think of it, has been in the news a lot over the past few years, often because it’s either been buying stuff up, or more recently, selling stuff off and laying lots of people off as part of a restructuring the CEO Lars Wingefors now says is done. One of the most recent instances of this was Embracer’s selling of Saber to Beacon Interactive, with the current head of the latter now having offered his views on the almighty embrace.

Speaking to GamesIndustry.biz, Matthew Karch, a former member of Embracer’s leadership, said that he thinks people have been a bit too hard on the company and Wingefors, who he claims has been “very maligned”. Karch cites the CEO’s wealth and the fact Embracer’s share value has dropped a lot over the past year as the reasons he believes are behind this, adding: “I think it actually dropped more on a relative basis than almost anybody else primarily because [Embracer] seems to be a company these days that everyone likes to pick on.”