My made up history of EA is that EA was acquired because a Saudi princling's Dad got mad at him for becoming a whale for EA. So in order to cut costs at home, he just told PIF to buy EA so he can defraud his money back.
EA Announces Agreement to be Acquired by PIF, Silver Lake, and Affinity Partners
71–80 of 461 posts
Re: EA Announces Agreement to be Acquired by PIF, Silver Lake, and Affinity Partners
#72AAA gaming feels so tired (and tiresome) that this news barely registers for me. The last EA game I played was the excellent C&C remaster - and EA's main contribution was getting out of the way of the project. They still own the rights to a ton of legendary IP - SimCity, Command & Conquer, Battlefield, but I don't have illusions that new iterations of that IP will be any good. I know this is probably part of the Saud…
> but I don't really care about EA or their legacy anymore. They own the entire sports gaming genre, and it's a massive money maker.
Not entire - football has Football Manager (def a niche compared to FIFA/EAFC, but still pretty major), and FIFA will one day publish their FIFA game (there was a licensing disagreement, so EA rebranded their game to EAFC, and FIFA kept the name and will presumably launch a game with it some day).
Re: EA Announces Agreement to be Acquired by PIF, Silver Lake, and Affinity Partners
#73AAA gaming feels so tired (and tiresome) that this news barely registers for me. The last EA game I played was the excellent C&C remaster - and EA's main contribution was getting out of the way of the project. They still own the rights to a ton of legendary IP - SimCity, Command & Conquer, Battlefield, but I don't have illusions that new iterations of that IP will be any good. I know this is probably part of the Saud…
> The last EA game I played was the excellent C&C remaster - and EA's main contribution was getting out of the way I still remember the “Westwood Studios Proudly Presents…” on the RA2 intro cutscene and that pride really shined through. Even the installer for the game was a blast (full-screen, dropped you into a faux game-UX and gave you a military briefing with their kickass soundtrack while the progress bar ran). M…
> soundtrack
The tracks in FIFA 14-15 was also so much better than the tracks in today's FIFAs. In every way. They handpicked not-mainstream songs too
Re: EA Announces Agreement to be Acquired by PIF, Silver Lake, and Affinity Partners
#74Then I will never buy EA again, because there is no way I will ever support Saudi Arabia in any capacity
Re: EA Announces Agreement to be Acquired by PIF, Silver Lake, and Affinity Partners
#75Is it just me, but PIF owning EA is the next (and gigantic) step in the middle east's sport washing strategy?
Re: EA Announces Agreement to be Acquired by PIF, Silver Lake, and Affinity Partners
#76Like them or not, EA has been a major force in gaming for over 40 years (I used to work there). They invented the term "Game Producer". Their early vision for promoting Game Designers like hollywood Directors was ahead of its time. They have a hallway lined with gold discs of million seller hit games. They basically created the casual gaming industry (The Sims Division, Pogo, Casual Divisions) in a time when games we…
Except the entire idea that games should be promoted like hollywood movies is _exactly_ what precipitated this whole downfall. Games are not movies nor should they be like movies.
Personally I hope there are tons of layoffs. The entire industry needs to be rinsed clean and refreshed, especially the US gaming industry.
Re: EA Announces Agreement to be Acquired by PIF, Silver Lake, and Affinity Partners
#77I am finding myself having some conflicted feelings on this. First, I absolutely hate who is buying them. Especially as a huge Bioware fan with a Mass Effect tattoo. That being said, putting aside who is buying them for a moment. I would actually be happy to see more gaming companies going fully private. I feel like the need for constant growth (instead of just sustainability) is what has caused much of the issues in…
Idk. Are private equity firms not asking for constant growth? Seems unlikely to me. I think most companies satisfied for being sustainable are probably owned by their original founders or their families, not private equity.
Not necessarily. Private ownership can give you the benefit of operating at a stagnate revenue since it still represents a positive income stream for the owners.
This is an impossible status for public ownership as people don’t want a stock that stays at 10usd for multiple subsequent quarters. They see it as an investment. So you either have to offer significant dividends or find a way to show growth. If not, investors lose interest and your value drops, despite being perfectly profitable.
That’s not to say this private owner set will be happy with that, but that’s the benefit private ownership offers over public capital.
Re: EA Announces Agreement to be Acquired by PIF, Silver Lake, and Affinity Partners
#78[flagged]
I want to start by saying I have no skin in the game here. While not perfect, Saudi has very clearly moved "Westernly" on many ideas, most notably social and economic ones. It can even be argued that their recent moves in that direction have made it near impossible for the other large economy companies to move too far the other way. Th
At what point does the narrative about their investments on the larger stage become less pejorative?
Re: EA Announces Agreement to be Acquired by PIF, Silver Lake, and Affinity Partners
#79AAA gaming feels so tired (and tiresome) that this news barely registers for me. The last EA game I played was the excellent C&C remaster - and EA's main contribution was getting out of the way of the project. They still own the rights to a ton of legendary IP - SimCity, Command & Conquer, Battlefield, but I don't have illusions that new iterations of that IP will be any good. I know this is probably part of the Saud…
To their credit, the new Battlefield had an extremely well recieved beta and feedback from ongoing private tests is overwhelmingly positive.
They're even shipping Godot based modding tools.
Re: EA Announces Agreement to be Acquired by PIF, Silver Lake, and Affinity Partners
#80I am finding myself having some conflicted feelings on this. First, I absolutely hate who is buying them. Especially as a huge Bioware fan with a Mass Effect tattoo. That being said, putting aside who is buying them for a moment. I would actually be happy to see more gaming companies going fully private. I feel like the need for constant growth (instead of just sustainability) is what has caused much of the issues in…
> I feel like the need for constant growth (instead of just sustainability) is what has caused much of the issues in the current gaming market. I'm not sure the investment group attempting to diversify Saudi oil income is going to be less profit oriented than the stock market in general
Muhammad Bonesaw grew up on Age of Empires, and enjoys(/enjoyed) CoD. They also want to use it to shape global perspective. I think signs are good, or at least less-bad.