From Newsgroup: comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.action


Or at least, so some (strongly believed) rumors suggest. I guess times
aren't that great in EA-land.*

Of course, gaming companies change hands all the time. Microsoft
bought Activision. Tencent is slowly gobbling up Ubisoft. EA itself is
infamous for buying out Origin and Bullfrog (and Maxis, and Westwood,
and Dreamworks, and Mythic, and Digital Illusions, and, and, and...).
But this purchase looks a bit different than most: this time it isn't
one of the competitors buying out another gaming company. This time
it's private equity investment funds.

Private equity funds have a bad reputation, and it isn't undeserved.
Not always, but too often they purchase a firms just to sell off its
assets to make a quick buck, leaving a hollowed-out corpse in their
wake. There are of course exceptions but whenever you see private
equity firms getting involved, there's a risk that in ten years the
corporation they've just bought out won't exist in any meaningful way
once their done with it.

And for all EA has its problems, I don't really think I'd like to see
it go out that way. Sure, EA has gobbled up a lot of beloved
franchises, but there's ever the hope that one day they might see the
light of day again if EA thinks it profitable. But that likelihood
drops once private equity starts stripping a company.

But I guess it's good news if you own stock in EA. The share price
soared when the news got out. And I guess ultimately that's all that
matters these days.






* /many/ reports https://www.wsj.com/business/deals/ea-private-deal-buyout-video-game-maker-808aefec
https://www.reuters.com/business/electronic-arts-nears-roughly-50-billion-deal-go-private-wsj-reports-2025-09-26/
https://www.ft.com/content/b845be9e-8f36-4dd8-885a-2eb81150a530
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From Newsgroup: comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.action

And for all EA has its problems, I don't really think I'd like to see
it go out that way.

Nasty. More trump & saudi control of media is never a good thing.

rms
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On Sat, 27 Sep 2025 08:24:48 -0600, "rms"
<rsquiresMOO@MOOflashMOO.net> wrote:

And for all EA has its problems, I don't really think I'd like to see
it go out that way.

Nasty. More trump & saudi control of media is never a good thing.

Yeah, the companies buying EA don't inspire a lot of trust in the "we
want to make good games" sort of way.

The thing is, it isn't always a bad thing when a company goes private.
Getting pulled off the publicly-traded stock market sometimes means
that the company no longer desperately chases after short-term gains
made just to bolster the stock price

[e.g., "Look at us! We're up $500 million dollars this
quarter! We're such a valuable company. Of course, we
managed this feat by firing all our best employees and
hiring interns at a quarter the salary but ignore that
and buy our stock!" and similar schemes]

Going private _can_ mean an end to such nonsense; it allows the
company time to re-organize and pivot to less disruptive methods. It's happened.

But it's gone the other way as often as not.

I'm less worried about the involvement of the National Development
Fund. Yes, it's a Saudi Arabian wealth fund, but it's mostly there to
make the royal family of SA more wealthy and less dependent on their
petroleum resources. While it can (and in a few occasions, has) been
used to pressure the owned companies towards pro-SA politics, mostly
its designed to get maximum return from its investments. If that means
funding a company where the bad guys in the video games tend to be
Middle Eastern, well... money trumps all.

But ripping apart EA and selling its assets to earn back the $50
billion USD price tag? That seems more likely. And while it is
possible some of those assets might be sold to better curators (sort
of like what happened to Interplay), as likely its IPs will be handed
off to third-parties which have no real desire to make use of them and
instead the rights get all tangled up (see "No One Lives Forever").

So, yeah... there's some concern with this sale because whichever way
it goes, I don't think that it'll end up benefiting the end-user video
gamer.



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From Newsgroup: comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.action

Spalls Hurgenson wrote:

But ripping apart EA and selling its assets to earn back the $50
billion USD price tag? That seems more likely. And while it is
possible some of those assets might be sold to better curators (sort
of like what happened to Interplay), as likely its IPs will be handed
off to third-parties which have no real desire to make use of them and instead the rights get all tangled up (see "No One Lives Forever").

So, yeah... there's some concern with this sale because whichever way
it goes, I don't think that it'll end up benefiting the end-user video
gamer.

