NowGamer: According to recent job listings for positions at EA Montreal, the studio is set to work on multiple new shooters...
Electronic Arts Inc. (NASDAQ: EA) (“EA” or the “Company”), a global leader in interactive entertainment, today announced that it has entered into a definitive agreement to be acquired by an investor consortium (“the Consortium”) comprised of PIF, Silver Lake, and Affinity Partners in an all-cash transaction that values EA at an enterprise value of approximately $55 billion. The transaction positions EA to accelerate innovation and growth to build the future of entertainment.
At this early stage in this developing story, I am most focused, as I hope we all are, on the job secuirty of the developers at the various Electronic Arts studios.
Layoffs will be massive. Entire studios will go down in flames unfortunately
No more public influence of game content.
Private company is now free to tell any story they want.
This might just be great
Though some truths might be censored in the process.
@Lordofthe fallen
You have to be joking right?
PIF is owned by Saudi Arabia. You will have censorship like never before.
@S2Killinit
You mention PIF but you forgot to mention one of the other partners working with the Saudis. Jared Kushner's Affinity Partners, yep the son in law of the president of the US making those "by the book always above board deals".
I hope they keep their politics, beliefs, and censorship out of our games!!!!!
@Lord you must be a sheep. Bah bah bah
The wonders of the global elites that always wins. In reality the losers are always the good guys, that end up falling for the trap.
Have you learned anything from Microsoft?
They bought 70 billion dollar and made more profits than half the software an video game industry, and what do they do? 10,000 layoff this year and another last year.
Ppl always forget that's why they do it all the time. Investors maybe different from all over but behind them it's all same ppl from WEF
Microsoft lay off people at the end of their financial year every year and then quite often re-hire lots of those employees as "contractors" - usually on higher salaries but less benefits and protections.
The reason they do this is because they are a publicly listed company and the board have to prove to investors that they are both making lots of money and making savings.
This new EA entity will be private. This purchase is a vanity project to gain influence in the sector because there's no way they could create a MENA-based publisher to rival any of the global powerhouses from scratch.
EA is fairly profitable as it is - about $7Bn in the last year I believe. So there's no real need to make cuts and if there's one thing PIF don't have a lack of, it's cash. Maybe they will lay a load of staff off but logically, I would assume they'd throw lots of money at their new toy because they are desperate for the world to take them more seriously as part of Vision 2030.
Yes o wise tiger. Perhaps you can teach me of the WEF conspiracy and in exchange I will teach you English. Together we will fight the illuminati and restore the order of the Hidden Ones!
This is good people Sony understand saudi already have big investments in gaming. They have so much money they aren't worried about simply turning profit. 100 million profit means very little to them since they make billions daily
Censorship should be enforced now EA games won't have any LGBTQ or DEI. Keep gaming agenda free like they should be. Tried of this nonsense affecting a hobby. Focus on making great games not on pushing certain groups or agenda. I don't mean no disrespect or offense. I just want gaming to be free of all this. Whatever you do in your personal business and I have no issue with that. I just don't personally want that in gaming
Sounds like you are the one with the agenda. When we said we don't want censorship... we mean all types that aren't patently harmful (such as depictions child abuse). We are mature enough to accept that the things we see in art aren't always going to reflect our on image, belief systems or moral systems. And thats okay. You are saying that an entire form of art has to be censored to cater to your own sensabilities. You gotta be stronger within yourself and stand in your own truth. Gaming isn't your's or mine. It is ours and lets keep it that way.
Whether I am saying it or not that's what will happen. If you don't want that to happen don't take their money. Saudi money comes with conditions. Just like when they have WWE events all those female wrestlers are not allowed to wear their regular wrestling gears and must cover all their body parts
Our western companies don't have the morals to say no. That Saudi public fund has over 750 billion available. And please look up how many different gaming companies they own a hefty piece of
These situations are double edged swords; On one hand, EA will now be trying to appease a smaller amount of stakeholders. This will allow for more "efficient" development. Shorter focus testing. Etc.
On the other hand, they will be trying to appease specific special interests. That means if you thought censorship was bad previously, it may get worse (or better, but who are we kidding here)
Quite a few developers will be laid off as a result of this where the investors determine "cutting the fat off" to alleviate the initial sunk cost, and likely demand the incorporation of A.I. into tools to make up for the missing workforce.
The future is dystopian, and we're here to watch it happen real-time.
Pretty much my exact thoughts, especially with lots of Arabian censoibeing pretty heavy handed most of the time. We'll really just have to wait and see but it could make things worse
I’d be surprised if we actually get ME4 at this rate
If they do die off in a few years I hope they give their IPs away.
Oh look Saudis and Jared kushner PIF group owning EA. Those two are unbreakable pair! Paying the president's son in law for 2 billion in consultation fees probably would do that.
I fucking hate the future
Andrew Wilson's net worth is now over $100 million. How many has he laid off in the last 5 years?!
Kevin F. from Link Cable Gaming writes: "Many of the best Xbox 360 games are playable on the Xbox One and Series X|S consoles. Some even with some enhanced visuals and performance. Unfortunately, not every game from the Xbox 360 library has received this glorious feat of being able to be played on more modern Microsoft consoles."
The Spider-man games will never happen. The xbox 360 Marvel Ultimate Alliance games have a better chance of happening than Spider-man titles but won't happen. The Xbox One Ultimate Alliance games delisted years ago
Yeah... you can totally forget about those entries that got delisted because of licensing issues. Those are not happening.
Almost all of the games people want to play are BC, and that's a hell of a lot better than having none available.
Almost all the games people want to play? Not true. Majority picks screw over the minority who have games collecting dust. Metal is right. Fans make it seem that it's all. 39/997 games from OG Xbox is NOT all. 568/2154 from 360 is NOT all. But you guys play it up like it is.
And from my count, there are 4,000+ PS4 BC games on PS5 that I see. And almost every VR game. Series X has no Kinect games or Kinect 2. But you played that up too. No more dancing.
As for the article, some of the BC games make sense. The others with Spider-Man aren't happening.
Neil writes: "Each and every week a great deal of cash is saved with Xbox gamers purchasing some of the very best games at cut-price rates. Guess what? Yep, we're doing that again this week with the multitude of Xbox One and Xbox 360 bargains found in the Xbox Deals With Gold and Spotlight Sale for 18th-24th August 2020. And it's helped that the Ultimate Game Sale is included too."
