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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

#311

Post by WorldMaker »

dehrmann wrote: post #237
Blackthorn wrote: post #161

EA about to get Toys R Us'd. It should be illegal to be able to put the debt from a leveraged buyout on the company's balance sheet.

At some point, the debt buyers will (or should) balk over the track record of this debt, or the company has enough collateral that they're happy either way.

The debt buyers are the same people that created that debt (the people doing the LBO in the first place). They force the company they just bought to pay them loan terms they set for the privilege of buying the company they just bought. That's why LBOs are pretty much a corporate Ponzi scheme. It's just too bad it is a currently legal Ponzi scheme. It might be nice to have legislation to prevent it.

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

#312

Post by [deleted] »

mapcars wrote: post #141
dangus wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Its not about being "solid game", it did not match EA's own sales expectations - thats all. If "angry right-wingers" can make your game fail then maybe you don't understand your target audience, which is what I am talking about.

[deleted]

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

#313

Post by mdavidn »

jmuguy wrote: post #235

Am I wrong in reading this will add 20b in debt to EA the company, and not the purchasers? Because it seems like just servicing that debt will immediately put the company in a bad position.

That is how a leveraged buyout works. See: Toys "R" Us.

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

#314

Post by hollerith »

jmuguy wrote: post #235

Am I wrong in reading this will add 20b in debt to EA the company, and not the purchasers? Because it seems like just servicing that debt will immediately put the company in a bad position.

It doesn't matter much whether the purchasers personally hold the debt or the debt is held by EA, which is wholly owned by the purchasers.

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

#315

Post by Ekaros »

lupusreal wrote: post #310
ummonk wrote: post #218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Addictive gambling for kids is hardly minor and petty. Many children have spent thousands on EA Sports games.

TBQH Valve/Steam is a major factor in this gambling in games scene but gamers love them. So I don't think this is the real reason gamers have a problem with EA.

My defence with Valve is that at least on their stuff you most of time get stored credit. With the rest it is same, but it is actually drown the drain.

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

#316

Post by Ekaros »

missedthecue wrote: post #280
nemo wrote: post #240

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

I wonder how well they are doing on that "I" there...

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

#317

Post by ratelimitsteve »

Workaccount2 wrote: post #108
deaddodo wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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"

the owner of a company gets the profits, and that's what he lives off of. investors in public companies get a share of the profit as well, of course, but it's usually vanishingly small because it's split by every investor. So for privately traded companies the people who own them can make their living just based on the money left over after they pay all their expenses, but for investors in public companies the only feasible way for them to have more money at the end of the day is for the company to be worth more money at the end of the day because their potential profits from dividends are baked into the stock price. The owner doesn't take a hit, because his profits are (revenue - cost) not (value of company at buy-in) - (value of company at sell-out)

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

#318

Post by brailsafe »

jerf wrote: post #170
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…

Between the fact that I'm on the "no time" part of the "time to play but no money, money to buy but no time, pick one" saying, indies, some still-functioning Japanese studios, and the burgeoning "AA" segment of the market, where people in the 2020s use 2020s technology with a team of maybe a dozen or two to put out what would have been AAA games produced by hundreds of people in the 2010s, I've had no use for the AAA…

> I'm on the "no time" part of the "time to play but no money, money to buy but no time, pick one" saying

You should try Factorio, it'll find the time for you.

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

#319

Post by sofixa »

adornKey wrote: post #178
sofixa wrote: post #103

Earlier 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.

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

#320

Post by sofixa »

hollerith wrote: post #160
sofixa wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Maybe we have different definitions of theocracy. According to your definition, has there been a time in the past when the US was a theocracy?

No, it has not. But you cannot deny that religion being a visible, daily, part of politics, and being very often quoted as justification for political, and even worse, judicial decisions, is closer to a theocracy than it is to separation of church and state.
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