Electronic Arts is such an old company. I remember many games by them
on the C-64 (Skyfox was pretty good). Law of Impermanence: Everything changes.
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From Newsgroup: comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.action

sion F2 <sionf2@drum.cc> wrote:

Spalls Hurgenson wrote:

But ripping apart EA and selling its assets to earn back the $50
billion USD price tag? That seems more likely. And while it is
possible some of those assets might be sold to better curators (sort
of like what happened to Interplay), as likely its IPs will be handed
off to third-parties which have no real desire to make use of them and instead the rights get all tangled up (see "No One Lives Forever").

So, yeah... there's some concern with this sale because whichever way
it goes, I don't think that it'll end up benefiting the end-user video gamer.

Electronic Arts is such an old company. I remember many games by them
on the C-64 (Skyfox was pretty good). Law of Impermanence: Everything changes.

Apple //c for me, but back then EA was rad compared modern EA. :(
--
"The lips of the righteous know what is fitting, but the mouth of the wicked only what is perverse." --Proverbs 10:32. This BT hypered & wicked ant is still sick with poops (8X yesterday & 6X b4 it), leaks, itches, sneezes, etc. even w cooler cloudy wet weather. :(
Note: A fixed width font (Courier, Monospace, etc.) is required to see this signature correctly.
/\___/\ Ant(Dude) @ http://aqfl.net & http://antfarm.home.dhs.org.
/ /\ /\ \ Please nuke ANT if replying by e-mail.
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From Newsgroup: comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.action

Ant wrote:

sion F2 <sionf2@drum.cc> wrote:

Spalls Hurgenson wrote:

But ripping apart EA and selling its assets to earn back the $50
billion USD price tag? That seems more likely. And while it is
possible some of those assets might be sold to better curators (sort
of like what happened to Interplay), as likely its IPs will be handed
off to third-parties which have no real desire to make use of them and
instead the rights get all tangled up (see "No One Lives Forever").

So, yeah... there's some concern with this sale because whichever way
it goes, I don't think that it'll end up benefiting the end-user video
gamer.

Electronic Arts is such an old company. I remember many games by them
on the C-64 (Skyfox was pretty good). Law of Impermanence: Everything
changes.

Apple //c for me, but back then EA was rad compared modern EA. :(

I liked their logo a lot better then too. I used to always call them
EOA for the longest time.
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From Newsgroup: comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.action

On Sat, 27 Sep 2025 22:45:28 -0000 (UTC), ant@zimage.comANT (Ant)
wrote:

sion F2 <sionf2@drum.cc> wrote:

Spalls Hurgenson wrote:

But ripping apart EA and selling its assets to earn back the $50
billion USD price tag? That seems more likely. And while it is
possible some of those assets might be sold to better curators (sort
of like what happened to Interplay), as likely its IPs will be handed
off to third-parties which have no real desire to make use of them and
instead the rights get all tangled up (see "No One Lives Forever").

So, yeah... there's some concern with this sale because whichever way
it goes, I don't think that it'll end up benefiting the end-user video
gamer.

Electronic Arts is such an old company. I remember many games by them
on the C-64 (Skyfox was pretty good). Law of Impermanence: Everything
changes.

Apple //c for me, but back then EA was rad compared modern EA. :(

Yeah, I have to admit that I still have a soft-spot for EA because of
those memories, despite knowing that the EA of today is very
definitely _not_ the EA of Trip Hawkins (and the Trip Hawkins-era
Electronic Arts was no saint either!). But seeing the EA logo on games
used to be an indicator of quality; it said, "get this game and you
won't be disappointed." It was only in the mid-90s, when EA was
starting out on its buying spree of other beloved publishers, that my
feelings about the company began to change.

But boy, that early era with the album-style boxes... those were some
great years. "The Bard's Tale", "Starflight", "Mule", "Wasteland"...
some real classics.


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From Newsgroup: comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.action

On Sat, 27 Sep 2025 13:02:37 -0400, Spalls Hurgenson <spallshurgenson@gmail.com> wrote:

Going private _can_ mean an end to such nonsense; it allows the
company time to re-organize and pivot to less disruptive methods. It's >happened.

A hopeful (and timely) example:

Developer "Splash Damage" just went private, buying its way out of
Tencent, purchased by private equity. It's possible that these
investors intend to rip-n-tear their way through the company, but in
this case it seems more likely they just want to own a company that
makes good games.


