Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

EA Announces Agreement to be Acquired by PIF, Silver Lake, and Affinity Partners

ir.ea.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

91–100 of 461 posts

Re: EA Announces Agreement to be Acquired by PIF, Silver Lake, and Affinity Partners

#91

Post by [deleted] »

mapcars wrote: post #55
dangus wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People don’t like to hear it but they make products people want and those products are acceptable enough in quality. The millions of people who play FIFA, Madden, and Battlefield don’t sit around on niche forums bashing EA for not making enough innovative indie-style titles. EA even puts out titles that are legitimately critically acclaimed every once in a while (Split Fiction as a recent example).

>bashing EA for not making enough innovative indie-style titles Its not even that, both Mass Effect and Dragon Age are fantastic series with latest games being mediocre at best. If they did the same thing as before it would be more successful, so they clearly don't know what is the right thing for the customers.

[deleted]

Re: EA Announces Agreement to be Acquired by PIF, Silver Lake, and Affinity Partners

#92

Post by devjab »

Thaxll wrote: post #42
devjab wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bioware died back in 2007. As I see it this can only be an improvement.

Mass effect 2, one of the best Bioware game was developed under EA.

Taste is subjective, but as someone who have played: Baldur's Gate, Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic, Baldur's Gate II: Shadows of Amn, Mass Effect, Neverwinter Nights, MDK2, Shattered Steel, Jade Empire, Mass Effect 2, Mass Effect 3, Dragon Age: Origins, Command & Conquer: Generals 2, Anthem on their release dates, I'd rank them in that order. So to me Mass Effect 2 wasn't one of their best games, but it was also not one of their worst.

Mass Effect 2 is the primary reason I've only played Mass Effect 3 once, because I just can't get myself to go through 2 again despite having replayed Mass Effect 1 several times. I don't think it's a terrible game, on the technical side it improved so many things, but I just don't like the story. To be fair, Dragon Age and Anthem were the only ones that really dissapointed me.

Re: EA Announces Agreement to be Acquired by PIF, Silver Lake, and Affinity Partners

#93

Post by falcor84 »

Nexxxeh wrote: post #80
swiftcoder wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

Interesting - how do you imagine that he would use the likes of CoD to shape global perspective?

Re: EA Announces Agreement to be Acquired by PIF, Silver Lake, and Affinity Partners

#94

Post by no_wizard »

AlexandrB wrote: post #11

AAA 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…

RIP Mass Effect and by extension BioWare.

One of the most groundbreaking trilogies in gaming with tons of potential and it’ll get relegated to the dustbin of history no doubt.

If I was absurdly rich I’d buy up lots of underused and/or abused IP and start a game studio around it. I feel like that would be a good business if you have the capital to handle game dev costs

Re: EA Announces Agreement to be Acquired by PIF, Silver Lake, and Affinity Partners

#95

Post by Spartan-S63 »

bob1029 wrote: post #29
AlexandrB wrote: post #11

AAA 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…

I mostly agree about AAA, but to be fair Battlefield 1 was/is a really good game. You'll never find an experience like that in an indie studio.

I believe that Battlefield 4 was the last good Battlefield game. Biggest asset was fully self-hostable servers that provided progression, community control, and allowed gaming clans/organizations to actually community-build. Nowadays, forced matchmaking and limited party sizes really eliminate the ability to build large communities.

The consolidation of publishers/developers in controlling all of the online experience has started limiting online gaming's ability to be a reasonable third place.

Re: EA Announces Agreement to be Acquired by PIF, Silver Lake, and Affinity Partners

#96

Post by this_user »

raincole wrote: post #63
nerdjon wrote: post #23

I 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.

The classic PE business model is buying underperforming businesses, cutting costs, optimising their operations, and then selling the company for a profit after a couple of years (or taking it public). PE are usually less focussed on growth and more focussed on squeezing the most out of what is already there.

Re: EA Announces Agreement to be Acquired by PIF, Silver Lake, and Affinity Partners

#97

Post by iaw »

beepbopboopp wrote: post #78
fred_is_fred wrote: post #50

[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 becom…

They have a well documented and known human slave trade for their laborers in the kingdom.

Maybe the narrative changes when their approaches towards human rights does?

Re: EA Announces Agreement to be Acquired by PIF, Silver Lake, and Affinity Partners

#98

Post by fred_is_fred »

sofixa wrote: post #88
beepbopboopp wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 becom…

[flagged]

Sadly enough there are many in the US who are actively working to move the US towards the world you painted above.

Re: EA Announces Agreement to be Acquired by PIF, Silver Lake, and Affinity Partners

#99

Post by dangus »

mapcars wrote: post #55
dangus wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People don’t like to hear it but they make products people want and those products are acceptable enough in quality. The millions of people who play FIFA, Madden, and Battlefield don’t sit around on niche forums bashing EA for not making enough innovative indie-style titles. EA even puts out titles that are legitimately critically acclaimed every once in a while (Split Fiction as a recent example).

>bashing EA for not making enough innovative indie-style titles Its not even that, both Mass Effect and Dragon Age are fantastic series with latest games being mediocre at best. If they did the same thing as before it would be more successful, so they clearly don't know what is the right thing for the customers.

The final state of Mass Effect Andromeda was arguably a solid game after the most embarrassing well-publicized bugs got patched (“mostly positive” on Steam) The story may not be the best but there really isn’t anything wrong with the gameplay.

Dragon Age: Veilguard was actually a solid game, and it got review-bombed by angry right-wingers. It does make some traditionalist fans upset but it’s not some kind of disaster like it’s been painted to be.

Re: EA Announces Agreement to be Acquired by PIF, Silver Lake, and Affinity Partners

#100

Post by frogperson »

sofixa wrote: post #88
beepbopboopp wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 becom…

[flagged]

[flagged]
Post reply on HN