In a deal involving a company owned by Jared Kushner, a company that is basically just the Saudis, and $20B of debt.
Hopefully it’s a leveraged buyout and this is the death of EA.
It's official: EA is going private.
Submitted 5 months ago by ampersandrew@lemmy.world to games@lemmy.world
https://bsky.app/profile/jasonschreier.bsky.social/post/3lzxzk5aifs2w
Comments
dependencyinjection@discuss.tchncs.de 5 months ago
ampersandrew@lemmy.world 5 months ago
It is a leveraged buyout.
dependencyinjection@discuss.tchncs.de 5 months ago
Yup I added an edit. LBOs should be illegal man. Just search how many companies have been bought like this and then driven out of business.
ghosthacked@lemmy.wtf 5 months ago
For a preview of what happens, look at the embracer buyouts. This is essentially a funeral
dependencyinjection@discuss.tchncs.de 5 months ago
Yup. Or Toys R Us, or Debenhams (UK), or any other number of LBOs which led to the death of the company.
Sam_Bass@lemmy.world 5 months ago
Couldn’t happen to a nicer company
Adderbox76@lemmy.ca 5 months ago
Had an EA Play so I could play NHL and FIFA, and the occasional ME Trilogy replay. Canceled it the moment the news broke about Kushner and the Saudis. Had paid for the year and was willing to sacrifice the final five months in the name of morality. But luckily they refunded me the difference.
PissingIntoTheWind@lemmy.world 5 months ago
Why is an anti-Semitic meme the picture for this post? Did a Jewish CEO buy the company?
Jax@sh.itjust.works 5 months ago
Dude what?
PissingIntoTheWind@lemmy.world 5 months ago
Nevermind it’s the reporters selfie. I thought this was a racist joke against EA.
Piwix@lemmy.today 5 months ago
That’s the profile picture for the reporter’s bluesky post that this links to.
PissingIntoTheWind@lemmy.world 5 months ago
Saw that. I thought the article poster was being racist.
NoodlePoint@lemmy.world 5 months ago
Sail the high seas.
DarrinBrunner@lemmy.world 5 months ago
Good riddance. I hope by “private” they mean we won’t hear from them again–they’re a very private company, they keep to themselves, and never say anything. That sort of private.
vga@sopuli.xyz 5 months ago
Is this better or worse than being a public company?
dependencyinjection@discuss.tchncs.de 5 months ago
Depends. This is a leveraged buyout and there are countless examples of other companies bought like this and they don’t last long.
They take on massive debt to buy it. Then they shift that debt to the company they bought and away from the individuals. Then that company is crippled paying down interest so they can’t innovate (not that EA did), then they’ll have to cut costs and the product will diminish. Likely pay out billions in dividends to the buyers can make profit and in 5-10 years EA will go bust or get sold again.
The banks will be left holding the bag, but probably covered their loses by that time so can write off the rest of the debt.
itztalal@lemmings.world 5 months ago
Depends on your perspective.
This is bad from a business, creativity, and human rights standpoint.
However, it’s good that a shitty company like EA with predatory products is going to be even more exploitative and predatory from here on out.
I enjoy watching the useful idiots get taken for a ride.
PissingIntoTheWind@lemmy.world 5 months ago
Haven’t bought an EA game in over a decade. Don’t intend to change that anytime soon.
jj4211@lemmy.world 5 months ago
If it’s gone public, then generally going private is a bad thing. It’s usually some investors that are going to do something bad with the company.
A company that starts and stays private may be all the better for it (but that’s hardly assured either). If they are a success and didn’t bring a lot of investors, then it generally means they actually care about the work intrinsically.
Bronzebeard@lemmy.zip 5 months ago
This specific instance? Worse.
It’s being bought by blood money (Kushner’s $2billion investment/bribe to hush up the US government about the brutal murder of a US resident journalist at the hands of the Saudis).
SippyCup@lemmy.ml 5 months ago
Public companies have a hard wired compulsion to increase value for shareholders. Every single decision is made with profit in mind. In the best cases you get milquetoast, inoffensive material everyone can enjoy. Ultimately, this leads to a relentless and aggressive pursuit of endless growth at any cost.
