ILoveThiPlatform
16884
448
39
https://insider-gaming.com/electronic-arts-goes-private-as-55-billion-sale-is-finalized/
Aug 5, 2026 11:03 PM
ILoveThiPlatform
16884
448
39
https://insider-gaming.com/electronic-arts-goes-private-as-55-billion-sale-is-finalized/
Heavenissize17socks
A New Era For EA https://media1.giphy.com/media/v1.Y2lkPWE1NzM3M2U1d2Zyejl4MmI2MzV5YXBteG4yYTlmNnRjeHJ2c2N5enUxYXA5djhkYyZlcD12MV9naWZzX3NlYXJjaCZjdD1n/to3I2nkywr2PS/200w.webp
BrengKapiteinKoekTerug
K, I didn’t need more reasons to not buy EA products.
VagabondEngineer
I gave up on EA so long ago...
Racealistic
The last EA game i bought was ME2 and i torrented 3 and andromeda. Fuck them for killing red alert.
SalmySwims
The Saudi takeover of gaming is pretty concerning. I caught a few matches of the EWC SF6 group stages and all of the advertisements were for Saudi companies. Made me wonder, what happens to female gamers who qualify for or are invited to events in Saudi Arabia? Are they forced to wear hijab? Then my friend reminded me that the few there are probably aren't invited.
Vkiwi2
rip command and conquer, kane lives
agentcutielocks
Kane lives in death!
VulcanTourist
I have so few EA games - if any - that I have no selfish reason to care, but holy fuck that's some nasty capitalist shit.
slack3rdav3
i mean, EA has been doin nasty capitalist shit for decades now.
VulcanTourist
This is *special* nasty capitalist shit.
beatmacster
Isn’t this the Jared kushner deal with Saudis to start pushing right wing narrative in games?
amatte
Just to get all those exclusive sport licenses, can we get some executives to sell off all the IP the company hasn't touched in decades please 🥺
VariousTypesOfPurple
I bought it. I'm gonna shut the whole thing down.
DeakVanNyke
eyvallah, habibi !
Bohrdumb
Me, years ago: Could EA get any worse?
EA: Watch this!
RHodeidra
Prepare for custom in-game commercials you can't skip
someguy7734206
This headline is essentially "EvilCorp Inc. gets acquired by OtherEvilCorp LLC for $69 billion".
bbchaz23
I think the sale is actually good. The buyers do not know the gaming market and are buying it solely for the IP. Great, I don't play EA games. When I see that logo or hear the iconic "EA Sports, it's in the game", the urge to chuck my controller at the wall becomes simply irresistible.
insidiousempire
Well i guess I won't be buying any ea games ever again
uberAIDSwastakenwtf
Most were easily avoidable, but man, The Sims scratched an itch every couple months. Sucks, but easy enough to drop them
OddOod
Sims 2 Ultimate is pretty solid and easily obtained for 0.00$
SuperMermaidNinja2Turbo
Try Paralives
Scobragon
If you want to play that soon to be completely AI infested shit, might I suggest buccaneering?
PackedCatMeowingPowerDensity
I wouldnt even spend effort on that
wwnn
the dream of Maxis ever returning to their former glory is officially dead
IMakeLotsOfReferencesAndRemakes
MDK still such a banger game that really deserved bigger and better entries.
epicfail48
As is Titanfall 3
Toqom
You never know. Having 18 billion debt they will be selling the studios and then the assets before they let the company die with debt
Meltemi
Indeed. If MicroProse returned (2019), it's not beyond the realm of possibility.
Hopefully, it turns out better than Atari's "return" did (which was just a Infogrames rename).
SuperMermaidNinja2Turbo
EA killed off the Alice series too.
qwerm
Westwood Online as well among others- So many dev studios among EAs corpse dump
WarlockSniper
Maxis, Bullfrog, Westwood, Bioware... just a small pick out of the hundreds of well established and extremely talented studios they just fucking murdered.
Now it is in the hands of Jared Kushner and the Saudis. Nothing that company produces will be worth a thing.
