Well, they publicly sort of whined that their Facebook likes don't reflect on their sales, but that's certainly no measure for financial success or struggles.

I hope this works out for us as well! ;-)

This is fantastic news I hope! Daedelic was is dire need of financial stability from what I recall reading. I hope this means they'll put out a bunch of destined to become classic adventure games, possibly even a return to Deponia would be AWESOME! The ending always left a bit of a sour taste in my mouth.
I just assumed the game splitting and price increases (special editions) was due to the fact that they were pretty much threatening to shut their doors if they didn't start turning a better profit. Sorry I don't have a source for that info, it was stuff I read in the company's forums. I always thought your avatar was a syringe being injected into a hamburger.

Now that I have glasses for the first time in my life, I KNOW that it is a syringe being injected into a hamburger ;)

No idea how bad their situation might have been (don't visit their forum), I'm just wondering if part of the deal was to increase prices in order to bring in more money from/ increase nominal value of existing titles.

I doubt that it had to do with this partial buyout, considering how long they've been complaining about their financial status. I heard of it over two months ago, which seems like a good period of time to work through all the technicalities of getting your value added content ready etc. But then again, I really don't know how these deals take place at all.

Well ... I can see how a skeletal head would see a brain as something one would like to incorporate ...

;)

They complain always. And find excuses. Don't believe everything someone writes in a forum. The CEO wrote years ago that they will go bankrupt if they don't sell games at Steam to convince the DRM free crowd to buy Chains of Satinav even with a steam activation for the retail version. Thats all. They blamed their Publishers in posts for not releasing german versions here and than there was Deponia 3 and nobody made a statement ever about this. They complained on Facebook, that nearly nobody preordered Deponia 3 from Amazon.de to make a press release two weeks later to celebrate that they never sold so many games...

They are not only a small indie developer, they are a publisher to, the publish Torchlight 2 and the new Divinity Game in Germany. A couple of weeks ago they announced thatt they want to build a second unit in the southern parts of Germany to produce movies(!). German source:
http://www.pcgames.de/Daedalic-Entertainment-Firma-205603/News/Daedalic-Entertainment-Adventure-Experten-planen-neues-Studio-in-Bayern-oder-NRW-1110765/

No, they are not nearly bankrupt. But they are to small for their own ambitions. They don't want to be a small indie game developer, they don't want to be niche - so they partnered with someone with money to grow and become a major player in the market. That is my theory...

Wow, that's a really sad history. Thanks for enlightening me. I really do like their games, they are written and produced very well, some of the best in the genre.

But damn they seem very money hungry. At least now that I know this series of behavior I certainly wont be feeling sorry for them. If they really are in financial trouble, it appears to be of their own doing anyway, so they deserve it.

Your theory sounds solid. In the second article I linked there are some financial informations about Daedalic:

2013
Revenue: 6 million €
EBIT: above 10% (that would be 600k €)

2015 (planned)
Revenue: 14 million €
EBIT: above 2 million €

EBIT stands for earnings before interest and taxes. In the article it's again explained Daedalic and Bastei Lübbes goal is the expansion of the business area by a combined utilization of franchises like Deponia and Edna for eBooks, movies, comics and audio.

Source: http://www.finanznachrichten.de/nachrichten-2014-05/30306698-dgap-adhoc-bastei-luebbe-ag-bastei-luebbe-ag-erwirbt-mehrheitsbeteiligung-an-preisgekroentem-spieleentwickler-daedalic-entertainment-gmbh-016.htm

I came by to reply to you, but I see that Rincewind81 had it all covered already. :-)

I have a sneaking suspicion that some of Daedelic's unexpected and less admirable actions of late (the Edna & Harvey bundle break-up, the Whispered World SE controversy/U-turn) are more than likely to be related to this acquisition. How they are related is anyone's guess - whether they were prerequisites for the acquisition or whether Daedalic was doing this to impress potential investors - but it's a safe bet that this acquisition has been in the pipeline for a few months now at the very least and that there is almost certainly a relationship between its search for capital and its change in business practices.

By the way, the purchase price will have to be published in Bastei Lübbe's annual financial statements at the end of the year when it reports its holdings under investment expense, so I find it a little strange that they have made a point of not publicising it.

In a few month nobody will take any notice and so nothing would hurt the image of the small indie... ;)

A book publisher with money but without digital experience and a successful software developer and publisher with ambitions but only limited resources. Maybe Daedalic is worth more than most of us would think and Fichtelmann and Co. made a good deal... ;)

I hope this was the reason for it---and I hope that Chains of Satinav & Memoria will close up soon!

I suspect it is a good reason why they made those silly moves.if they were going to look for investment, its in there best interest as a company to make it appear they are doing things to increase the value of the business and/ or at the least make it appear to a potential buyer its profitable and ...I had worked for two companies long while back which did similar things which didn't make them popular with customers but made then bit more attractive to potential buyers....