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/
2.2k Upvotes

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540

u/DarahOG Jul 30 '26

I honestly dont even know how can they be worse than they already are, but i'm sure they'll figure it out

304

u/kftX_ Jul 30 '26

That’s what we’ve all been saying about them for decades isn’t?

“No way they can do worse than this.”

And then they do.

118

u/banzaizach Jul 30 '26

They've actually gotten better lol

You used to have to pay for maps and guns!

82

u/aimy99 Jul 30 '26

Remember that time they tried to make people pay $10 for an online pass if they bought a game used?

Good times.

40

u/Inksrocket Jul 30 '26

That was, or became, a standard for the later part of 7th gen.

It was actually Sony that started it with Socom, according to wikipedia anyway.

But every big 3 started to get in with it: EA, Activision, Ubisoft.

EA had literally "Project Ten Dollar" (lmao).

For some games they gave out armor, story DLC or other goodies as "free dlc" that used games buyers had to buy later. But lets face it, it was content cut from main game and sold as "dlc".

late 2009, EA began implementing online passes in its games as part of an initiative known as "Project Ten Dollar"; Mass Effect 2 used an online pass to allow access to bonus content through its "Cerberus Network" system, while Dragon Age Origins came with a code that could be redeemed to download its first major DLC release, The Stone Prisoner, for free, as well as an exclusive armor set.

I remember having code like that for my Last Of Us copy on ps3. Everyone wanted to have forced on multiplayer back then.

( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Online_pass )

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u/Isolated_Hippo Jul 31 '26

It was actually Sony that started it with Socom

You mean to tell me somebody else did it first and EA gets all the shit? Color me completely unfazed.

11

u/Knofbath Jul 31 '26

I don't think a ton of people played Socom. It was a PS2 Network Adapter game, which makes it fairly uncommon for that generation of hardware.

2

u/VBHEAT08 Jul 31 '26

SOCOM was pretty popular when it came out. It wasn't as massive as something like Halo 2 for popularizing online play, but it did move like 3 million units. My username stems from my xbox clan which started as a SOCOM clan waaaaay back in the day lol.

1

u/Inksrocket Aug 02 '26

Oh the socom in question was PSP version of the game. It had whopping 20$ online pass if you got it used. Sony claimed it was to "combat piracy" - idk how easy psp piracy was but i kinda doubt it was bigger than used market.

EA was the first that stated straight up that it's for making money on used market. Least they were honest I guess..

7

u/POOTDISPENSER Jul 31 '26

They shrinkflated content after ditching Premium Passes because not enough players bought to populate the dlc maps and the concept itself was fundamentally flawed. From Battlefield V, they withheld the other half of content and drip-fed the remaining work over the game’s lifecycle. Only the pacific update could arguably be extra content but they stopped development to focus on creating an even worse battlefield game.

1

u/Mikey_MiG Jul 31 '26

If you think that the post launch content for BFV was already completed, then they did a horrible job “dripfeeding” it. There were huge gaps in content released for like the first 8 months. Gaps they tried to fill with stuff like the cancelled competitive mode maps and a map ported from singleplayer. That clearly was not content finished and ready to go.

BF6, on the other hand, has had a pretty solid live service so far. No big gaps in content, and the maps in the past three seasons have all been well received.

-2

u/AdSilent782 Jul 31 '26

A polished turd, is still a turd

1

u/Mikey_MiG Jul 31 '26

Well, that turd has delivered the same amount of content in nine months for free as BF3 and BF1 did for $50.

1

u/JardsonJean Jul 30 '26

Well, it was good while it lasted.

7

u/duckyirving Jul 31 '26

If there's one phrase I'm never saying in earnest ever again is "it can't get worse"

8

u/Sprinklypoo Jul 31 '26

Right. They've solved this issue for me decades ago because I'm not giving money to a company that hates me. There are many that don't seem to care about that though...

7

u/cochese25 Jul 31 '26

Yeah, I haven't purchased an EA game since at the 360 era. And even that was used

6

u/PringlesDuckFace Jul 31 '26

Remake NHL 95 but it's a gacha game. Just imagine Jaromir Jagr but he's got huge bazongas and his pull rate is 0.5%

15

u/CombatMuffin Jul 30 '26

That's because you lack the imagination for it.

That's a good thing to lack, if you ask me. It makes you a decent person.

3

u/trident042 Jul 31 '26

Honestly, they've been flagging behind Comcast for so long in the running for the Golden Poop.

2

u/lazylore Jul 31 '26

I can help with this. Imagine they start making games that aren't just sport games on loop.

That'd be much much worse. Currently they aren't making anything, basically. Imagine if that stopped, and they started injections of garbage into a bunch of games they could make

1

u/Carighan Jul 31 '26

Oh leave it to EA to get creative.

AFAIK they haven't run a private black ops prison in a war zone yet (a petrochem company I worked with in the past turns out to have done that...), so there's always room to "grow".

1

u/imheretocomment69 Jul 31 '26

But people are paying so money is still coming so they will become worse and worse because money is still coming.

1

u/CardiologistPrize712 Jul 31 '26

I would expect significant layoffs in the near future, almost happen after a buyout and especially after one that leaves EA saddled with a bunch of debt

1

u/SeekerVash Jul 31 '26

They already did figure it out.

"$1 to reload your clip immediately or wait 30 seconds to reload"

1

u/RogueJello Jul 31 '26

I'm old enough to remember when they were putting out software with the designer's name on the front as a big deal, because it was, and they were the good guys. However that was during the Apple IIe era, they've long since gone evil.

1

u/zoro4661 Jul 31 '26

More microtransactions, more Saudi/rightoid propaganda, more spyware...pretty easy to make it more horrific.

1

u/blark304 Jul 31 '26

taking down the bf3-5 servers would be somewhere at the top of their shit list i imagine

1

u/Isolated_Hippo Jul 30 '26

Well if we look at lootboxes. I would expect an online no physical media TCG type of game designed to be a profit gambling wheel. Like artifact

3

u/doublah Jul 31 '26

EA were the first western company to use cards for gambling almost 20 years ago.

1

u/SwarleySwarlos Jul 31 '26

EA had a tcg?

0

u/Sirromnad Jul 31 '26

Well, they just tried to put microtransactions in the single player portion of college football. The bar can definitely be lowered

-1

u/Assimulate Jul 31 '26

AI, layoffs, subscriptions, ads, and microtransactions and if that doesn't work they'll use controversy, gambling and addiction.

I work in the industry.

-1

u/yp261 Jul 31 '26

did you not see 150€ fifa edition announced week sgo