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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

#171

Post by qn9n »

Yizahi wrote: post #143
byronic wrote: post #131

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 exe…

You had any hope for them?

I was hoping the launch of early access skate. would be received poorly, it was due to the beloved franchise being made into a Fortnite-like money grabbing scheme, would cause them to run backwards and fix it releasing an actual skate series game with some live service features but a solid focus on the original franchise. However that hope is dwindling.

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

#173

Post by rockercoaster »

AlexandrB wrote: post #33
itsoktocry wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

Yeah, admittedly my perspective is that of someone who thinks sports games peaked with NBA Jam (1993). The only other sports games I play are racing sims - which are also in a bad place, but I digress.

NBA Jam; NFL 2K (and 2K1, 2K2) on the Dreamcast; the first three Tony Hawk games, the THQ "pro wrestling" games on the N64; Ice Hockey, Punch Out!, World Cup, Dodgeball (really, any of those Kunio Kun sports games) and Bases Loaded (first one only) on the NES; the Mutant League games on the Sega (especially Hockey). What the Golf?, Golf Story, the Mario Golf games. Mario Tennis (any of them, they're pretty much all good, the latest one on the Switch is great). Super Baseball 2020 on the Neo Geo.

There are two big audiences for sports games, I think, and I'm in the one that doesn't give a shit about realism or real team names or real-world rosters. I have no interest whatsoever in modern EA-type sports games, and most (not quite all) of my favorites for any give sport are from the '90s or '00s. I would characterize myself as a pretty big fan of sports games, actually (look at that list! I have put lots of time into pretty much all of those! I didn't even list all of them, like snowboarding games) but don't have any interest whatsoever in the latest EA NFL games and such.

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

#175

Post by ARandumGuy »

byronic wrote: post #131

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 exe…

Are there any examples where a company was purchased via a leveraged buyout and the company went on to be more profitable afterwards? Because the only examples I know of resulted in the purchased company going bankrupt fairly quickly.

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

#176

Post by dansmith1919 »

swiftcoder wrote: post #54
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…

> 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

To be fair, if they're actually buying it for the whole sportswashing thing and not for the short-term cash profits, could it maybe be a good thing for the games? Better games == more effective sportswashing?

Either way, human rights journalists lose.

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

#177

Post by jihadjihad »

imglorp wrote: post #164
nabla9 wrote: post #130

PIF: Saudi Arabian State fund. Affinity Partners: Jared Kushner.

Assuming the usual follow the money angle, what's the political play here for Kushner and the White House?

Propaganda?

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

#178

Post by adornKey »

sofixa wrote: post #103
frogperson wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

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.

[flagged]

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

#179

Post by ecshafer »

vunderba wrote: post #147
ecshafer wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

EA has been a target of scorn for a while because of a laundry list of issues (including pay-to-win schemes, loot boxes, treatment of employees, etc.) which is long enough to warrant its own dedicated wikipedia page. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_Electronic_Arts

EA doing any amount of shenanigans isn't making people sick, killing people, making people homeless or destitute. Their crimes are minor and petty.

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

#180

Post by bunderbunder »

jader201 wrote: post #121
pjmlp wrote: post #86

Earlier 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…

"Graphics" is really the key word in that sentence.

And even then it's just the aesthetic that's fun. I don't think anyone aside from a small core of enthusiasts who really enjoy a technical challenge are particularly nostalgic for the 2600's sprite count or palette limitations, let alone the compute, memory, and data storage constraints.

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