It’s going to be such a hack job with this takeover.
Well, at least Mass Effect LE came out first, I guess. I wonder if playing a new one owned by the Saudis and Kushner would cause some kind of tear in reality.
Man, they must really like soccer. I mean holy shit.
I just figured out yesterday that you can ignore publishers on Steam, never again will I have to see an EA game in my recommendations.
SA has a soon to be deady economy, because OIL doesnt last forever so they buy into whatever to keep thier country alive. SPORTSWASHIng , gamewashing.
I’ve been hearing it’s running out for over 30 years. Is it actually almost gone now?
I don’t think anybody really knows. My understanding is the problem is KSA reports unaudited reserve numbers, so you have to take them at their word. There’s a lot of skepticism because they would report unchanged reserve numbers for years despite high exploitation. While they can certainly discover new reserves, it seems unlikely it would consistently be about equal to what they pumped out. I’ve read some analysts think they have less than half of what they report.
Just untrue. Saudi has massive deposits of rare earth metals, copper, gold. They’ll be fine.
if that were true, they wouldnt be desperately buying properities, and IP all over the world in the western world to stave off thier decline, clearly they dont see the NAT resources as enough, you should check your sources.
You are presuming they are doing that to stave off economic decline, which is incorrect. They’re doing it for global prestige.
people are buying EA games? Why tho?
They neeeeeed the latest copy/paste madden with a few new characters to play as!
It’s a fucked up world.
Don’t ever buy EA products again. No problem really.
I know at the very least 1 person who plays FIFA. I wouldn’t say that I am friends with this person, quite the opposite. But he is a classmate of my friends so they are friends with him. Even they wonder why would he keep buying FIFA each year.
I wonder what they’ll do with IPs like The Sims. I can’t imagine they’ll allow same-sex relationships, naturally, but I don’t think they’ll allow divorce, either. :S
They might just sell the IP. I imagine they are mostly interested in the sports franchises.
soccer, WWE, maybe UFC in the future is where all the money is at.
Doesn’t matter, other games will replace them. Like InZoi.
Same happened with Rollercoaster Tycoon (Planet Coaster), SimCity (Cities Skylines)
Yeah, I have those games, but I want to know what direction they’ll take. I want to know how bold they would be if they wanted to.
I suspect that they’d be more hands off than you may expect (if they chose to keep that IP at all). The sovereign wealth fund is first and foremost interested in growing their investment value. And this has only been further cemented as MBS has continued to stripped wahabists of power to the point that they have almost no state involvement anymore.
Why? Literally why would they give a shit? This only makes sense if you assume that they spent billions of dollars to export religious conservativism outside of Saudi Arabia. I dunno if you’ve noticed, but Saudi Arabia has been spending trillions of dollars to present a totally different, modern image to the world. The people spending the money don’t actually give a shit about Allah. They only care what other people will submit to in Allah’s name, and they know that’s not going to fly outside their borders.
Saudi Arabia is a country with one of the strictest laws in the world. Why shouldn’t anyone be suspicious of what they say or do? Why can’t people have a healthy amount of distrust and skepticism of their actions if, as you said, they’re trying to portray a different image of themselves to the world? Who says the mask can’t come off under the right circumstances, like the shameless right-wing downturn of the US?
The Sims IP has always been one of the most welcoming and famous platforms for non-traditional values that directly contradict their country’s principles. Because I don’t know if you know, but homosexuality in Saudi Arabia is currently punishable by death. It’s fair to imagine that some company-wide policy changes would take place when it’s acquired to align with its own views, which also align with the Trump administration’s crusade to eliminate liberal ideas. I mean, didn’t they recently bribe him with a luxury jet? Don’t you think they could have a broader joint interest at heart?
If franchises like Call of Duty have been targets of military marketing, it doesn’t take much to imagine how a corporation from an authoritarian country like SA would at least attempt to rein in social values in The Sims if given the chance.
Okay, but why? The hypothesis that they bought an extremely successful business because they want to make money doesn’t need any further explanation. What is the motivation for them to try to export their strict laws to other countries? You act like it gives them so much personal joy at taking away our gay kissing, that’s reason enough.
try to export their strict laws
No, not laws, but religious views and values. That’s what their laws reflect. Religious people are famous for trying to proselytize, convert, and meddle because they have a very fundamental belief that they’re dealing with larger forces of good and evil.
gives them so much personal joy at taking away our gay kissing
Again, please don’t reduce my argument to absurdity. That is not a productive or respectful way of making your point.
If it’s over 51% it’s all of it for all practical reasons.