Private companies can take a loss here and there, they don’t have to report a bad quarter and so they can plan ahead. Which allows them to do two, non explains things. That approach allows them to build a robust and loyal consumer base which is quite valuable. So they’ll sell it off again and let the public companies milk them dry. They can also get up to some horrendously evil shit behind closed doors in a foreign country where the laws only apply to people who aren’t the ruling family and never have to answer for it. Though that kind of thing is usually reserved for like, chemical manufacturers and labor intensive luxury food markets. It may be that the Saudis are just diversifying and want a propaganda mouthpiece. Or one of the royals REALLY likes FIFA.
Hard to say.
CrazyFrog97@discuss.online 5 months ago
Yes.
Reygle@lemmy.world 5 months ago
And the worst get worst-er
Lootboblin@lemmy.world 5 months ago
101 how to make your public image even worse.
flemtone@lemmy.world 5 months ago
I gave up on EA a long time back, and them not making Alice: Asylum was the final nail in their coffin.
thatKamGuy@sh.itjust.works 5 months ago
EA has basically been dead to me for a very long time, even though I know a couple of people who work there.
While the whole Saudi Arabia / Private Equity angle is terrible, part of me thinks/hopes/wishes that this is part of their whole sports-washing angle - and there is a slim but non-0 chance that there will be an improvement in the quality of their studio output over the next few years.
I’ll continue to avoid buying their games, but it would be nice to see those that still do not getting nickel-and-dimes as hard as they currently are.
Who knows, there is also the potential that this buyout backfires and Saudi’s human rights abuses become even more public knowledge as a result?
When times are as bad as they currently are, we have to hope.
cdf12345@lemmy.zip 5 months ago
I’d love to see the sports leagues pull their licenses
HugeNerd@lemmy.ca 5 months ago
Wait, can I still play Skate or Die! on my Commodore 64?
vane@lemmy.world 5 months ago
Take Two is next.
taiyang@lemmy.world 5 months ago
I was thinking about this deal and… I guess it makes sense the Saudis want in on the gaming industry. I recall a long while ago an old article about the industry (probably second hand via Polygon) that noted just how much Saudis whale on mobile and loot box games. It was so disproportionate, their nobility was like 2% of a mobile title’s revenue… literally just a few big families.
So my thinking is, EA, being the kind of shitty company it is, is actually probably pretty popular among Saudi nobility. That and FIFA, of course — imagine pay to win when you have infinite money.
NoodlePoint@lemmy.world 5 months ago
Makes me think why Houthis and the Iranians hate them.
skisnow@lemmy.ca 5 months ago
I’m more cynical than that, I think it’s that Kushner and the Saudis have both identified gamers as a group susceptible to be influenced by auth-right messaging, and they want a piece of that.
ceiphas@feddit.org 5 months ago
They lost the FIFA games…
DacoTaco@lemmy.world 5 months ago
“Lost” They lost the fifa name, but fc is basically the same, and it still has all the players and club’s in it soooo… Its just a name change sadly
VerseAndVermin@lemmy.world 5 months ago
How much couch money do I need to acquire Westwood’s NoX out of this?
JakenVeina@midwest.social 5 months ago
Oh, cool, another buyout where the buyer doesn’t have to actually pay for it, they just take out a loan and magically make the company pay for it.
ShaggySnacks@lemmy.myserv.one 5 months ago
It’s the workers who pay the price for the greed of the CEOs, shareholders, and the new owners.
Bronzebeard@lemmy.zip 5 months ago
This shit needs to be made illegal. All it does is kill off businesses. Sears and JoAnn Fabrics both died to this trash.
frunch@lemmy.world 5 months ago
Toys R Us too 🤬
Konraddo@lemmy.world 5 months ago
Basically Tesla, oof
plsnerf7@lemmy.world 5 months ago
Right before bf6… well o7
Kelcho@lemmy.zip 5 months ago
Truly sad times
Not because of EA, but because of the private equity shit. They want to control everything
desmosthenes@lemmy.world 5 months ago
they don’t make good games anymore anyway
Duamerthrax@lemmy.world 5 months ago
They’ve never made good games. They sometimes allowed one of their devs to make a good game when they weren’t looking, but no one is perfect.
barnaclebutt@lemmy.world 5 months ago
No, they made some bangers before going evil.
