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

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

#101

Post by gruez »

xbar wrote: post #87

The biggest problem I had with EA was that their client (EA, EA Origin, etc) operated like spyware. What will PIF, Silver Lake and Affinity partners do to monetize such client software, beyond games, that is pre-installed on 1 billion devices?

>What will PIF, Silver Lake and Affinity partners do to monetize such client software, beyond games, that is pre-installed on 1 billion devices?

How is this different than something like Broadcom buying VMware? Corporate machines are probably far juicier than a bunch of 18-35 yr olds computers. Not to mention that a wide install base also means if they go rogue it'll be detected even faster.

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

#102

Post by wil421 »

herpdyderp wrote: post #52
Thaxll wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Mass Effect 2 was a massive spit in the face of everything Mass Effect 1 was.

The controls and movement in the first one were terrible.

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

#103

Post by sofixa »

frogperson wrote: post #100
sofixa wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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The USA isn't the only country in the "western world", please stop equating the two.

Even for Britain, France, Germany, the countries with the biggest far right/reactionary political groups, where there are legitimate chances for them to end up in power, none of them are religious. Or even that socially reactionary for that matter.

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

#104

Post by FergusArgyll »

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…

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Don't confuse stock and flow

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

#105

Post by sidrag22 »

Rooster61 wrote: post #4

Although I'm not optimistic, there's a small chance this might shake up the sorry state of EA Sports. The incessant focus on microtransactions and features that are essentially just sports themed slot machines over actual solid gameplay has kept me far away from those games for a long time. EDIT: I think I might have worded that poorly. I do NOT think a change is going to happen, at least not one for the better, espe…

As someone who grew up loving sports games and has been turned away from any modern sports games because of the desire to flood them with all the stuff i see as just legalized gambling for children...

i like this potential optimism. Even if its not likely, its fun to imagine this being a turning point where EA is suddenly just doing things to make games better, rather than chase numbers, and because of that, the competition is forced to match that better gameplay.

I just would love to see where sports games could ACTUALLY be at if a high percentage of the team wasn't focused on horrible predatory in game purchases/questionable card games that just skirt by the legal system for underage gambling.

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

#106

Post by nerdjon »

keyringlight wrote: post #85
nerdjon wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Honestly I disagree and I feel like this is largely parroted without playing the games. SWTOR was maintained pretty well for a while and was fun. The issues with ME3's ending were blown way out of proportion and was still a fantastic trilogy. Andromeda had its issues no doubt about it but I am still mad at a certain website deciding that they were going to just go hard on attacking it. It was a fun game, it had some…

I'd say Bioware has been through a rough time for over a decade, between pulling in new directions to avoid being just a factory that spits out sequels and being pushed into whatever area the business/owner side wanted, but after clearing their plate by shipping and drawing a line under Dragon Age I think they need to prove themselves. Apparently they're working as support for other studios while they do pre-producti…

Looking at Bioware's history they are also an interesting company.

It does seem like they tried to avoid just becoming the "Mass Effect and Dragon Age" developer but that did not really work that well for them. Maybe that turned out to be a distraction. I think it also did not help that everything they put out was compared to both of those and seemed to have an expectation that it had to be as big or was a failure.

It isn't like they had a constant stream of massive hits. Don't get me wrong I love Jade Empire but how many people actually remember that game exists?

Likely also did not help that their 2 biggest IP's also had gameplay that very different from eachother.

I am (or maybe was until this news) cautiously optimistic about the next Mass Effect.

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

#108

Post by Workaccount2 »

deaddodo wrote: post #77
raincole wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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, investo…

I don't understand why we would have an expectation for the owner of a company to be happy with a stagnant investment, so the players of their games can get more bang for their buck?

It's something that feels good, but when you dig into the nitty-gritty of it, it's basically a "This guy should take the hit so we as a group can enjoy the fruits of it"

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