6 ms·
The sale of Electronic Arts has been finalized
- rockskon 2mo agoWhat a waste of Saudi money.
- bestouff 2mo agoIt's not a financial investment. They're buying influence.
- gmerc 2mo agoThis. See Bobby Kotik and the Epstein files.
- nick486 2mo ago>They're buying influence. Buying EA for influence? With the reputation EA has in gaming? They're a joke - they're not influencing anything. Its like buying a violin to fix a flat tire.
- ReactiveJelly 2mo agoThey make all the sports games. Have you noticed all the sports and Mr. Beast type slop that's like "Wow and here we are inn Dubai / Saudi Arabia whatever and it's beautiful and luxurious and we're driving in Lambos waooowww" If product placement didn't work it wouldn't be an industry
- rockskon 2mo agoDo you think there's a realistic future where the money paid for EA could possibly be recouped with product placement?
- charcircuit 2mo ago>They're a joke They are known for making games that sell to a mass audience and monetizing them well. It's like calling McDonald's a joke. It doesn't take away that they are a successful business affecting many people in the world.
- krige 2mo agoIf they sold games and were well monetized (not to be confused with heavily monetized), they wouldn't be in this situation in the first place.
- DimmieMan 2mo agoThe 'core gamer' bubble has always been bad for this. Sports games sell like hotcakes and have people buy them every year religiously but you never hear about them, sims too. Their other titles were heavy hitters. Their just a seperate audience; EA certainly has influence, just not with people that talk about games.
- rockskon 2mo agoCultural influence though? Are you going to have MAGA Madden? The Socialist League?
- Morromist 2mo agoI agree they're good at making games that sell to a mass audience - but I really think that a lot of franchises have wasted a ton of money partnering with EA, which makes poor quality games that are exactly the same as the one they printed out 12 months ago. I haven't heard anyone talking about an EA sports game since the PS1 era and they seem to have completely missed the e-sports era where DOTA and Fortnight made vast sums of money. Don't get me wrong, they've made a ton of money, but I think they could have made still far more in more competant hands. Fabulously greedy FIFA seems to have realized this and is no longer partnering with them.
- Jach 2mo agoNews to me about FIFA. SA has been trying to gain "influence" in sports overall, and their video game endeavors also seem focused on "e-sports" more than gaming as a whole. I frequently hear complaints about them in fighting game circles, which is a more niche segment of "e-sports". EA is a big step up even if it's not DOTA/LoL levels.
- gambiting 2mo ago>>With the reputation EA has in gaming? Do you think your average EA Sports FC or Battlefield player is even aware of that reputation? These games still sell tens of million of copies. Positive influence in Battlefield alone would be huge.
- Yizahi 2mo agoBuying only a 40% stake in Epic, allowed China to successfully breach Apple's store monopoly and establish a foothold on a previously restricted platform. Will the gable pay off in the future or not, is not exactly relevant. The point is that they can leverage pre-existing western companies for their expansion plans in various ways.
- kidfiji 2mo agoDidn't realize gameswashing was a thing like sportswashing, but here we are
- BLKNSLVR 2mo agoSo we can expect Battlefield: Iran sometime soon? Starting the propaganda for a ground invasion. I wonder if this one one of the crowd-sourced ideas submitted to the DoD?
- sph 2mo agoWhat do you mean ‘starting the propagand’? It already was a propaganda vehicle, but it will not be the US behind it this time.
- sebazzz 2mo agoNot a waste either, it doesn't cost them anything. The debt is on EA.
- _carbyau_ 2mo agoBetween Saudi and right wing influence it seems one publisher will be trying to influence social commentary.
- krige 2mo agoBecause the Saudis leveraged this buyout via a massive loan from JP Morgan, EA's debt is now 10 times higher than it was when it was a publicly traded company: $2.2b to $22b. Turns out the notion that they wouldn’t need humans to make games and they would use AI for most things was a pipe dream and firing staff to be profitable with the huge loan didn't work. Now they are fucked. Every company that spends money to buy up companies died and goes defunct because they keep failing to realize that they have to keep spending loads of money to make money and it doesn’t just roll in after acquiring IPs. Not even mobile slop or live service can save them anymore.
- neilfrndes 2mo agoBending Spoons seems to be doing fine
- krige 2mo agoI meant in the videogame industry.
- whatever1 2mo agoFuck this corrupt system. You want to buy a company? Bring your own fucking money. Why do we have to pay for this shit?
- hgomersall 2mo agoWhat? This is JP Morgan on the hook for it if the loan goes bad.
- tomkarho 2mo agoEnd of an era. Who do we vote as the worst company ever now?
- Aardwolf 2mo agoI guess it'll keep existing with the name EA? "Public investment fund" doesn't sound too fitting for a game company
- LocalH 2mo agoI disagree. They're not gonna give up the brand recognition to rename it. They specifically wanted "Electronic Arts". EA has Battlefield, FIFA, The Sims, and Madden. Those four alone are probably responsible for 90% of the company's revenue. If anything, now you can say that EA is doubly the worst company, especially in gaming.
- krige 2mo agoEA lost FIFA a few years ago. The games are now "FC". They still sell though.
- LocalH 2mo agoShit. I had a feeling I was fucking up on one of those. The other three are still massive franchises, though.
- hurfdurf 2mo agoAnother big one is College Football, at least in the US. And in the latest edition they nerfed the offline single-player mode's XP progression. In return they added microtransactions to buy XP points. For offline single-player. Gachaification continues.
- croes 2mo agoThey didn’t lose FIFA, they let go. FIFA lost EA
- 2mo ago
- LarsDu88 2mo agoDoes this mean we'll finally get a new Sim City?
- johanvts 2mo agoSimCopter really should have priority IMO.
- waste_monk 2mo agoDon't @ me until they bring back Sid Meier's SimGolf
- seattle_spring 2mo agoBundled with a revived Streets of SimCity please and thank you
- Morromist 2mo agoYou'll take Skylines 2 and you'll like it.
- sph 2mo agoAre you that eager to give your money to the Saudis and Kushner? There’s a whole world of gaming out there.
- lovich 2mo agoThis is being bought by Affinity Partners, the same Kushner led group that’s trying to buy out FIFA? Is the Trump family just going to own all of our entertainment and military companies?
- BLKNSLVR 2mo ago> Is the Trump family just going to own all of our entertainment and military companies? Are we the Bad Guys? Not any more. Now we're the Worse Guys.
- nrightnour 2mo agoUh, nobody is trying to buy out FIFA....
- lovich 2mo agoI’m sorry, just the World Cup. And looks like they backed off the plan after the pushback from the member organizations of FIFA got too hot.
- anal_reactor 2mo agoI thought I'd care more, but all EA is releasing nowadays is normie slop anyway, so yeah.
- thefz 2mo agoAh private equity, the king midas of shit.
- deleted 2mo ago[deleted]
- nrightnour 2mo agoWow, so EA’s yearly loan interest alone will be more than their yearly profits. If they aren't completely toast, they'll be a shell of what they are today, which is already a shell of what they once were.