No, not even that. No, that neither.
tiderfish
Just dusted off my interplay box today
Toqom
Affinity is Jared Kushner, aka Trump related
TheVampireDante
Cue sims pedo DLC.
eion85
If only the new owners weren't you know some of the worst people on the planet.
I usually prefer privately owned companies to publicly traded companies. Chasing shareholder value is absolutely vile.
squelcheswetly
Ha. I basically said exactly the same thing elsewhere. +1.
OddOod
Yup. This is why I'm crossing my fingers and hoping for a solid Discord competitor in the next few years. When they filed for IPO it was the beginning of the end.
DrOsmium
Yeah, Valve is a pretty good example of a private company doing much better than its publically traded counterparts in the gaming industry. Considering EA's new owners, I don't have high hopes for them though.
CoachFeratu
This deal also put EA in ~$18 billion debt. So they'll just double down on all the bad practices to be able to pay it all off.
Toqom
They will sell off the parts, they will never pay that 18 billion back. The fact they allow this kind of bs to happen during a sale is just stupid.
eion85
It's always astounding to me that Private Equity firms are allowed to take out huge loans to buy a company and can then saddle the new acquisition with all that debt. Then so often the firm cannibalizes the company and sells it off for parts.
micuu
Because they're rich and the rich write the rules. It's allowed because the vultures who do it have made it so.
Z0op
Whoring out the many IPs under EA’s umbrella, prepare for some real slop made of your favourite franchises
mohavewolfpup
Or if it follows the sears playbook as one example, they hack and slash the core IP and burn it off to raise cash. And what little they keep like the sports shit probably, who cares? Dime a dozen crap there
MapleSyrupMafia
FIFA 2026, FIFA 2026.1, FIFA 2026.2!
Z0op
I was more thinking anything bullfrog, maxis, westwood etc
Whoring out for sports games is what they were already doing long before this takeover
Grumpy72
When it's giant private investment groups like this they're even worse most of the time because they don't answer to shareholders and they can rip the company to the ground without consequences.
DJOldguy
And watch the creativity drop and EA will go out of business.
wadatahmydamie
What creativity? They update sports team rosters once a year
Oatmealman1
they will shift to entirely ai made 'games'
Larzemagne
Tbh, I only like their BioWare shit and I haven't played anything made by them since Mass Effect: Andromeda (9 years ago). Needless to say, it will be pretty easy for me to never buy anything else made by them.
CarInAVet
As someone who went through E.V.E.R.Y.T.H.I.N.G. Bioware had put out for Dragon Age AND bought a whole new console in preparation for Veilguard coming out: .....Yeah, I wasn't really planning on buying anything Bioware after that.
GoneThenBackAgain
Potentially good news on that front, honestly I expected them to just sit on things they didn't like instead of trying to make money off them.
https://tech4gamers.com/ea-looking-to-sell-bioware/
Shouldhavethoughtthisthroughabitbetter
Well, looks like I wont be buying any ea games. I mean, I didn't anyway, but thats not the point.
ShieldAnvil1
LAst game I got from them was like 5 years ago, "Mass Effect Legendary Edition", I will not miss them.
awkungen42
One of the first things I do is make sure that anything I buy, at least for gaming, is not touched by Saudi Arabia hedge funds. I would say the same about sports, but I don't really watch sports so it's not a concern.
CelestialSea
Kushner's behind the deal... If you needed more reason.
oblimo
I doubt that, once the private equity owners bundle and sell of EA assets, there will be any EA games anymore.
hamulusrex
I'll be not buying EA games even harder than before
holyicon
The worst part is, if you live in the USA, you'll still be paying them. Since their taxes are worked in such a way they receive a rebate.
DaveSamsonite
As someone who does not follow this issue, were they a publicly traded company before? I have not supported them for years anyway.
Caughtintheconcentricelipsesofchaosanditsinnatemadness
EA is a legendary shitty video game company. Their practices are maximizing profit while doing everything to degrade user experience. Enshitification before it had a definition.
DaveSamsonite
You didn't answer whether it was a publicly traded company before and was suddenly bought out and is now private.
