A group of investors including private-equity firm Silver Lake and Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund could unveil a deal for the publisher best known for its sports games as soon as next week, WSJ said.
A group of investors including private-equity firm Silver Lake and Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund could unveil a deal for the publisher best known for its sports games as soon as next week, WSJ said.
16 Comments
acosmichippo@lemmy.world · 56 pts · 329d
given how terrible it has gone for ea over the past 15+ years maybe this is a good thing.
...oh saudi arabia, nevermind.
rozodru@piefed.social · 32 pts · 329d
Saudi Arabia all of a sudden has become a Teenager from the late 90s/early 00s. Just buying Wrestlemania, Videogame companies and events, etc.
Next thing you know they're going to buy Mountain Dew, Doritos, JNCO jeans and the band KoRn.
njm1314@lemmy.world · 14 pts · 329d
They're just trying to diversify as much as they can because they know their entire nation is basically a ticking time bomb.
Blackmist@feddit.uk · 5 pts · 329d
"but his son will ride a camel..." vibes.
BurgerBaron@piefed.social · 1 pts · 324d
It won't be, they're doing a good job diversifying.
Unlike Alberta run by even bigger dipshits.
count_dongulus@lemmy.world · 11 pts · 329d
If EA weren't already so bloated and full of suits, I might imagine this would allow them to pump the brakes on their scummy moneymaking policies like the other publicly traded corps.
rafoix@lemmy.zip · 2 pts · 328d
Private investors are just as greedy as publicly traded companies. They’re just trying to change from visible scumbags to hidden ones.
Agent_Karyo@lemmy.world · 10 pts · 329d
On one hand this is big news, on the other hand, I don't really see how this matters.
The last EA game that I bought was SimCity (2013) and that was comically bad. Just my experience, but it's not like fans of their sports games will be looking for alternatives (irrespective of what EA does).
ampersandrew@lemmy.world · 18 pts · 329d
The Saudi part matters a lot, as they've been grabbing lots of the gaming industry in their diversification efforts.
It also moves what their incentives and goals are. They'll still try to make money, which means Ultimate Team isn't going away without legislation, but when they're private, they can probably afford to burn through some war chest searching for new franchises to replace their defunct franchises, and perhaps public investors wouldn't be interested in losing that money in the short term.
Agent_Karyo@lemmy.world · 4 pts · 329d
I don't really see why public or private status matters in the picture. It will be still be the same culture (and leadership?). They try something new, but if will still be the same old IMO.
I could be wrong though, I don't really have much interests in AAA outside of a few exceptions.
ampersandrew@lemmy.world · 7 pts · 329d
Truthfully, you'll likely see very little change in the next few years, but they wouldn't do it if they didn't see an advantage to it. The article outlines some of them.
shani66@ani.social · 5 pts · 329d
Being publicly traded means you don't follow any sort of ethics, mission statement, or even actual business metrics anymore, you chase incredibly toxic and self destructive short term profit over all else. Being private means they might be and to recover from their bullshit, especially since a death spiral for a corpo is centuries long apparently.
devolution@lemmy.world · 8 pts · 329d
SA games, saw everything.
rising_man@lemmy.world · -2 pts · 329d
That means no more Diversity & LGBTQI+ in games? Well, at least Saudi Arabia aligns with the misogynistic views of teenage gamers.
Let's if the main character in Battlefield 7 will be a suicide bomber rushing into Western soldiers.
Shezzagrad@lemmy.ml · 3 pts · 329d
Ah yes, Saudia Arabia is the gonna ruin games with racist tropes... Like any call of duty game or most western games set in the Middle East or anywhere in the world really making with racist tropes and stereotypes. Mate whether your from the UK or America the call is coming from inside the house with your awful fucking nations and their bullshit notion of "freedom of expression" remind me who was it that was crying about battlefield v having women and black people in it?
rising_man@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 329d
Who said it was better before. The problem is that every nation is pushing their agenda and we need truly independent games companies. Having video games owned by public funds is just bad. Like every medias owned for political reasons.
I'm not from UK or America. My country got stereotyped enough in games and medias don't worry.