191–200 of 266 posts
All ea games past and present require prime sub, but on the other hand a mass effect TV series would be nice if they don't fuck it up
After what they did to Halo I'm not holding my breath.
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It seems to me most innovation comes from increased competition and upstart companies. Do large conglomerates provide the main driver of innovation?
I think it depends. Bell labs famously invented many of the foundations of modern computing while Bell was a monopoly. It's also hard to do capital intensive research (e.g. semiconductor manufacturing) as an upstart. You need the resources of an Intel. Meanwhile, companies that leverage existing technologies in new ways can be innovative with much fewer resources - e.g. your typical web startup.
1, Amazon runs the platform that sells the games - Amazon 2, Amazon runs the platform that people use while playing the games - Twitch 3, Amazon runs the platform that hosts the servers to play the games - AWS 4, Amazon runs the platform that you play the game on - Luna 5, Amazon runs the platform that creates the games - EA how is this not anti-competition for anyone running a company that competes in only one of th…
It is a Big Tech consolidation. If the Microsoft, Blizzard and Bethesda isn't an example of consolidation (Which is clearly is) with also Amazon's acquisition of One Medical, then nothing is. The FTC probably knows it is overdue to break up the Big Tech takeovers, but needs more evidence of this consolidation and behaviour to outright prevent more of this and eventually break them all up.
It's a lot harder to regulate 1000s or multiples of 1000s of smaller businesses.
Regulation also includes targeted political censorship in this case.
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> put an upper cap on the size of companies How would you measure “size”? EDIT: What do you mean by "cap" then? Would you force the company to be broken apart into smaller independent companies if it exceeded whatever cap is defined?
Simple. Revenue. Tax a company's revenue progressively. (Of course it's complicated to implement this with companies owning companies, but you get the gist.)
Taxes are on earnings though, not revenues (you could be unprofitable and as such, pay no taxes).
Question: so are you suggesting then that just because a company's revenues (I think you mean "earnings") have exceeded X, that they should be completely broken up as a company?
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> put an upper cap on the size of companies How would you measure “size”? EDIT: What do you mean by "cap" then? Would you force the company to be broken apart into smaller independent companies if it exceeded whatever cap is defined?
Number of people employed. If you can rake in billions using a team of 50 people, that is great, and should be allowed. Also, a company like Apple should be allowed. What should not be allowed is for Apple to own its entire supply chain (which would not be possible if company size was limited by number of people).
Consulting businesses are literally in the business to resell their employed talent. Their "product" is their employees.
As such, they type of business by its very nature have a disproportionately large number of employees. E.g. Accenture employees 700,000 people, Tata Consulting 600,000.
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> put an upper cap on the size of companies How would you measure “size”? EDIT: What do you mean by "cap" then? Would you force the company to be broken apart into smaller independent companies if it exceeded whatever cap is defined?
Revenue or balance sheet
Do you mean "earnings"?
So whether this is true or not I think it makes sense. The negative about ea is I see them as a middle man when it comes to licenses. They own the Madden brand but they still have to pay the NFL to make games for it. Same with all their other sports. Same for Star Wars games.
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Jeff: "I need to to acquire everyone." Amazon: "What do you mean everyone?" Jeff: "EVEEERRRYYYOONNEEE"
The reality is even stranger: https://www.geekwire.com/2014/jeff-bezos-octopus-breakfast/
Surely this will be the Rubicon for FTC to take a serious look at the gaming industry, assuming this actually gets announced?
Microsoft, Sony, Nintendo, Amazon, Google, Meta, Steam... that is more companies and thus competition than there are movie studios or streaming services.