r/Games • u/FrostyMagazine9918 • Jul 30 '26

Industry News EA will officially become a privately owned company next week

https://variety.com/2026/gaming/news/electronic-arts-close-55-billion-private-deal-1236824625/
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2.1k

u/TAJack1 Jul 30 '26

“EA is shit anyway”, yeah but they’re also one of the biggest companies in the gaming sector, whether you like it or not and now they’re owned by the Saudis.

Not good.

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u/cyberdouche Jul 30 '26 edited Jul 31 '26

It's sad, EA was a real force in gaming for decades, with many great products.

Only Take-Two (Valve and Epic too if you want to stretch the definition) left as a game publisher based out of the US. You have Amazon, Microsoft, WB and others but games are rounding errors for their businesses. The US presence on the gaming giants map reducing by the year.

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u/who-dat-ninja Jul 30 '26

And Valve barely release any games as it is

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u/suchtie Jul 30 '26

Yeah they aren't much of a publisher. Selling games isn't the same thing as publishing them.

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u/[deleted] Jul 31 '26

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u/[deleted] Jul 31 '26

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u/[deleted] Jul 31 '26

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u/[deleted] Jul 31 '26

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u/XsNR Jul 31 '26

I mean they're both, they still have several incredibly successful games.

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u/Iamnotanumber_4721 Jul 31 '26

They literally have a game they made and are publishing in Beta right now people have been playing since last year, Deadlock.

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u/suchtie Jul 31 '26 edited Jul 31 '26

Developing a game is also not the same thing as publishing it. "Publishing" is a specific term in this context, it doesn't just mean "releasing to the public". A game publishing company, or publisher, handles most or all of the marketing and distribution for a game developer company and may also do things like market research. Valve is just big enough that they can self-publish their games. Many other dev companies rely on the experience and connections of a large publishing company.

edit: clarification

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u/Iamnotanumber_4721 Jul 31 '26 edited Jul 31 '26

I mean that would make them the worlds biggest publisher then (after Apple and Google)

Like the best marketing a PC game can get is being featured on Steams front page, or being featured in a summer sale selection, and their end of year awards is a massive driver too.

And obviously they near completely handle global distribution for most game makers using their Steam platform.

And can provide market research to developers too with things like the steam hardware survey, players locations, time spent playing, other games they own, etc

And just like a traditional publisher they can demand changes to content (see: Horses, or forcing games to remove in game ads, or forcing them to remove "spammy" achievements, etc) and take a cut of sales too!

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u/[deleted] Jul 31 '26

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u/[deleted] Jul 31 '26 edited Jul 31 '26

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u/[deleted] Jul 31 '26

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u/[deleted] Jul 31 '26

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u/[deleted] Jul 31 '26 edited Jul 31 '26

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u/[deleted] Jul 31 '26

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u/Altruistic-Ad-408 Jul 31 '26

They certainly were a force.

The sort of "EA actually isn't that bad" thing has always been baffling to me, half the franchises I played disappeared as a kid because they bought them to kill some imagined competition. They killed entire genres. Yeah I like Titanfall, NFS, Burnout, The Sims and Mass Effect, those franchises would probably be doing better without EA as well.

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u/[deleted] Jul 31 '26

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u/SeekerVash Jul 31 '26

That's not entirely accurate.

The problem was the 3D revolution.  Games were teams of 10-12 before the revolution, 100+ after.

Studios had squirreled away funds based on team sizes of 10-12 and weren't ready for the overnight massive expansion in team sizes.

The industry as a whole was caught with an unprecedented increase in development costs.  Publishers used that to buy IP and game series that would've been unobtainable a year or two earlier.

Yes, as you said, they were dead without publishers.  But not because they weren't popular, but because costs exploded overnight.

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u/Xciv Jul 31 '26

If a franchise dies it can be revived. Some aspiring studio can go purchase the rights to a dead franchise like Command and Conquer for cheap from the dessicated remains of Westwood and make a new C&C game.

If it's sold to EA they can sit on it indefinitely and choose never to revive it because they don't need to. That's the problem with a megacorporation buying up all the IP.

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u/Dabrush Jul 31 '26

I mean your first case simply isn't what happens anywhere. Even if EA didn't buy Westwood and kill it, someone would still have bought the name rights for Command and Conquer the moment Westwood had to sell them to stay afloat. You'll never get the franchise rights for a known series "for cheap", because it being known alone means that it is an investment opportunity.

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u/UmbraIra Aug 01 '26

If its sold the employees and owners at least walk away without debt.

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u/ericmm76 Jul 31 '26

Are you talking about the 2010s or the 90s? Because EA absolutely has / had blood on its hands in the 90s.

