It isn't hugely surprising to hear that generative AI is a big part of the vision for EA's second coming as a private company, as reported by insiders.
The buyers are committing $36 billion of their own equity (briefly and inexpertly, “equity” is the value of your assets after you deduct anything you owe), including the value of the PIF’s existing investments in EA. They’re making up the rest of the total thanks to a $20 billion loan from JPMorgan Chase Bank. How will they manage that massive debt? According to the Financial Times, who cite unnamed insiders, they’re gambling on the deployment of generative AI tools as a gigantic cost-saving measure.
“The investors are betting that AI-based cost cuts will significantly boost EA’s profits in the coming years, people involved in the transaction told the Financial Times,” the paper wrote (paywall) in their own coverage of the story. The FT elsewhere commented that the acquisition “is a huge bet that artificial intelligence can significantly cut EA’s operating costs, allowing the equity consortium to manage a large debt load on a company that historically carried limited net debt.”
FIFA and Madden have been dog shit iterations for years and years and people keep buying them. Plus Battlefield 6 might actually be good and will test plenty of people (like me) who said “never again” long ago. Luckily I probably won’t actually be tempted because of EA anti cheat and Linux incompatibility.
I was all up for BF6. It releases in two weeks. A bunch of friends are going to get it. I was a bit annoyed that it was the only reason I’d still be using windows11 but I was prepared to wear it. But Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law, fuck.that.noise. No way am I giving that cunt anti-cheat access to my computer.
EA can always keep printing money by putting out the same sport games every year, how the fuck did they get into $36 billion debt? I’m not even mad, that’s impressive.
The $20B was printed by JPMorgan Chase bankers so that Jared Kushner and the Saudis could buy EA at 45% off. In return, the saudis promise that they can siphon $20B from fired workers back to the bankers over the next ~10 years.
At this level, maybe not. When you owe the bank $10k and can’t pay it back, it’s your problem. When you owe the bank $20B and can’t pay it back, it’s the bank’s problem.
Yes, it’s a loan so big that normal personal finance “savings and loans” rules don’t really apply. This loan is 3X EA’s entire revenue, 2X Nintendo’s entire revenue. Basically an entire new game-publisher’s worth of money flowed into the gaming industry to exert dictatorial control over EA. JPMorgan Chase just have to make sure that they get their money back from the EA employees they just helped the Saudis buy.
They actually don’t even have to do that. They get the money off the fees and limited interest on the transaction and sell the debt as a “prime” investment to your retirement fund or pension. Leaving the common people to hold the bag while they receive millions in fees and no liability
As someone who understands the differences between soccer games I can tell anyone who actually gives a fuck about soccer game quality and is not gacha addicted will confirm current FIFA/FC is utterly shit.
They are probably paying billions in so many teams and players licensing while everything has miniscule improvements or even removing stuff (like Volta game mode).
Every year EA is reporting lesser and lesser profits from the FC series, and doesn’t help that after the first weeks the yearly games start rotting in store shelves while asking 60+ Euro. They make money from the whales spending salaries on player card packs on FUT, and they are quite angry too. Konami is down the corner gaining more and more revenue and users yearly from the FC refugees (not that f2p eFootball is good either).
This has got to be some form of vulture capitalism. They will sell off all the IP and physical property, either directly or by spinning off divisions into new companies to sell off. Then sell off any other pieces of the company that they can, and finally they’ll take all that income as bonuses for the new owners and leave the remains of EA with nothing but debt and no option other than to file for bankruptcy. Same thing that was done to companies like Toys-R-Us but on a larger scale.
Probably not and they have no intention to. They will give themselves bonuses and stock dividends that will eat up all the income from selling the IP (and everything else) and then leave the company with nothing but debt forcing it to declare bankruptcy.
Leveraged buyouts are so stupid to me. “Hi, I’d like to buy this company, but since it will be my company, the company needs to have the debt, not me. So if it goes wrong, well, that’s the company’s fault, not mine.” Should be illegal.
I’m honestly asking. The world of corporate raiding is a foreign and distasteful place to my arts and sciences brain. The world of home buying is also foreign to my arts and sciences brain, but that’s cause I leaned more into arts than sciences.
