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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

#271

Post by whatevaa »

bunderbunder wrote: post #115
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 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…

Elden Ring not having a questlog is just dumb. I don't play everyday, I don't remember exactly where I went and did what, and coupled with bizzare questlines it results in poor experience.

So I wouldn't pull in questlog with rest of stuff. You need history if you have any sort of side quests.

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

#272

Post by lofaszvanitt »

dehrmann wrote: post #251

Found this: > The investors are betting that AI-based cost cuts will significantly boost EA’s profits in the coming years, people involved in the transaction told the Financial Times. It halfway makes sense. EA is priced at current game production costs, but if that goes down, it'll be worth more. The other side of that is that someone might be able to vibe code with "make the next iconic video game franchise in the…

So it is going down the drain then.

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

#273

Post by gosub100 »

jerf wrote: post #162
pizzathyme wrote: post #64

Like 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…

I am old enough to remember a time when I had positive associations with being an "EA game". The games in question were on my Commodore 64. But still, there was such a time. EA has a reputation for buying companies and draining all of their reputation for money. The first company that the EA of today did that to was EA itself. There was a time it was just a gaming company. Actually it was about up to the Origin acqui…

I loved playing NHLPA hockey on SNES in the mid 99s. I guess they couldn't get the rights to use "NHL" so they used the "players association" instead?

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

#274

Post by guizadillas »

Culonavirus wrote: post #200

Finally the beginning of the end of EA. The greedy bastards ruined so many franchises and chased so many fads that their absence will be a net positive. I do feel bad for the devs working there... but them having to find new jobs is genuinely the only negative aspect in all of this. I have very little respect for any company that is only interested in the next couple of financial quarters and in making their sharehol…

Yeah EA has been like this for 3 decades since the deal with Origin Systems to publish their games

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

#275

Post by deaddodo »

Workaccount2 wrote: post #258
deaddodo wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You seem to be fundamentally misunderstanding capital and capitalism. A “stagnant” company isn’t a failed one. It’s profitable. But perhaps it has saturated its market, or otherwise has no other avenues of growth without handicapping what it excels in. This is fine, as long as it continues to increase with inflation (as it should, if it’s increasing its prices to match so) it will stay profitable and increase your ca…

The idea that people should be content with an investment that has 0% real return in a very risky environment (video game development) is not a serious argument, and not one that you would respect either. If you have $100M tied up in a game company that (maybe!) returns 3% a year (matching inflation), why the hell wouldn't you sell it for $100M, and then go put that in bonds which will return 5% with much less risk a…

> The idea that people should be content with an investment that has 0% real return in a very risky environment

I literally outlined the return. You are receiving the profit from a very profitable firm, which compounds year over year. Literally, you could not call that 0% (or “near 0%”) even in the most reductive of arguments.

Let’s simplify it for you: I buy a magic well for 1000usd. It gives me 500usd/yr. In 10 years, I’ve gotten 5000usd. Somehow that’s 0%, in your math. Additionally, from here on out, I’m making pure profit off of the well.

Again, you seem to have a fundamental misunderstanding of even basic capitalism. I suggest you read up on it, which might be difficult as you seem unwilling to read even the entirety of what you’re responding to.

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

#276

Post by Aeolun »

whatevaa wrote: post #271
bunderbunder wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Elden Ring not having a questlog is just dumb. I don't play everyday, I don't remember exactly where I went and did what, and coupled with bizzare questlines it results in poor experience. So I wouldn't pull in questlog with rest of stuff. You need history if you have any sort of side quests.

You can use pen and paper.

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

#277

Post by ecshafer »

gjsman-1000 wrote: post #194
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.

[flagged]

I play a lot of Paradox strategy games. There is a new game coming out that they sold a premium edition with three pre-sold DLC (for something like $20 additional) with a roadmap of a year of post-release development. Some people are outraged that something is planned to be developed and released 6 months after release because that is somehow keeping pay walling game that should have been in the base release. The prices of games are incredibly low. Seeing a movie in theaters costs $20 a ticket and theyll charge $8 for the soda, and gamers are outraged by a $10 dlc that cost $100k+ to develop.

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

#278

Post by missedthecue »

cmdli wrote: post #250
missedthecue wrote: post #224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hilton's LBO essentially have saved the brand. Twitter is yet an unfolding story but it seems to be working.

Twitter isn’t collapsing, but it’s hardly more profitable. In fact, the last numbers we know about them show >50% drop in revenue.

I don't think you're right. During its last fiscal year on the stock market, Twitter reported a net loss of $221 million.

We don't have exact insights to X.com's books, but we have credible reports from the Financial Times that they produced over a billion dollars in ebitda in 2024. This is completely possible with a 50% revenue drop. They laid off 80% of the company, something like 6,000 people.

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

#279

Post by ivape »

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…

EA has an interesting strategy on offering a good value for their paid EA Play and EA Play pro plan. For example, if you find yourself in these specific genres:

Sports:

- Madden

- FC Soccer

- F1

This area should grow to cover other major sports. Others have mentioned how strong the sports offering is, and it’s also worth noting how strong Wii Sports was for the monumental success of the Wii.

FPS:

- Battlefield more or less

The Battlefield universe can cover anything you can dream of when it comes to FPS, so that’s another platform that is still a growth sector imho.

I think this is a very lucrative approach.

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

#280

Post by missedthecue »

nemo wrote: post #240
missedthecue wrote: post #224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hilton's LBO essentially have saved the brand. Twitter is yet an unfolding story but it seems to be working.

Right now Twitter is steadily shedding users and watching ad revenue steadily drop. Looks like it's in a slow death spiral to me.

Twitter produced $1.2B in ebitda in 2024 according to the Financial Times. Are you sure you're not mentally operating on 2022 data?
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