Ashiette@lemmy.world 5 months ago
FIFA 99, Need for Speed : Underground, The Sims 2, C&C : Red Alert 2, SSX3, Black and White, LOTR 2 & 3, Burnout 3, Battlefield Vietnam, …
There was a time when they were good, but they fell out of grace in the second half of the 2000s
echodot@feddit.uk 5 months ago
They accidentally made a really good Star wars game several years ago, but when they noticed they abandoned it. All the reviews for it were basically along on the lines of, this is really good, but don’t expect any updates.
psycho_driver@lemmy.world 5 months ago
Eh some of their stuff from the 80s was pretty groovy.
daggermoon@lemmy.world 5 months ago
Y’all shouldn’t be buying EA games anyway.
mic_check_one_two@lemmy.dbzer0.com 5 months ago
At this point, I see pirating The Sims as a moral imperative. There’s no reason the full game should be ~$1500.
MITM0@lemmy.world 5 months ago
Yeah but we can also make a FOSS version of PlantsvsZombies & Sims
Colonel_Panic_@eviltoast.org 5 months ago
I downloaded every EA game ever made and I don’t even want to play any of them. I have the files imprisoned on my computer, forever. Bwahahaha!
Master@sh.itjust.works 5 months ago
Meme:
Ea: was I a good game company.
Grim Reaper: No!
RampantParanoia2365@lemmy.world 5 months ago
The idea of playing a new Mass Effect owned by Jared Kushner.
But_my_mom_says_im_cool@lemmy.world 5 months ago
What difference does this make honestly? They’re already a shit company, what do I care who owns them?
Tronn4@lemmy.world 5 months ago
EA, Its not in the game
kadaverin0@lemmy.dbzer0.com 5 months ago
I haven’t bought an EA game since Mass Effect 3. This is just one more reason to never give them my money.
deddit@lemmy.world 5 months ago
The first EA game I got was M.U.L.E. (circa mid 80’s) for the Atari 800, the last was Battlefield 3. I was an avid supporter until they turned all greedy, I would have purchased many of their titles after BF3 if they were not such greedy devils.
Tigeroovy@lemmy.ca 5 months ago
Just when you thought EA couldn’t suck worse they find a way!
ChaoticEntropy@feddit.uk 5 months ago
I couldn’t be more excited about what’s ahead,” said Jared Kushner, Chief Executive Officer of Affinity Partners.
Because it just wouldn’t be a story without a Trump family angle.
echodot@feddit.uk 5 months ago
It saves so much time for him to be buying a failed company. It cuts out all the leg work he has to do.
If a company bought EA it would make sense if they were buying it for the IP. Someone who actually knows how to run a business could probably turn it around, but why is he buying it does he have another game studio that I’m not aware of?
ChaoticEntropy@feddit.uk 5 months ago
Holy shit, that is a lot of debt… EA is going to be absolutely gutted. I imagine the ones gutting it will be paid generously for the trouble though.
Knock_Knock_Lemmy_In@lemmy.world 5 months ago
It’s only about 20% debt.
echodot@feddit.uk 5 months ago
The word “only” is doing a lot of heavy lifting there.
MyDarkestTimeline01@ani.social 5 months ago
So THAT’S why they allowed Battlefield 6 to be so good. Had to pump up those player interest numbers.
Senf@feddit.org 5 months ago
EA has not been able to send the Auth Codes 2-factor to my e-mail with my own domain for ages.
The support (probably AI) sends me a link to a support article about 2-factor authorisation every time. EXACTLY THE ARTICLE WHERE YOU HAVE TO SCROLL ALL THE WAY DOWN TO CONTACT SUPPORT.