The Concentration Of The Gaming Industry Continued…

After the announcements this spring that Microsoft will be buying Activision Blizzard (World of Warcraft, Starcraft), Take-Two Interactive was buying the mobile studio Zynga (Farmville) and Sony was buying Bungie (Destiny), the concentration process in the video game industry has continued relentlessly this summer. In a shopping spree, Swedish video game and media holding company Embracer acquired renowned gaming studios like Crystal Dynamics, Eidos-Montreal and Square Enix Montréal, including a whole catalogue of IP, such as Tomb Raider, Deus Ex, Thief and much more. In addition, Embracer announced that it had entered into an agreement to acquire Middle-Earth Enterprises, a company that owns a vast intellectual property catalogue and worldwide rights to The Lord of the Rings trilogy and The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien. This shift in the gaming industry to combine ownership of IP and its exploitation under one roof can be increasingly observed. Yet that was not all: in