I can look it up myself. I just thought maybe you would know.
DaveSamsonite
It is still a publicly traded company, although it's signed an agreement to be taken private. Generally speaking, this means decrease service and support, increases in price, abandoning, low earning properties, laying off legacy workers, etc..
Camelspotting
If by that you mean the complete opposite, then yes.
Elkarlo1977
Technically i own lot of EA Games. C&C, Red Alert, Ultima, Wing Commander etc. I never bought them when the Labels got bought by EA. But i own them.
justheretocommentonce
Ah, that list makes me miss Ground Control. It was awesome!
JustUsLeagueUnlimited
So many great franchises gobbled up, watered down, and then left in the basement
Glalev
Oh don't worry, the company's already being saddled with debts and being downsized, they're destroying it as fast as they can and we won't have to not buy EA games for much longer. Man, can you imagine, no more ads about terrible EA Sports games that are always the same. That'll be great.
GTPTB
I used to not buy EA games. I still don't, but I used to not, too.
DaveSamsonite
Not for more than 15 years anyway. Almost every video game I play is more than 15 years old anyway.
TerribleAwful
@GTPTB all together
dirtyFrenchman
metroid2
Haha nice one Mr. Hedburg
DonkeyGoat
You son of a Mitch!
Fanner50
Thank you for your honesty.
Always love when boycotts are discussed and people are so proud they’ve never bought from the company.
So, the company likely doesn’t care much about you. They’ve been doing fine without you.
ToSisPoS
“Boycotts don’t work!” cried the consumer who wished to still buy their shit.
Shouldhavethoughtthisthroughabitbetter
Nobody was discussing a boycott.
therearenologinnamesleft
Why so upset that you jump from casual discussion to organised boycott and leap to defense of a 55 billion dollar company?
Fanner50
Nice strawman you’re building. I never defended.
Learn how to read.
fartyandbloated
Not sure if you’ve noticed but Imgur is one of very few sites where people don’t post just to be miserable pricks. We tend to be kind and helpful around here. Give it a shot, it’s kind of fun.
Fanner50
Not sure if you’ve noticed. But People on Imgur. React hastily when you post something they slightly disagree with. They tend to build strawman because they don’t know how to have discussions without being accusatory.
UNHchabo
Let me turn that around: the last time I bought an EA game was 2010, with that year's release of Need for Speed Hot Pursuit.
In the time since that game's release, EA's market cap has increased by a factor of 5.
In that same time period, the S&P 500 has increased by a factor of 7.
So EA has underperformed the market by 30%, and I will argue it's largely because they've been focused on making "Live Services" instead of making Games. Their reputation among gamers is in the toilet.
autotelic
So we should continue buying from the companies because they don't care about us? /S
Fanner50
Where did I say continue to buy?
Learn to read
THISISYELLING
"They’ve been doing fine without you." Learn what a strawman is.
autotelic
Are you familiar with /S? Or did you just not read it?
Fanner50
S
You have syphilis?
killergrooves85
Watch them shut down the EA app and all the games I bought over the last couple decades can no longer be accessed.
Targe0
I mean they were already a major evil company, so this really won't change that much.
More just shift it to a different kind of evil.
randomwalrus
Do not worry, I am sure that their intent to cut $700 million on annual expenses (employees) will only be for the greater good. /s
Targe0
While lay-offs are always awful, there's nothing that can really be done about that. Those workers got screwed the moment the deal was proposed.
On the bright side, they will likely strip it for parts and sell things off.
So this might end up at least freeing up a bunch of the IP EA has been hoarding for years after all the companies they bought up and closed down. So some devs might be able to buy back their game rights which they lost long ago.
dynamojoe
interesting, yet my boycott continues.
