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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 t

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 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.

nemomarx 1y ago
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.
Etheryte 1y ago
If you think private equity will be milder, you're in for a bad surprise. Most of the enshittification you see around you stems from private equity.
- WorldMaker 1y ago
  Yup, many private equity deals ultimately are to break a company up into spare parts (to sell individual IPs/sub-brands to the highest bidder.) The extra debt the buyout saddles the company with is in part to build a bankruptcy case to kick off that spare parts auction.
fzeroracer 1y ago
A company going private is, in general, a good thing because they're less shackled by investors and capital. However this is the rare exception because this is more about oligarchs making a play for total control over the media sphere rather than any sort of financial independence. That said, cornering the entertainment side of things is going to be much harder especially since the people that do this kind of thing have zero clue what a video game even is or how to make a profitable one.
herpdyderp 1y ago
BioWare is long dead anyway.
- nerdjon 1y ago
  Honestly I disagree and I feel like this is largely parroted without playing the games. SWTOR was maintained pretty well for a while and was fun. The issues with ME3's ending were blown way out of proportion and was still a fantastic trilogy. Andromeda had its issues no doubt about it but I am still mad at a certain website deciding that they were going to just go hard on attacking it. It was a fun game, it had some development issues and some nasty bugs at launch. But was still fun. Anthem... man that game had potential but just was not ready to ship. Was a ton of fun to play and I loved the bits of story we got but it really was just a tease of a story sadly. DA Veilguard... definitely not up to the standard that Bioware set but there is still something uniquely Bioware about the characters that I fell in love with. That games potential was not helped by a vocal minority being mad about one specific character and not caring about anything else in the game. Has Bioware gone down since their peak? Yeah. But I think claims that they are dead are overblown and people parroting it on youtube for clicks sure isnt helping that sentiment. Play the games and make your own decision.
  - keyringlight 1y ago
    I'd say Bioware has been through a rough time for over a decade, between pulling in new directions to avoid being just a factory that spits out sequels and being pushed into whatever area the business/owner side wanted, but after clearing their plate by shipping and drawing a line under Dragon Age I think they need to prove themselves. Apparently they're working as support for other studios while they do pre-production on the next Mass Effect, and that game needs to walk the line between staying true to the identity of the old games and bringing in new entrants. They're an established operating studio, but I'm not sure that counts for much when the mega publishers can shut down and start studios on a whim, they need to justify staying around whether that's because they make games that sell or because having a workforce in Canada is worthwhile.
    - 1y ago
swiftcoder 1y ago
> 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
- JumpCrisscross 1y ago
  > not sure the investment group attempting to diversify Saudi oil income is going to be less profit oriented than the stock market in general For what it’s worth, MBS is reportedly an avid gamer.
  - boston_clone 1y ago
    So is Elon Musk.
    - boston_clone 1y ago
      To expand on this, the central issue is disreputable people obtaining a high degree of control over an industry; that their interests overlap is of little relevance - if anything, it’s a viable smokescreen for PR campaigns.
      - johnnyanmac 1y ago
        It's just a shame the smokescreens are at best some annoying exhaust from a car. Not really hiding much. But yes, investing in a game doesn't mean you're actually making a game you'd find fun.
- Nexxxeh 1y ago
  Muhammad Bonesaw grew up on Age of Empires, and enjoys(/enjoyed) CoD. They also want to use it to shape global perspective. I think signs are good, or at least less-bad.
  - 1y ago
raincole 1y ago
Idk. Are private equity firms not asking for constant growth? Seems unlikely to me. I think most companies satisfied for being sustainable are probably owned by their original founders or their families, not private equity.
- deaddodo 1y ago
  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, investors lose interest and your value drops, despite being perfectly profitable. That’s not to say this private owner set will be happy with that, but that’s the benefit private ownership offers over public capital.
  - Workaccount2 1y ago
    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"
    - 5f3cfa1a 1y ago
      If the theory is that PIF's involvement is the video game equivalent of sportswashing, this is pretty much exactly what we should expect – the Saudi's expected return on their investment is improved perception and more opportunities to exercise soft power, with less concern around financial returns.
    - deaddodo 1y ago
      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 capital at a sustainable and normalized rate. Or, you can force them to continually increase that profit rate infinitely in a closed system, an impossible ask. This is literally the concept of “late stage capitalism”. What do you do when there is no more growth to sustain because you’ve saturated the closed system that is earth? You can either go hyperaggressive and eat into other avenues, hoping you can beat their incumbents (but either way, one is going to lose their own profit) or continually increase your profits by lowering quality and production costs. Thus why things like coke “used to taste better” or why Ford’s “used to be built better”. Private capital isn’t beholden to that requirement. It’s an advantage, not a disadvantage. They simply need to remain competitive and everyone wins: the labor gets a stable job, the owners get a stable income, the industry gets stable (if not increasing, from better technology) products, etc.
vel0city 1y ago
This $56B company just took on an additional $20B in debt for this to go private. Now not only do they need to make profits, they need to squeeze even more juice to pay the interest on that $20B. This will probably result in more money extracting schemes and less editorial freedom, even without thinking about MBS having a massive amount of influence in the company now.
spixy 1y ago
Cannot public company just pay dividents? Then there can be no pressure to constant growth.
- rchaud 1y ago
  Microsoft paid dividends every year in the 2000s and their share price barely ever broke $40. Most shares in large companies are owned by pension funds, mutual funds and hedge funds. Without share appreciation, the value of these funds don't grow. They make far more money through share price growth than they do in dividends, so they advocate for the company to operate in a way that makes that happen.

nemomarx 1y ago

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.

