Final stage to AI slop games.
EA Announces Agreement to be Acquired by PIF, Silver Lake, and Affinity Partners
21–30 of 461 posts
Re: EA Announces Agreement to be Acquired by PIF, Silver Lake, and Affinity Partners
#22Translation: Saudi Arabia (PIF), a private equity firm, and Jared Kushner (Affinity Partners).
I didn’t think EA could get more evil but here we are. I remember when they were the good guys. I’d see that EA logo on my Commodore 64 load up and I knew I was in for something amazing like Archon. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archon:_The_Light_and_the_Dark
“E! A! Sports! It’s inhumane!”
Re: EA Announces Agreement to be Acquired by PIF, Silver Lake, and Affinity Partners
#23I 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 the current gaming market.
So not exactly super excited about how exactly this is happening, but I do hope that we can see other gaming companies do it with better sources.
Re: EA Announces Agreement to be Acquired by PIF, Silver Lake, and Affinity Partners
#24AAA 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…
They still have some exclusives or older titles locked up - I think American McGee's stuff?
I wonder if the new owners would care to port it or sell it again.
Re: EA Announces Agreement to be Acquired by PIF, Silver Lake, and Affinity Partners
#25[dead]
Re: EA Announces Agreement to be Acquired by PIF, Silver Lake, and Affinity Partners
#26I 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…
A company taking themselves private could be pretty good, but leveraged PE stuff will demand profit to pay down the loan and pretty much always have the same motivation for growth as investors.
Re: EA Announces Agreement to be Acquired by PIF, Silver Lake, and Affinity Partners
#27Although 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…
That's pretty optimistic, actually. If anything, they will double down.
Re: EA Announces Agreement to be Acquired by PIF, Silver Lake, and Affinity Partners
#28Although 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…
You're kidding, right?
I don't think they are. Quite a lot of EA franchises seem to be struggling to appeal even to their core base lately. The Sims has gone through similar issues with trying to push paid content over quality, with a recent update to allow selectively disabling packs with new content apparently just corrupting the installation and making it impossible to actually run a lot of the time. From what I've read about the most recent Dragon Age game, meddling from EA also caused a lot of late changes in the game's development that ended up influencing the lackluster reception, which in turn was used as rationale for shuttering future development of Dragon Age games.
Things really do seem bad enough that clearly something drastic is needed if anything is going to change, For an unhappy fan of one of the many EA franchises, I don't have any trouble imagining that even a major change that's unlikely to produce good still offers more hope than the status quo. If there's a 1% chance that taking EA private will improve things, it still probably is more likely than things improving with the current management.
Re: EA Announces Agreement to be Acquired by PIF, Silver Lake, and Affinity Partners
#29AAA 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…
I mostly agree about AAA, but to be fair Battlefield 1 was/is a really good game. You'll never find an experience like that in an indie studio.
Re: EA Announces Agreement to be Acquired by PIF, Silver Lake, and Affinity Partners
#30Earlier quoted context omitted.
I didn’t think EA could get more evil but here we are. I remember when they were the good guys. I’d see that EA logo on my Commodore 64 load up and I knew I was in for something amazing like Archon. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archon:_The_Light_and_the_Dark
Company is worth of 50 billion, while everyone hates it these days?
Being worthy doesn't mean they are doing good things.
It only shows that their business model is creating value for the people who matters to the detriment of others.