Toqom
I was about to buy BF6 until I heard about the sale to corrupt companies, won't ever buy each shit again
Level21Magikarp
Think of the (private) shareholders! /s
Kyen155
GoddessPurpleFrost
yea all these comments of like "looks like i wont be buying them!" and im sitting here like... i havent bought them in a decade because of all their shit? I wish people had even the slightest level of impulse control.
ionlyregisteredtosavelinks
Wow, look at this righteous person over here! I wish I was nearly as cool as you! Imagine boycotting the company only for a few years, whereas the real cool and good people have been doing it for a full ten years!
lifeisadadjoke
I haven't bought an EA game in ages...and given my library, that's saying something. Also, indie games have been so good in the last few years...the big studios are mostly shitting in boxes and slapping a label on it. No wait, they've been renting shit games, slapping a label on it, and yoinking it when they arbitrarily feel like it.
BlindGardener
I’ve pirated a couple.
JustFeedMePieDammit
My library is getting filled with indie games for the most part
JustBoone
You thought they were bad before whoo boy!
BarryTheCyborg
The buyers are Saudi Arabia and Jared Kushner. Hard fucking pass.
DaveSamsonite
It's a money laundering scam then.
GeneralAnubis
Somehow, EA just became even more evil
dundermedivhdunder
Wow, and I thought it couldn't get worse...
TheWombatStrikesAgain
It's gonna be interesting from a philosophical point if view. Like how much can the shit people enshittify what is already total shit?
meowingintensifies
I really want to make a game-underflow-glitch remark, but even that might be too optimistic.
shyriath
If anyone can find a way to enter an enshittification singularity, it's these guys.
Elonth
as long as jocks that weren't good enough to live their sports dream continue to pay for EA sports games to live out their fantasy EA will make money.
Meltemi
Yeah. I started out reading it while thinking, "oh, so maybe they won't be liable to public shareholders to push out continuous profit," and rapidly descended into "...oh, yeah, no, things are so much worse now."
Volmaaral
Like, the problem I have is that now someone like Jared Kushner is muscling into the gaming industry. They’re going to be trying to buy up even more beloved IP’s to enshittify. But otherwise, I’m just going to watch this with horrified interest, since I don’t really buy EA games anyway. I mostly hated them for abandoning Dungeon Keeper, but I’ve got War for the Overworld now, and a few other successors.
zanaria
With Kushner running things one of their branches would EA Snorts...
lickwidghost
EA Sharts - It's in your jeans
Eyhlix
It's in tha thang!
ilhares
But look at the good aspects. If they start parting it out and selling pieces off, we may get some good titles in other studio hands again.
FlintNorth44
What good titles? EA has fuckall except Dead Space and that was ruined with the shitty sequel.
ilhares
Titles now under the EA umbrella that were enjoyable in the past: Battlefield, before the shit they pulled on DICE. Command & Conquer, Crysis, Mass Effect, Mirror's Edge, Need for Speed, Mercenaries, SSX, Syndicate, System Shock, Wing Commander, Ultima.
There's a fuckton buried under their coverage that could be parted out/licensed to other companies in the hopes of getting another good title released. Just because you don't enjoy them doesn't mean they weren't both good and rather popular.
rowm
Titanfall/apex
FlintNorth44
Titanfall died after 2 and Apex is Fortnite trash.
BreakablePotato
Dungeon Keeper, Plants Vs. Zombies, Ultima, Wing Commander, Mass Effect, Sim City, The Simpsons...
FlintNorth44
Still waiting for the good titles...
IMakeLotsOfReferencesAndRemakes
Dragon Age, Star Wars, Army of Two, Mirror's Edge, Need for Speed...
Mack1986
Syndicate. Command and conquer. Titanfall. Medal of honor. Battlefield.
FlintNorth44
Army of Two? What decade are you in?
icouldntthinkofabetterusername2
someguy7734206
More like:
EA: Do you hate microtransactions?
Normal person: Yes.
EA: No you don't.
This can be applied to all sorts of things, like ads, subscription models, AI, and data harvesting.
icouldntthinkofabetterusername2
I was just thinking about the check box in iOS apps the other day: “ask/request that the app doesn’t follow you” or whatever the wording. What the fuck, as if my privacy is a suggestion and they can decide if they honour that. That sounds like an empty promise.
Bojovnik84
EA never sells another game ever again.