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.
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.
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
End of an era. Who do we vote as the worst company ever now?
Well at least as far as gaming companies go, Blizzard always seems willing to throw its hat in the ring.
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.
EA being voted as the worst company has always been funny to me. The world would be a far better place if it was indeed the case.
I guess it'll keep existing with the name EA? "Public investment fund" doesn't sound too fitting for a game company
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.
EA lost FIFA a few years ago. The games are now "FC". They still sell though.
They didn’t lose FIFA, they let go. FIFA lost EA
Shit. I had a feeling I was fucking up on one of those. The other three are still massive franchises, though.
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.
Won't Saudi ownership of something bad make it even worse? The era goes on!
Grave danger of integer overflow (underflow?).
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.
Bending Spoons seems to be doing fine
I meant in the videogame industry.
Fuck this corrupt system.
You want to buy a company? Bring your own fucking money. Why do we have to pay for this shit?
What? This is JP Morgan on the hook for it if the loan goes bad.
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 the taxpayer is. We paid the subprime mortgage bill. We will pay the private equity leverage bill too.
Too big to fail eh? Do you really think if it blows up, the public won’t get sucked in?
What a waste of Saudi money.
It's not a financial investment. They're buying influence.
So 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?
What do you mean ‘starting the propagand’? It already was a propaganda vehicle, but it will not be the US behind it this time.
>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.
>>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.
>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.
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.
If you havent heard of people playing ea sports games since ps1 you're in a bubble.
Yes, and buying McDonald's to influence anything would be a joke too. In fact EA is the McD of gaming, thats a perfect metaphor.
If you want influence, there are waaay better value propositions.
If 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.
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.
Cultural influence though?
Are you going to have MAGA Madden?
The Socialist League?
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
Didn't realize gameswashing was a thing like sportswashing, but here we are
This. See Bobby Kotik and the Epstein files.
Does this mean we'll finally get a new Sim City?
You'll take Skylines 2 and you'll like it.
Are you that eager to give your money to the Saudis and Kushner?
There’s a whole world of gaming out there.
SimCopter really should have priority IMO.
Don't @ me until they bring back Sid Meier's SimGolf
Bundled with a revived Streets of SimCity please and thank you
Between Saudi and right wing influence it seems one publisher will be trying to influence social commentary.
This 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?
> 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.