this post was submitted on 29 Sep 2025
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In a deal involving a company owned by Jared Kushner, a company that is basically just the Saudis, and $20B of debt.

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[–] PalmTreeIsBestTree@lemmy.world 31 points 3 days ago (4 children)

Guess I am not playing Battlefield 6 then…

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[–] desmosthenes@lemmy.world 15 points 2 days ago (1 children)

they don’t make good games anymore anyway

[–] Duamerthrax@lemmy.world 12 points 2 days ago (4 children)

They've never made good games. They sometimes allowed one of their devs to make a good game when they weren't looking, but no one is perfect.

[–] Ashiette@lemmy.world 7 points 2 days ago (1 children)

FIFA 99, Need for Speed : Underground, The Sims 2, C&C : Red Alert 2, SSX3, Black and White, LOTR 2 & 3, Burnout 3, Battlefield Vietnam, ...

There was a time when they were good, but they fell out of grace in the second half of the 2000s

[–] Duamerthrax@lemmy.world 3 points 2 days ago

They had a reputation for buying better companies to own the IPs and gutting the teams before the late 2000s. It's sort of cathartic seeing that happen to them now, but not really because all the shitheels who made those decisions will probably be getting a nice payout while the actually workers will just get kicked to the curb.

[–] psycho_driver@lemmy.world 7 points 2 days ago (2 children)

Eh some of their stuff from the 80s was pretty groovy.

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[–] kadaverin0@lemmy.dbzer0.com 16 points 2 days ago (1 children)

I haven't bought an EA game since Mass Effect 3. This is just one more reason to never give them my money.

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[–] Senf@feddit.org 2 points 1 day ago

EA has not been able to send the Auth Codes 2-factor to my e-mail with my own domain for ages.

The support (probably AI) sends me a link to a support article about 2-factor authorisation every time. EXACTLY THE ARTICLE WHERE YOU HAVE TO SCROLL ALL THE WAY DOWN TO CONTACT SUPPORT.

[–] SkunkWorkz@lemmy.world 21 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago)

Mmmhhh, The FIA president, an Emirati, recently consolidated all power and made himself dictator of the association. Now the Saudis bought EA, the publisher that releases the F1 game. Bet the next thing to happen is a Qatari will buy Formula One, the current owner has already stated that he is willing to sell for the right offer.

[–] RampantParanoia2365@lemmy.world 12 points 2 days ago

The idea of playing a new Mass Effect owned by Jared Kushner.

[–] taiyang@lemmy.world 8 points 2 days ago (4 children)

I was thinking about this deal and... I guess it makes sense the Saudis want in on the gaming industry. I recall a long while ago an old article about the industry (probably second hand via Polygon) that noted just how much Saudis whale on mobile and loot box games. It was so disproportionate, their nobility was like 2% of a mobile title's revenue... literally just a few big families.

So my thinking is, EA, being the kind of shitty company it is, is actually probably pretty popular among Saudi nobility. That and FIFA, of course


imagine pay to win when you have infinite money.

[–] skisnow@lemmy.ca 5 points 2 days ago

I'm more cynical than that, I think it's that Kushner and the Saudis have both identified gamers as a group susceptible to be influenced by auth-right messaging, and they want a piece of that.

[–] NoodlePoint@lemmy.world 3 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

Makes me think why Houthis and the Iranians hate them. Not just sectarian but also wanton excesses of kingdom.

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[–] simple@piefed.social 23 points 3 days ago (5 children)

Huh.

So who's betting that EA dissolves over the next few years and they start passing their IPs around to other companies? Not sure how I feel about this because on one hand it could end with EA in the gutter and their dead franchises in the hands of companies that still know how to make games

[–] NuXCOM_90Percent@lemmy.zip 16 points 3 days ago (4 children)

You should be worried if you at all care about video games. Yes, EA sucks. But even a decade or so ago they were pretty much one of the big two and are still one of the biggest "developer" houses.

Because we already saw this play out with Embracer et al and increasingly with Microsoft. Video games are a horrible investment. If you make a "good game"and do all of your PR right and get REALLY lucky? Yeah, you can buy a yacht or twenty. But that comes after 2-8 years of expensive development with many points where you have to just keep throwing money at it in the hopes of success.

And EA was one of those companies that could get away with that because their sports games are so popular that they can fund development of the entire company AND still make a solid profit.

Because

it could end with EA in the gutter and their dead franchises in the hands of companies that still know how to make games

That isn't how this works. You don't say "Wow. Development is really expensive and has no guaranteed ROI. Let's fund external development that we have even less control over".

As Swen et al constantly remind people: Baldurs Gate 3 is not a model that studios can follow. It was a once in a lifetime convergence of circumstances. Larian had been making CRPGs for close to two decades at that point and had used multiple kickstarters to modernize their stack in a genre that had mostly been forgotten. And they STILL needed 3 years of early access and a LOT of marketing money (BG3 was a fricking keypoint of Stadia for crying out loud).

That isn't what Mass Effect or Dragon Age or Mirror's Edge will get. At best they will get cheap remasters by Nightdive (which would actually be nice but...). More likely they will get the kind of "Are you sure this isn't a mobile game? From the 2010s?" that we see plaguing Warhammer 40k and the like.

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[–] Kyrgizion@lemmy.world 21 points 3 days ago (4 children)

Luckily EA hasn't published anything I care about in over a decade. No big loss.

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[–] MyDarkestTimeline01@ani.social 10 points 2 days ago

So THAT'S why they allowed Battlefield 6 to be so good. Had to pump up those player interest numbers.

[–] obinice@lemmy.world 10 points 2 days ago (1 children)
[–] tatann@lemmy.world 9 points 2 days ago

It's resting since 2012, not peacefully though :/

They first zombified it in 2017 and now they're poking its corpse every few years on the 7th of november

[–] HugeNerd@lemmy.ca 6 points 2 days ago

Wait, can I still play Skate or Die! on my Commodore 64?

[–] nocturne@slrpnk.net 17 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago) (1 children)
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[–] LordOfLocksley@lemmy.world 16 points 3 days ago (1 children)

So how long before the private equity firms strip mine EA for all it's worth, and force it to rent back it's offices, which force it to bankruptcy?

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[–] Adderbox76@lemmy.ca 2 points 2 days ago

Had an EA Play so I could play NHL and FIFA, and the occasional ME Trilogy replay. Canceled it the moment the news broke about Kushner and the Saudis. Had paid for the year and was willing to sacrifice the final five months in the name of morality. But luckily they refunded me the difference.

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