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From Newsgroup: comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.action

On 9/27/2025 8:45 PM, sion F2 wrote:

Electronic Arts is such an old company.  I remember many games by them
on the C-64 (Skyfox was pretty good).  Law of Impermanence:  Everything changes.

EA used to be a *good* company that made interesting titles instead of,
well, whatever they are pushing out now.
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From Newsgroup: comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.action

On Sun, 28 Sep 2025 21:01:00 +0200, Kyonshi <gmkeros@gmail.com> wrote:

EA used to be a *good* company that made interesting titles instead of, >well, whatever they are pushing out now.

Mostly they're flogging player cards for their sports games (a type of microtransaction), I think. They get a huge percentage of their
revenue from that. Everything else is, individually, almost incidental
in comparison. Sure, stuff like "Battlefield XLIV" might get all the
press coverage, but in the end EA is all about reaming its sportsball
players.







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Spalls Hurgenson wrote:

On Sun, 28 Sep 2025 21:01:00 +0200, Kyonshi <gmkeros@gmail.com> wrote:

EA used to be a *good* company that made interesting titles instead of,
well, whatever they are pushing out now.

Mostly they're flogging player cards for their sports games (a type of microtransaction), I think. They get a huge percentage of their
revenue from that. Everything else is, individually, almost incidental
in comparison. Sure, stuff like "Battlefield XLIV" might get all the
press coverage, but in the end EA is all about reaming its sportsball players.

It takes a lot to get the attention of gamers today. There are people
who are sick of World of Warcraft even though ten yrs earlier they were playing the same game with no GUI relentlessly. There seems to be this
race for a realistic FMV for the games but I have seen games for the
last twenty yrs not getting much closer to this standard because they
are already close enough for my taste. I'M REALLY NOT LOOKING FOR A
GRAPHICAL FIX. I'm looking for a concise bug-free GUI with appealing
but not heavily resource consuming images. Something like Slay the
Spire comes to mind as a game I like the graphics on.

As for Battlefield I played that a great bit during my sabbatical in
school. I haven't had enough time for FPS lately and Halflife 2 cooks
my computer. The temperatures I'm looking for are MTG: Arena on an
Alienware X14 if you want a benchmark for heat I'm willing to tolerate
while playing. Hotter than that and I worry it is going to go out of
bounds - some games get hotter and hotter as you play.
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From Newsgroup: comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.action


Just an update: the sale is now confirmed. $55 billion USD for EA to
go private.

In comparison, Microsoft acquired ActiBlizz for $75 billion USD.
ActiBlizz had King Studios though, which is a major power in the
mobile games space, and probably the main reason for the purchase. EA,
as far as I know, doesn't have anything equivalent.

There are probably some legal hurdles to still overcome, but nothing
as major as followed the Microsoft/Activision merger, so it's more a
matter of dotting the i's and crossing the t's than anything else.

How this will actually affect the company --and the games-- remains
uncertain. Despite some --admittedly not entirely unfounded-- fears
that the new owners will use it to propogandize, I think the more
likely result is that they will instead retreat to 'safer' forms of
revenue, doubling down on MTX and proven IPs in order to make a return
on their investment. We might also see a retreat from platforms seen
as less profitable to focus on those that see more return... which
might mean a bigger focus on mobile? Who knows.

Either that or they'll just start stripping the company for every bit
of value, ultimately leaving it a hollow shell with nothing but its
name... which will be, in twenty years, sold to a new company trying
to use its nostalgic value to promote its own wares (see Accolade,
Microprose, Atari, etc. ;-)

Either way, it's a new era for EA.

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From Newsgroup: comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.action

On 9/26/2025 8:03 PM, Spalls Hurgenson wrote:

Or at least, so some (strongly believed) rumors suggest. I guess times
aren't that great in EA-land.*

Of course, gaming companies change hands all the time. Microsoft
bought Activision. Tencent is slowly gobbling up Ubisoft. EA itself is infamous for buying out Origin and Bullfrog (and Maxis, and Westwood,
and Dreamworks, and Mythic, and Digital Illusions, and, and, and...).
But this purchase looks a bit different than most: this time it isn't
one of the competitors buying out another gaming company. This time
it's private equity investment funds.

