Not referencing the Saudi Arabia portion here specifically but LBOs as documented in the book Barbarians at the Gate (covers Nabisco/RJR tobacco) gives me basically zero hope for the future of EA. EA was already rabid cost-cutters and RIF specialists, and they won the most hated company award for however many consecutive years for a reason. Giving them crushing debt to go along with their propensity to give large executive bonuses and stomp their workforce is not a good recipe long-term
EA Announces Agreement to be Acquired by PIF, Silver Lake, and Affinity Partners
131–140 of 461 posts
Re: EA Announces Agreement to be Acquired by PIF, Silver Lake, and Affinity Partners
#132Between Ubisoft selling to China and EA selling to Saudis, AAA gaming looks bleak.
Re: EA Announces Agreement to be Acquired by PIF, Silver Lake, and Affinity Partners
#133Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
Also, even the US is not in danger of becoming a theocracy.
I really wouldn't go this far, there is _way_ too much religion in US politics for proper separation of church and state. When elected politicians regularly quote religious documents in their reasoning for making decisions, agreeing and disagreeing with others, etc. you can't claim a theocracy isn't on the cards.
Re: EA Announces Agreement to be Acquired by PIF, Silver Lake, and Affinity Partners
#134Wonder how PE intends to transform a company that was already trying every slimy PE trick.
[x] - Employees are overworked and underpaid
[x] - IP treated as infinite cash cows loaded with micro-transactions
[x] - Games turned soulless in pursuit of wide 'rated E' appeal
Sports is ~50% of their revenue. I wouldn't be surprised if this is a sports-washing exercise where revenue growths takes a back set to normalizing Saudi Arabia to the new generation.
Re: EA Announces Agreement to be Acquired by PIF, Silver Lake, and Affinity Partners
#135Not referencing the Saudi Arabia portion here specifically but LBOs as documented in the book Barbarians at the Gate (covers Nabisco/RJR tobacco) gives me basically zero hope for the future of EA. EA was already rabid cost-cutters and RIF specialists, and they won the most hated company award for however many consecutive years for a reason. Giving them crushing debt to go along with their propensity to give large exe…
EA won the most hated company award because video game players are dramatic. Charging $5 for a launch DLC is a drop in the bucket compared to the ways that some larger more critical companies can affect your life.
Re: EA Announces Agreement to be Acquired by PIF, Silver Lake, and Affinity Partners
#136Re: EA Announces Agreement to be Acquired by PIF, Silver Lake, and Affinity Partners
#137Earlier quoted context omitted.
Being a 1970's child that grew up with games alongside the industry, nowadays I mostly play retrogaming, retrogaming inspired, or digital versions of board games. The quest for realism without gameplay of many AAA games, with exorbitant prices, and GB sized textures, is not something I care about. I may spend more time playing something with Atari 2600 graphics, and enticing gameplay than caring about latest COD. I w…
> I may spend more time playing something with Atari 2600 graphics, and enticing gameplay than caring about latest COD. The first good console for me was the NES. I enjoyed the Atari 2600, but only because it was the best at that time. But I can still enjoy a good NES game. There aren’t many games on the Atari 2600 that I would still consider fun today. Maybe not necessarily because of graphics, but the graphics were…
Usually magazines like Retro Gamer are a way to find some of these.
https://www.gamesradar.com/retrogamer/
They tend to have a section with homebrew for classical systems, there are also a few quite good podcasts around,
Re: EA Announces Agreement to be Acquired by PIF, Silver Lake, and Affinity Partners
#138Earlier 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.
I wouldn't personally go that far; having recently replayed all three back-to-back, I'd say that they're just very different types of games.
ME1 is a an excellent story-driven action RPG with clunky combat and issues with environment size/complexity due to technological limitations of the platform it was built for.
ME2 is a very good story-driven third-person shooter with excellent combat and a thin veneer of RPG elements that has overcome a lot of the technical issues with ME1 despite the same platform/engine.
ME1 by far has the better story and I enjoyed it more than ME2 on my first playthrough years ago, but now, already knowing the story, ME2 was more fun to play this time. It's a shame they couldn't have improved on everything good about the first one instead of turning it into a shooter.
Personally, I'd love to see the whole trilogy reimagined and remade as a single giant open-world action RPG, but that's probably never happening.
Re: EA Announces Agreement to be Acquired by PIF, Silver Lake, and Affinity Partners
#139Earlier quoted context omitted.
Being a 1970's child that grew up with games alongside the industry, nowadays I mostly play retrogaming, retrogaming inspired, or digital versions of board games. The quest for realism without gameplay of many AAA games, with exorbitant prices, and GB sized textures, is not something I care about. I may spend more time playing something with Atari 2600 graphics, and enticing gameplay than caring about latest COD. I w…
I recently watched a youtube video by a gamer about 20 years younger than me who had discovered older games and was reflecting on how deeply different they feel compared to modern games. The big difference she observed is that older games don't hold your hand the way modern games do. They expect you to think hard, work hard, use trial and error, and generally, in her words, "use your brain." She spent a while talking…
> the reason modern AAA games hold your hand is because they have to.
This doesn’t touch on one key difference between games now vs. games then: there were some secrets in games that you just didn’t ever know about unless there was a (printed) walkthrough, or through the word of mouth of friends. The Legend of Zelda is a great example.
Nowadays, many games can be 100%’ed without even having to jump online or ask someone for help. I’m not saying that’s necessarily a bad thing.
I’m playing the Metroid Primer Remaster on the Switch 2 (originally for the GameCube), and even it can be 100%’ed without having to look much up or without even a manual.
Re: EA Announces Agreement to be Acquired by PIF, Silver Lake, and Affinity Partners
#140Some discussion pre-announcement from yesterday with 60 comments.