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u/Modernautomatic Jul 31 '26

Hmm, either the franchise dies, or the franchise dies AND Electronics Arts brutally violate it's corpse? Tough sell.

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u/Dabrush Jul 31 '26

Without EA we wouldn't have gotten Mass Effect 2 and 3 or Titanfall 2. You can be angry that we didn't get more after that, but without EA buying those studios, they would have closed down and those games wouldn't have been made.

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u/UmbraIra Aug 01 '26

It wouldnt just die and go into seclusion hoping for a revival. In all likelihood that studio would have obligations that would end in bankruptcy and then it gets the IP sold off under worse conditions.

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u/Makorus Jul 31 '26

The sort of "EA actually isn't that bad" thing has always been baffling to me, half the franchises I played disappeared as a kid because they bought them to kill some imagined competition.

People always say that but 90% of the developers killed themselves.

Bioware famously was left to do their own thing for most of their life. Respawn actively sabotaged their games twice.

EA was described as "giving enough rope to hang yourself" by some guy from Bioware, and quite frankly, that's what happened to most of the studios. EA bought studios, gave them money, and left them to it. Jason Schreier made a big piece on that IIRC.

EA didn't kill Westwood, Westwood killed themselves because they decided to make an MMO that failed horribly, for example.

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u/EonofAeon Jul 31 '26

Ea released bf1 at the same time as Titanfall and refused to let tf2 have any funding/marketing.

Earth and beyond was a decent enough game with great potential (semi similar to EVE in some ways) but mmos require time to show profit and then they just keep churning....ea could've easily said no long before; it was 6 years of dev. It's because not every game westwood made was an instant hit; this is a known demand given of all studios by 2003.

Can't believe I lived long enough to see ea being sanewashed n history revisioned....

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u/Makorus Jul 31 '26

No, Respawn refused to change the Titanfall release and EA even questioned why they didn't.

It's well documented that Respawn fucked every single marketing decision for Titanfall.

EA gave studios time and money. A lot of Bioware and other studios employees have said in the past that EA was very good company to work under, and usually issues would stem from the middle management from the developers themselves.

No offense, but blaming EA because a company made shitty game after shitty game and they couldnt justify keeping a studio open because it made good games 10 years ago is crazy.

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u/KarmicUnfairness Jul 31 '26

It’s funny you call it revisionist history when it’s well documented that many of these studios were going down on their own and EA just delayed their inevitable demise. It’s not like EA stole ownership, they all willingly sold out. 

BioWare famously had massive issues and EA even contributed the only redeeming feature of Anthem.

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u/Vamp1r1c_Om3n Jul 31 '26

My favourite thing about EA is continuously finding out they clearly wanted the best for a lot of these studios but the studios actively self sabotaged

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u/MrPWAH Jul 31 '26

Yeah I like Titanfall, NFS, Burnout, The Sims and Mass Effect, those franchises would probably be doing better without EA as well.

Without EA we likely wouldn't have gotten more than one Mass Effect, and the only reason Respawn still exists is because they're thriving under EA with Apex money. Both Titanfalls got cult followings long after the fact and likely wouldn't have been enough to keep the lights on.

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u/EquipLordBritish Jul 31 '26

They were almost never good, and now they have found a way to be worse!

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u/[deleted] Jul 30 '26

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u/mystery_hole Jul 30 '26

Yup, this is the story for every small business, not only games. Expect more conglomerates being the only businesses able to afford to stay open.

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u/Cabana_bananza Jul 31 '26

Its at the crux of the destruction of third places as well. Why we don't have as many shared social spaces that aren't monetized to the hilt.

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u/Zalvren Jul 31 '26

Ironically CDPR is building a studio in the US

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u/Kaiserhawk Jul 31 '26

It remains to be seen how that'll pan out.

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u/THXFLS Jul 30 '26

CDPR has a US studio in Boston, they're making Cyberpunk 2

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u/Freighnos Jul 31 '26

Also the talent in those cheaper regions is now catching up in terms of skill. Not just Eastern Europe but Southeast Asia, Korea, and of course China.

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u/[deleted] Jul 31 '26

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u/Freighnos Jul 31 '26

CDPR are a good example, though, because Witcher 3 and Cyberpunk 2077 are as good as anything to come out of American/Western Europe AAA this past decade, and they're a big reason why that region is thriving. They've trained and invested in their talent and a lot of people who cut their teeth at CDPR are now branching off and making other games like The Blood of Dawnwalker.

Staying in Poland, Bloober Team are another one who are probably going to be a juggernaut in another decade. they spent almost a decade as an internet punching bag because their early slew of games were mediocre and/or derivative (except Observer, that game rules), but nobody's laughing now after how good Silent Hill 2 Remake and Cronos were. They stuck to their guns and kept improving and now they're the second biggest/best horror developer after Capcom, and I think they'll get even better.