Etheryte 1y ago

If you think private equity will be milder, you're in for a bad surprise. Most of the enshittification you see around you stems from private equity.

WorldMaker 1y ago
Yup, many private equity deals ultimately are to break a company up into spare parts (to sell individual IPs/sub-brands to the highest bidder.) The extra debt the buyout saddles the company with is in part to build a bankruptcy case to kick off that spare parts auction.

fzeroracer 1y ago

A company going private is, in general, a good thing because they're less shackled by investors and capital. However this is the rare exception because this is more about oligarchs making a play for total control over the media sphere rather than any sort of financial independence. That said, cornering the entertainment side of things is going to be much harder especially since the people that do this kind of thing have zero clue what a video game even is or how to make a profitable one.

herpdyderp 1y ago

BioWare is long dead anyway.

nerdjon 1y ago
Honestly I disagree and I feel like this is largely parroted without playing the games. SWTOR was maintained pretty well for a while and was fun. The issues with ME3's ending were blown way out of proportion and was still a fantastic trilogy. Andromeda had its issues no doubt about it but I am still mad at a certain website deciding that they were going to just go hard on attacking it. It was a fun game, it had some development issues and some nasty bugs at launch. But was still fun. Anthem... man that game had potential but just was not ready to ship. Was a ton of fun to play and I loved the bits of story we got but it really was just a tease of a story sadly. DA Veilguard... definitely not up to the standard that Bioware set but there is still something uniquely Bioware about the characters that I fell in love with. That games potential was not helped by a vocal minority being mad about one specific character and not caring about anything else in the game. Has Bioware gone down since their peak? Yeah. But I think claims that they are dead are overblown and people parroting it on youtube for clicks sure isnt helping that sentiment. Play the games and make your own decision.
- keyringlight 1y ago
  I'd say Bioware has been through a rough time for over a decade, between pulling in new directions to avoid being just a factory that spits out sequels and being pushed into whatever area the business/owner side wanted, but after clearing their plate by shipping and drawing a line under Dragon Age I think they need to prove themselves. Apparently they're working as support for other studios while they do pre-production on the next Mass Effect, and that game needs to walk the line between staying true to the identity of the old games and bringing in new entrants. They're an established operating studio, but I'm not sure that counts for much when the mega publishers can shut down and start studios on a whim, they need to justify staying around whether that's because they make games that sell or because having a workforce in Canada is worthwhile.
  - 1y ago

swiftcoder 1y ago

> 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

JumpCrisscross 1y ago
> not sure the investment group attempting to diversify Saudi oil income is going to be less profit oriented than the stock market in general For what it’s worth, MBS is reportedly an avid gamer.
- boston_clone 1y ago
  So is Elon Musk.
  - boston_clone 1y ago
    To expand on this, the central issue is disreputable people obtaining a high degree of control over an industry; that their interests overlap is of little relevance - if anything, it’s a viable smokescreen for PR campaigns.
    - johnnyanmac 1y ago
      It's just a shame the smokescreens are at best some annoying exhaust from a car. Not really hiding much. But yes, investing in a game doesn't mean you're actually making a game you'd find fun.
Nexxxeh 1y ago
Muhammad Bonesaw grew up on Age of Empires, and enjoys(/enjoyed) CoD. They also want to use it to shape global perspective. I think signs are good, or at least less-bad.
- 1y ago

raincole 1y ago

Idk. Are private equity firms not asking for constant growth? Seems unlikely to me. I think most companies satisfied for being sustainable are probably owned by their original founders or their families, not private equity.

deaddodo 1y ago
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, investors lose interest and your value drops, despite being perfectly profitable. That’s not to say this private owner set will be happy with that, but that’s the benefit private ownership offers over public capital.
- Workaccount2 1y ago
  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"
  - 5f3cfa1a 1y ago
    If the theory is that PIF's involvement is the video game equivalent of sportswashing, this is pretty much exactly what we should expect – the Saudi's expected return on their investment is improved perception and more opportunities to exercise soft power, with less concern around financial returns.
  - deaddodo 1y ago
    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 capital at a sustainable and normalized rate. Or, you can force them to continually increase that profit rate infinitely in a closed system, an impossible ask. This is literally the concept of “late stage capitalism”. What do you do when there is no more growth to sustain because you’ve saturated the closed system that is earth? You can either go hyperaggressive and eat into other avenues, hoping you can beat their incumbents (but either way, one is going to lose their own profit) or continually increase your profits by lowering quality and production costs. Thus why things like coke “used to taste better” or why Ford’s “used to be built better”. Private capital isn’t beholden to that requirement. It’s an advantage, not a disadvantage. They simply need to remain competitive and everyone wins: the labor gets a stable job, the owners get a stable income, the industry gets stable (if not increasing, from better technology) products, etc.

vel0city 1y ago

This $56B company just took on an additional $20B in debt for this to go private. Now not only do they need to make profits, they need to squeeze even more juice to pay the interest on that $20B. This will probably result in more money extracting schemes and less editorial freedom, even without thinking about MBS having a massive amount of influence in the company now.

spixy 1y ago

Cannot public company just pay dividents? Then there can be no pressure to constant growth.

rchaud 1y ago
Microsoft paid dividends every year in the 2000s and their share price barely ever broke $40. Most shares in large companies are owned by pension funds, mutual funds and hedge funds. Without share appreciation, the value of these funds don't grow. They make far more money through share price growth than they do in dividends, so they advocate for the company to operate in a way that makes that happen.