I'm not sure they're even the worst games company. Ubisoft would give them a run for their money but that's a $30 DLC over a $70 base price I refused to pay for.
No, EA earn every criticism and this move to PE will do absolutely nothing to improve their business practices.
In spite of all the hate, I like that Blizzard's games don't use super nasty DRMs (like Denuvo, which EA, Ubisoft and many others use), all their games work perfectly under Linux (Wine/Proton), and they still host live download links to a game that's nearly three decades old (Diablo 2). Like literally yesterday I set up a new Linux laptop and was about to install Project Diablo 2 under Steam, and was pleasantly surprised to see that the HTTP links to the original D2 and D2 LoD setups were still alive, and the Win 9x-era downloader+installer still works just fine. I mean, how cool is that. And I could even log into battle.net and retrieve my CD keys too. For a 26yr old game.
I 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.
Another 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.
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.
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.
I 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.
News 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.
Yeah. Actually it looks to me like FIFA jumped the gun a bit. They stopped letting EA making their games in 2023, but then choaked and have only released two not-great looking games seemingly meant for low end systems like phones and the Nintendo Switch. I doubt either sold as well as the EA FIFA games.
I'll bet they lost a lot of money - I'm sure there's an interesting story about FIFA's efforts to get their own game development up and running. I guess they wanted EA to pay $300 million per year and EA said no, but I doubt FIFA made 50 million on the games they released.
The '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.
They 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
Because 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.
You'll have to pay for it anyway. Games will get more expensive, there'll be more micro-transactions, etc. The investors as well as JP Morgan want their money back.
I wouldn't be so quick to assume the capital structure of a company influences its product decisions. Lots of well-funded, publicly traded companies are also screwing their customers for the sake of short-term revenue.
Want better games? Find them. Support the smaller studios and indie devs that produce quality, or contribute to a FOSS one.
Realistically EA will never financially recover from this in its current form. Likely they will carve out 1-2 portions of it they can resell and the rest will die.
No, EA earn every criticism and this move to PE will do absolutely nothing to improve their business practices.
If anything, now you can say that EA is doubly the worst company, especially in gaming.
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.
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.
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.
Fabulously greedy FIFA seems to have realized this and is no longer partnering with them.
I'll bet they lost a lot of money - I'm sure there's an interesting story about FIFA's efforts to get their own game development up and running. I guess they wanted EA to pay $300 million per year and EA said no, but I doubt FIFA made 50 million on the games they released.
If you want influence, there are waaay better value propositions.
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.
Are you going to have MAGA Madden?
The Socialist League?
If product placement didn't work it wouldn't be an industry
Starting the propaganda for a ground invasion. I wonder if this one one of the crowd-sourced ideas submitted to the DoD?
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.
You want to buy a company? Bring your own fucking money. Why do we have to pay for this shit?
Want better games? Find them. Support the smaller studios and indie devs that produce quality, or contribute to a FOSS one.
There’s a whole world of gaming out there.
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.