Videogame Giant Electronic Arts Near Roughly $50b Deal to Go Private
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Electronic Arts is nearing a $50B deal to go private, sparking concerns among commenters about the potential consequences of private equity involvement, including increased debt, layoffs, and decreased game quality.
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That's the headline I thought this was tbh - are any of us actually expecting like anything else out of EA?? Uh, Cod, EA Sports, Madden, FIFA.
Fr. We'll get more sports games, COD, and some you know movies themed market manipulated IP tie-in games, like the however many Mad Max type were... such games are only sometimes decent and very rarely worth $50-$100.
EA has invested all their energy maximizing profits and that has worked well but those micro transactions are like all coming from such predictable near dribble... the rest of their development has long been skewed to games that create "platforms" for micro transactions, along with the significant shift to mobile,
EA is kinda like a very well funded, well established, well equipped, super elite "Paper Tiger" - $50 billion status quo.
Currently EA is getting very positive responses to the previews of their new Battlefield title, after the last ones where underwhelming.
>EA has invested all their energy maximizing profits and that has worked well but those micro transactions are like all coming from such predictable near dribble... the rest of their development has long been skewed to games that create "platforms" for micro transactions, along with the significant shift to mobile,
Is that true art all? They were quite tame with micro transactions in their previous Battlefield titles and BioWare games.
Today, rn - EA is a $50 Billion Gaming Giant but is not Sony, Samsung, Nintendo, Apple, Epic, Amazon or Microsoft, so... that's just the way it is.
Microsoft will make an Xbox out of everything. All publishers want to be distributing on a near universally adopted platform - which is what Game Pass is now.
EA already existing within the Game Pass ecosystem means they can't get out any more - this isn't the streaming wars, I already know that Netflix wins in the end.
I'll not tolerate an EA platform and they literally already have one, I have to occasionally visit, despite EA on Game Pass - bc it's janky and not worth the money at all a top of Gamepass. t
ALL the bigger companies have distribution platforms they pray we all adopt as a forever SaS - we already know how this goes.
Microsoft wins.
AFTER THAT, I think the whole distribution model will change completely.
I sure wish I could just "settle" at being a billion dollar company. Plenty to make games and pay others to make games.
>which is what Game Pass is now.
I really don't understand the business pressure here either. Games have an established premium model as pretty much the only medium where people will pay for art a la carte. Then they see how profitable the streaming wars are (and yes, Netflix is "profitable", but not for the right reasons), and they think "yes, let's do that to us as well!"
We already have a f2p market and model for those who don't pay for games too. A games subscription service is simply suicide.
Private equity needs to be razed and liquidated because these people are nothing but economic vampires who produce nothing except extraction and destruction.
It's a $50 Billion dollar company only bc we aren't over it yet - it's just seasonally refreshing the same games, for almost 20 years.
Microsoft will swoop in and buy ALL the valuable titles and leave the rest - Microsoft already has a giant staff, so it doesn't need all the people from EA - prolly less than 1/3 would come along...
What is EA going to do?
Haha, release a revolutionarily familiar form of Madden that they think (pretend) the whole world will buy all the micros of??
Buckle up for Battlefield 7!!! Yay!!!
FR - smh for EA's bs all these years. It's not the only "giant" like this either. Most of these companies coughSonycough - depends on the gaming world being independently competing walled garden platforms with a dedicated player base - Sony requires that. So does Nintendo.
Microsoft thought that too - before all devices could be an Xbox. They jumped on that despite being the very last to the mobile market - the company will now just envelop all of it.
Why buy a switch or PS5 - why buy any console?
Everything has to move about - we can do that now. If Microsoft advantage is that the Xbox platform is all PCs, Phones, TVs, etc - its in the Company interest to make the world a game - AR/VR, so more like Sword Art movie, Ordinal Scale than OG Sword Art - if you consider the almost universal business market penetration for many Microsoft products, the Company wins if we do more stuff like Pokemon go, etc.
I don't know how great it will be for gaming but I'm spelling this all out for a reason. It's obvious - hence EA's fate. What does Sony do? If Sony was Samsung w/Galaxy and PlayStation - that would be a bit better of a position but...
This will be like Windows - we will all think of playing games as something done on Game Pass or Xbox - (the rebranding will be later) except for the small % of holdouts that eventually carve out a niche for their failed platform as "it's purposely superior thing" so tp be all smug.
I'll stop now.
>Videogame maker Electronic Arts is in advanced talks to go private in a roughly $50 billion deal that would likely be the largest leveraged buyout of all time, according to people familiar with the matter.
A group of investors including private-equity firm Silver Lake, Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund and Jared Kushner’s investment firm Affinity Partners could unveil a deal for the publisher best known for its sports games as soon as next week, the people said.
But I'm not particularly surprised. It was either Vulture Capitalists or techno-trillionaire. There were rumors buzzing about Apple and Amazon swooping in for years (probably because there were talks, but nothing concrete came of it).
And not to get too political (though at this point I really don't care about avoiding the subject), there's some interesting irony about all this "America first initiatives", and meanwhile one of our largest entertainment companies is being bought out by Saudi Arabia, likely leading to thousands more workers out of a job. But that's just 2025 for ya.