Hundreds of employees across Embracer's studios were laid off, adding up to roughly 5% of its total workforce as of November 16, and Volition, Free Radical Design, and Campfire Cabal were closed outright. Gearbox, which Embracer acquired in 2021 for $1.3 billion, was also rumored to be up for sale, although there's been no confirmation of that at this point. It's as big a mess as I've seen on the business side of the videogame industry, yet somehow Embracer managed to make it uglier: In a November 2023 interview, interim chief strategy officer Phil Rogers said the layoffs were "agonizing" but described the process as " how we win ," an incredibly tone-deaf description of a process that's left literally hundreds of people out of work.