Private equity funds have a bad reputation, and it isn't undeserved.
Not always, but too often they purchase a firms just to sell off its
assets to make a quick buck, leaving a hollowed-out corpse in their
wake. There are of course exceptions but whenever you see private
equity firms getting involved, there's a risk that in ten years the corporation they've just bought out won't exist in any meaningful way
once their done with it.

And for all EA has its problems, I don't really think I'd like to see
it go out that way. Sure, EA has gobbled up a lot of beloved
franchises, but there's ever the hope that one day they might see the
light of day again if EA thinks it profitable. But that likelihood
drops once private equity starts stripping a company.

If they sell off Bullfrog etc. to a company with better practices, it's
still a good thing.

Yeah right, that'll happen.
--
-Justisaur

ø-ø
(\_/)\
`-'\ `--.___,
¶¬'\( ,_.-'
\\
^'
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From Newsgroup: comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.action


AS details emerge about the sale, things look less rosy. Largely
because it's a leveraged buyout. This is very different from the Microsoft-Activision sale; in that case, Microsoft just checked behind
its couch-cushions for a spare $75 billion and paid in cash. In a
leveraged buyout, the people buying EA are borrowing $20 billion
dollars, and then immediately dumping that debt into EA's lap.

So while EA won't have to worry about analysts watching every dip and
rise of their stock, they WILL have to listen to their creditors. Just
paying back the interest on this debt will probably consume $500 to $1
billion USD of its revenue per year. The company makes enough annually
to cover this --I've read that EA rakes in ~$7 billion USD per year--
but still, this buyout doesn't leave the company stronger than it was
before. EA will have less cash to spend on new projects, more
vulnerable to flops (since it has less financial headroom) and its
creditors will be second-guessing a lot of its decisions.

To use the vernacular of the youth, leveraged buy-outs are sus.*

Content-wise, I still don't have any immediate worries about
significant changes to Electronic Arts' content. The Saudi Arabian PIF
is mainly designed to... well, mostly to further enrich the Saudi
Arabian monarchy, but also to transform Saudi Arabia from being
entirely reliant on their petrochemical industry. At least for the
time being, they're more interested in acquiring companies that make
them money than using it to promote their ideals. But if they think
it's more profitable just to strip-mine EA for its assets... well,
that's a real possibility.







* Did I use that correctly? I think I did. Somebody fetch a young
person to check! ;-)



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Spalls Hurgenson <spallshurgenson@gmail.com> wrote at 14:44 this Sunday (GMT):

AS details emerge about the sale, things look less rosy. Largely
because it's a leveraged buyout. This is very different from the Microsoft-Activision sale; in that case, Microsoft just checked behind
its couch-cushions for a spare $75 billion and paid in cash. In a
leveraged buyout, the people buying EA are borrowing $20 billion
dollars, and then immediately dumping that debt into EA's lap.

That definitely seems weird to me...

So while EA won't have to worry about analysts watching every dip and
rise of their stock, they WILL have to listen to their creditors. Just
paying back the interest on this debt will probably consume $500 to $1 billion USD of its revenue per year. The company makes enough annually
to cover this --I've read that EA rakes in ~$7 billion USD per year--
but still, this buyout doesn't leave the company stronger than it was
before. EA will have less cash to spend on new projects, more
vulnerable to flops (since it has less financial headroom) and its
creditors will be second-guessing a lot of its decisions.

To use the vernacular of the youth, leveraged buy-outs are sus.*

Content-wise, I still don't have any immediate worries about
significant changes to Electronic Arts' content. The Saudi Arabian PIF
is mainly designed to... well, mostly to further enrich the Saudi
Arabian monarchy, but also to transform Saudi Arabia from being
entirely reliant on their petrochemical industry. At least for the
time being, they're more interested in acquiring companies that make
them money than using it to promote their ideals. But if they think
it's more profitable just to strip-mine EA for its assets... well,
that's a real possibility.

Sucks that companies can just buy each other.. :(

* Did I use that correctly? I think I did. Somebody fetch a young
person to check! ;-)

hi i guess im the resident young person
id say you used it right
--
user <candycane> is generated from /dev/urandom
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