Depending on the bylaws, articles, resolutions, agreements, and other organizational documents, 51% might not be enough to do anything.
Agreed. I was already not buying EA games, so this doesn’t change much at all.
They might as well. I can’t avoid buying EA games any harder than I already do.
Haven’t bought an EA game since the SimCity 2013 reboot. They straight up lied about the nature of the game.
I remember that. Everyone was so fucking pissed.
First they came for EA, and I said nothing, for I was not into FIFA.
First they came for EA, and I said hey, you want some Ubisoft to go with that?
The next Assassin’s Creed is gonna be wild.
I have zero interest in online live service games so largely the entire AAA output for the last 5 years I have no interest in.
Its shockingly sad how what EA was back in the early 90s to what it is now.
Try the early '80s. They were the first company to put their developers front and centre with pictures and names.
early 2000s EA was also on the horse. It used to be that when you hear “EA Games, challenge everything” upon opening a game, you knew that you are up for a good time. By the end of 00s that would drastically change
Disagree. They were more tolerable but very evil.
Not to mention prominently featuring transgender developers – in the 80s!
I remember when Skate 3 came out and people actually had positive opinions of EA and were excited about the games they made.
Dead Space too. They had a solid run in the late 2000s/early 2010s before doubling down on shit.
They always butchered games. What you’re remembering are the games made by studios that EA purchased, made before they were gutted for IP.
I’ll never forgive them for killing the Dungeon Keeper franchise when they bought Bullfrog. That was such a great game. Even today, I still play the original DK which came out in the 90s.
Yea. There have been a few spiritual successors that are pretty good, but none match the raw… villainy? No crazy, hyperstylized parody of itself, just pure calm confidence from the narrator while you play the bad guys in an otherwise normal fantasy setting? It’s always great when a game just goes for it, and DK nailed it.
I played war for the overworld, but it wasn’t the same. Nothing can capture the magic of the actual games. The first one was the best, but dk2 was also decent
Narrated by Tony Jay, the voice of Megabyte! Thurl Ravencroft tier, for sure.
I could have sworn this one early mech game was made by EA (early/ mid 90s) Ultrabots in NA. Nope they just published it. I had a ton of fun with it but guess they mostly produced even if they owned the studio. Unsure in that case but we know how EA works. So appreciate you making me check that cause in my head they made some grear games I played not just published them. I’m sure their earlier days they must have but didn’t look.
“So we’re like, evil evil now” EA, probably.
When regular evil isn’t enough
Journalists are about to become a playable faction in battlefield
Or just part of the destructible environment.
Suitcase item.
New vehicle available: Boeing 767
Didn’t play test well, gamers wanted a vehicle that didn’t self destruct.
If EA, having been purchased, is milked for cash, strip-mined for IP, and then unceremoniously abandoned, it will be very funny.
I’d rather have that than the IPs being used to promote and indoctrinate some religious bullshit.
Again, why.
Because religious bullshit makes the world a worse place.
While milking for cash and stripping the IP only makes the company worse.
You can sell it all you want, you’re not going to make me hate EA any more than I already do.
EA:
We can go lower
Like, everyone knows that EA is a terrible company, but it’s insane how they continually lower the bar. It’s honestly impressive how EA keeps innovating new ways to piss off consumers.
If they ever lose their sports exclusivity contracts, they’re cooked.
Madden and FIFA is why they’ll never stop being profitable
That’s a bit extreme. Everything from Hazelight (It Takes Two, Split Fiction) is sublime, they still have Respawn making Star Wars games. They have Sims. And (outside sports games) they’ve dialed down the “MTX meme” they were a decade ago.
…I’m not saying they’re good. But they’re nowhere near Activision-Blizzard enshittified, nor hurling towards it as fast as Xbox Studios and some other AAAs.
they still have Respawn making Star Wars games.
I mean, that’s an exclusivity thing again…
From 2013 to 2023 only EA could work on Star Wars games. It was supposed to be a bunch of high quality epic games…
We got a couple that were decent because there’s no alternatives. And most of the time was wasted on battlefront and it’s terrible micro transactions.
Like…
"The intent is to provide players with a sense of pride and accomplishment for unlocking different heroes.
Literally came from the beginning of that exclusivity deal…
Blizzard went to shit so completely that they made EA look good in comparison. Ubisoft too. Crazy. Maybe this is EA’s way of reclaiming the top spot?
Yeah, exactly. Xbox too. They make EA look good.
IMO Ubisoft seems to have bottomed out, almost like EA has.
