Probably the best outcome for Gearbox, but Holy Crap did Embracer lose a ton of money on their investments. Still hoping that MS will try to snag away Crystal and Eidos along with the IP.

Relic Entertainment will go Independent and will no longer be part of SEGA, also more layoffs at the Sega Europe studios.
https://www.gamesindustry.biz/sega-sells-relic-and-will-cut-240-jobs-across-uk-studios

That MS contract will keep them afloat for now

Company of Heroes 3 was a bit of a flop, so not surprised that Sega was willing to sell Relic their own independence, cuts their payroll and they get the upfront money from Relic. Hopefully Xbox will continue to work with them on Age of Empires games.

Company of Heros game with Gears or Halo would interesting, It's in Microsoft's best interest to keep healthy relationship with Relic since AOE is an important IP.

Hopefully more companies start to go the route of giving studios the right to buy their independence instead of shutting them down.

2024 is ready to be one of the worst/strange year in gaming since a long time...

I would agree with strange and it is kinda bad... but not as bad as the video game crash, which admittely was a long time ago.

The thing is, I am kinda optimistic for the future here. What we see is implosion on the big AAA model and big publishers. Indies aren't unscathed here, but overall do far more better as is highlighted by the fact, that in this situation a lot of studios buy their independence. If the situation was bad overall the studios would seek shelter with big publishers, but we see the opposite happening. So many studios are confident they can make enough money to stay afloat even with drying up investment money by selling games to the customer, while they fear they get closed if they stay with big publishers. Which is strange, as I don't think a move in that direction happened before.

What it all means is, that we might see a revival of AA, something that has died a few years ago when there was concentration on the market and big publishers were going more and more all in on big AAA.More AA  means more games as they are cheaper and faster to make and it also means more diversity in ideas, as AA is less risky (as it has less investment). Which I am all for.

How so?

Relic's lineup of the original Dawn of War RTS games were some of the best RTS games I've ever played. I know people have gotten some love with Age of Empires a ton lately, but I kind of wish they'd go back to DoW. I'm not sure what they will be allowed to work on as an indy studio, however.

Creative Assembly getting layoffs is to be expected. They spent time and money into a game they weren't used to making, and they've gotten a lot of bad feedback on recent dlc for Warhammer 3 Total War and Pharoah Totao War decisions. Hopefully they can get back on the right track as they have made some of the games I've played the most in my life.