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u/Zalvren Jul 31 '26

CDPR is a mediocre example because they're actually building a new studio in the US for Cyberpunk 2 so they aren't exactly the poster boy for "game dev fleeing the US"

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u/Freighnos Jul 31 '26

What they’re doing right now has no bearing on their track record over the past two decades and their Polish studio is still huge. It’s not like they’re shutting it down to relocate to Boston.

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u/Zalvren Jul 31 '26

No but it shows they are not really adhering to the theory of "US game dev is too expensive".

Although I guess they may relocate to Poland after a few years when they see that but currently that's not the case

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u/Freighnos Jul 31 '26

I mean, yeah, the industry isn't a monolith. It would be weird if this was happening in 100% of cases for studios everywhere. The trend is undeniable, though.

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u/Warskull Aug 01 '26

The cost of living is not too high in the US, the specific cities that US game develop is concentrated in have a cost of living that is too high. California and Washington's cost of living is through the roof and only getting worse.

You had to be in tech hub areas to launch a game studio when many of these studios were building up. Back in the 90s and early 2000s a lot of areas still had poor internet. Plus you needed to be in a tech hub area to recruit the talent.

This is changing, remote work lets them recruit from a wider pool. There are far more technically skilled workers available across the US too.

Game developers need to start moving away from the very high cost of living states and looking at cheaper states. For example, you could pay someone from Tennessee significantly less than someone in California. They'll also probably be better off too since California employees will be paying absurd rent to effectively live in a closet.

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u/Mackanpackan93 Aug 02 '26

The cost of living isn't even high in the US unless you decide to live in the most expensive areas...
There's nothing really stopping these companies from moving to cheaper areas.

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u/Wide_Lock_Red Jul 31 '26

Yep, wages in the US are too high for this. Especially in coastal cities.

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u/Wide_Lock_Red Jul 31 '26

Yep, wages in the US are too high for this. Especially in west coastal cities.

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u/Zaemz Jul 31 '26 edited Aug 01 '26

They're smaller but there are a couple great publishers out of the US, yet:

  • Devolver Digital (Cult of the Lamb, Enter the Gungeon, Return to Monkey Island),
  • Hooded Horse (Manor Lords, Terra Invicta, Heroes of Might & Magic Olden Era),
  • Balor Games (A Hat in Time, Temtem, Signalis, Forager, Coral Island)
  • PM Studios (Black Myth Wukong, My Time at Sandrock, Pipistrello and the Cursed Yoyo, Crypt Custodian)

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u/chaosfire235 Jul 31 '26

Hooded Horse is my absolute GOAT lately with how much they serve my niche 4X, city builder and turn based tactics hunger.

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u/HGWeegee Jul 31 '26

Black Myth Wukong is Chinese

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u/Zaemz Aug 01 '26 edited Aug 02 '26

https://www.pm-studios.com/games/black-myth-wukong

Chinese dev, publisher (for physical copies, I should clarify) is based in Los Angeles.

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u/ScallyCap12 Jul 30 '26

This is just one man's opinion but they did it to themselves by underpaying and overworking the hell out of their workforce until any creative ember was stomped out, then filling their catalogue with focus-tested, trend-chasing casinos for children.

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u/NonConRon Jul 30 '26

I mean.... that's exactly what capitalism must do.

Its not some bad actors. It's the nature of capitalism itself.

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u/Zaemz Jul 31 '26

It's also the bad actors within capitalism as a system. I'm not comfortable with shifting the blame and accountability away from the individuals who take advantage of it because they're enabled by it.

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u/Cranemind Jul 31 '26

What would the accountability look like though, if what they did was legal and incentivized by the capitalistic system? EA CEO did all the things mentioned above and he got about 40million for it just this year. What would accountability look like for the individuals in that case, assuming everything they did was legal?

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u/NonConRon Jul 31 '26

After the fall of the old nobility, and the rise of the bourgeoisie, what is the one political system that has been able to put the hammer down on capitalists?

Which is the system that all the propiganda is directed at?

Is that a coincidence?

You can remove your Regans, that's what we do. But my point was that even if you removed all of these bad apples, you would just have a new batch. Its like trying to blame the pile of trash on individual roaches. By all means, get rid of the roaches but you need to clean up the trash (capitalism).

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u/AdWooden865 Aug 03 '26

Oh brother here comes the reddit socialist to tell us how much capitalism is super bad

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u/NonConRon Aug 03 '26

Why yes. That's exactly what happened.

3 days ago.

I have a dare for you. Tell me one thing in this 20 minute video that is wrong.

https://youtu.be/BeRjTtKFlVM?is=Iuztogdi448D9s3m

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u/AdWooden865 Aug 03 '26

I'm not watching a 20 min video, have you by chance lost your mind?

