It’s only been a few days since Dead Island 2 was released and its success, like its qualities, is well established. Nevertheless, the game’s publisher, Plaion, is in the news today in relation to a rather significant change of direction compared to its future projects.
Plaion will cannibalize three publishing labels
Plaion, the video game publisher formerly known as Koch Media, is effectively planning to restructure its game publishing business, which will likely lead to layoffs. They are our colleagues from GamesIndustry.biz who carried out this investigation and according to sources familiar with the matter, several jobs are threatened as the publisher intends to merge several publishing labels into one. Indeed, the company plans to release all related titles under the Plaion brand, dropping its Deep Silver, Prime Matter and Ravenscourt publishing labels.
The restructuring aims to produce fewer titles, but of higher quality, according to the sources. However, a company representative said the reorganization is likely to affect only five to six jobs, out of more than two thousand, although the restructuring process could take up to twelve months.
Deep Silver, established in 2002, takes care of the publisher’s biggest titles like Saints Row, Metro and Dead Island, while Ravenscourt initially focused on simulation games before moving into titles independent and more family like Let’s Sing. As for Prime Matter, it’s a new label created in 2021 that deals with titles such as the upcoming Painkiller and the Switch edition of Kingdom Come Deliverance from Warhorse Studios.
Plaion’s publishing activities for these three brands will be built around four pillars: Game Portfolio and Business, Publishing Services, Global Sales and Marketing, and Channel Partnership. The company’s other two brands, Milestone and Vertigo Games, are not mentioned and may not be affected.
Plaion acquired VR developer Vertigo Games in 2020, while Milestone was acquired by Koch in 2019. Embracer Group, Plaion’s parent company, announced last November that it was reviewing all of its business activities due to the “challenges posed by geopolitical and social issues worldwide and the new macroeconomic reality”. According to its 2022 annual report, the company has 118 studios across 10 operating groups with a workforce of 12,760. Plaion’s representative, however, claimed that this restructuring had “nothing to do” with the Embracer review.