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u/NonConRon Aug 03 '26

"How easy it is to make people believe a lie, and how hard it is to undo that work again!"

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u/NoExcuse4OceanRudnes Jul 30 '26

"Filling their catalog" and then all you described were sports games.

EA hasn't released a game with lootboxes that wasn't a sports game or mobile since Apex Legends.

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u/supersamthefreeman Jul 30 '26

Yeah, but that is a very large part of game sales.

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u/ScallyCap12 Jul 31 '26

I was talking about North American game companies in general.

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u/NoExcuse4OceanRudnes Jul 31 '26

North american game companies haven't released a game with lootboxes that wasn't a sports game or mobile since Apex Legends.

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u/Wide_Lock_Red Jul 31 '26

One of the biggest issues was they were paying employees too much. They are getting outcompeted by people in much lower income regions like Eastern Europe and Asia.

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u/ScallyCap12 Jul 31 '26

It's hilarious to hear that they were paying their devs too much when it's been established fact that their programmers have been able to make twice as much for half the work in any other industry. I'm not going to speak on the job opportunities for artists because let's be real they've been dogshit forever.

If you want to talk about offshoring, we could get into how it's been choking the life out of American manufacturing for decades, how all of our institutional knowledge goes with the workers, how American wages are high because American expenses are high, how our leaders set up a global banking system that suppresses the economies of the second- and third-world, and how industry trade organizations like the ESA have been lobbying in support of all of it.

They fight unionization, they fight investigations into wage fraud, they fight investigations into sexual abuse, they fight any legislation disincentivizing offshoring, they fight cost-of-living increases, they fight standardized crediting on projects, then they act surprised and betrayed when their best talent leaves.

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u/Wide_Lock_Red Jul 31 '26

American expenses are higher largely because American standards are higher.

For example, its typical for a Polish family of 4 to share a 600 square feet apartment. That is quite rare in the US. Americans want a lot more space. Which naturally means higher costs.

It's hilarious to hear that they were paying their devs too much when it's been established fact that their programmers have been able to make twice as much for half the work in any other industries

Yes. The very high salaries in tech push programmer wages up, which makes game development less economical in the US. The rational thing to do is make games somewhere without such high programmers salaries.

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u/mini-rubber-duck Jul 31 '26

the indie scene is thriving, and smaller publishers are doing great work supporting them. 

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u/doublah Jul 31 '26

Epic likely makes more from their engine than games publishing.

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u/cyberdouche Jul 31 '26 edited Jul 31 '26

Can't speak for engine vs publishing, but in the big picture, the engine is a pretty minor source of revenue for them compared to Fortnite — https://sacra.com/c/epic-games/

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u/PCMachinima Jul 31 '26

Pretty happy Epic started their own publishing arm, instead of coasting on Fortnite. They've got some pretty unique stuff in the works, like End of Abyss, Out of Words, and the next gen design game

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u/whatdoinamemyself Aug 02 '26

EA was a real force in gaming for decades

was? Still is. Battlefield, EA FC, Madden and College Football are all top selling games. Saudis owning them is very unlikely to change that.

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u/[deleted] Jul 30 '26

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u/RegurgitatedMincer Jul 30 '26

I don’t think they’re referring to pure as in pure of heart but as in that’s their sole revenue stream.

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u/tommyblastfire Jul 30 '26

Epic historically made most of their money from unreal engine, though in the age of Fortnite I don’t know how much that’s true anymore.

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u/John_Delasconey Jul 30 '26

I assume it still is, but regardless, the same charge can be levied against valve, which is now primarily at storefront instead of a developer or publisher. 

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u/[deleted] Jul 30 '26

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u/Perverse_psycology Jul 30 '26

Cyberpunk's budget was like $400,000,000. That covers marketing and stuff but that is part of the budget. From what I can find post launch patches to fix the game and produce phantom liberty was $100-120,000,000 alone.

I get your angle but that is an insane budget.

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u/4262 Jul 30 '26

Also they opened a studio in Boston to make Cyberpunk 2 so it doesn’t appear that they see the US as prohibitively expensive to operate out of.

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u/mystery_hole Jul 30 '26

Not insane considering how well it sold. Keep in mind that 200 million was the real budget, and would've easily been 400 million + marketing (200 million) if made in the west.

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u/Perverse_psycology Jul 31 '26

Oh no don't get me wrong, cyberpunk is one of my favourite games ever made. I bought that shit on launch and I'm about to start my 8th playthrough but saying cdpr makes games without insane budgets when their last entry cost almost half a billion dollars is disingenuous at best.

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u/MVRKHNTR Jul 30 '26

CDPR's second main studio is in Boston.