That being said, you put up 20 grand of your money for a down payment. The bank loans you 200k. You fail to make your payments. Bank forecloses and sells off the property to cover the remaining debt, or at least claw back whatever they can get from it. Would that be so different than what’s likely to happen if EA fails to pay JP Morgan back? Is it the liability of Kushner et al vs the liability of a homeowner that is the primary difference?
That’s the idea at least, but a corporation is a vastly different thing. A piece of property doesn’t have employees, obligations, etc etc. (Well okay, large properties often do, but they aren’t hired by the buildings themselves.)
I have good news and bad news on that front. The good news is that the original wing commander dev is making a spiritual successor to the game. The bad news is that it’s star citizen.
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There’s a huge bet that most of us are going to boycott this tomfuckery and do no further business with EA.
Already have.
Unfortunately, will the EA Sports fans and Battlefield fans do the same?
If they hadn’t left already, they never will.
FIFA and Madden have been dog shit iterations for years and years and people keep buying them. Plus Battlefield 6 might actually be good and will test plenty of people (like me) who said “never again” long ago. Luckily I probably won’t actually be tempted because of EA anti cheat and Linux incompatibility.
I was all up for BF6. It releases in two weeks. A bunch of friends are going to get it. I was a bit annoyed that it was the only reason I’d still be using windows11 but I was prepared to wear it. But Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law, fuck.that.noise. No way am I giving that cunt anti-cheat access to my computer.
No… They won’t. But the rest of us free thinkers will. Is it a win? I dunno. I’ll carry that flag tho.
Well, they’re fucked then
EA can always keep printing money by putting out the same sport games every year, how the fuck did they get into $36 billion debt? I’m not even mad, that’s impressive.
The $20B was printed by JPMorgan Chase bankers so that Jared Kushner and the Saudis could buy EA at 45% off. In return, the saudis promise that they can siphon $20B from fired workers back to the bankers over the next ~10 years.
No? JPMorgam Chase wrote a loan, right? Don’t they win no matter what, so long as the company doesn’t go under? They’re getting interest no?
At this level, maybe not. When you owe the bank $10k and can’t pay it back, it’s your problem. When you owe the bank $20B and can’t pay it back, it’s the bank’s problem.
This is how 2008 happened.
Yes, it’s a loan so big that normal personal finance “savings and loans” rules don’t really apply. This loan is 3X EA’s entire revenue, 2X Nintendo’s entire revenue. Basically an entire new game-publisher’s worth of money flowed into the gaming industry to exert dictatorial control over EA. JPMorgan Chase just have to make sure that they get their money back from the EA employees they just helped the Saudis buy.
They actually don’t even have to do that. They get the money off the fees and limited interest on the transaction and sell the debt as a “prime” investment to your retirement fund or pension. Leaving the common people to hold the bag while they receive millions in fees and no liability
As someone who understands the differences between soccer games I can tell anyone who actually gives a fuck about soccer game quality and is not gacha addicted will confirm current FIFA/FC is utterly shit.
They are probably paying billions in so many teams and players licensing while everything has miniscule improvements or even removing stuff (like Volta game mode).
Every year EA is reporting lesser and lesser profits from the FC series, and doesn’t help that after the first weeks the yearly games start rotting in store shelves while asking 60+ Euro. They make money from the whales spending salaries on player card packs on FUT, and they are quite angry too. Konami is down the corner gaining more and more revenue and users yearly from the FC refugees (not that f2p eFootball is good either).
EA’s output of middling products filled with aggressive microstransactions is about to be bolstered with… heavy use of AI slop?
I’m looking forward to watching this bankruptcy speedrun.
What a fantastic plan. Nothing could possibly go wrong.
Stay the course, this will go great.
This has got to be some form of vulture capitalism. They will sell off all the IP and physical property, either directly or by spinning off divisions into new companies to sell off. Then sell off any other pieces of the company that they can, and finally they’ll take all that income as bonuses for the new owners and leave the remains of EA with nothing but debt and no option other than to file for bankruptcy. Same thing that was done to companies like Toys-R-Us but on a larger scale.
Thing is, could they even get enough from selling the IP to cover the purchase?
Probably not and they have no intention to. They will give themselves bonuses and stock dividends that will eat up all the income from selling the IP (and everything else) and then leave the company with nothing but debt forcing it to declare bankruptcy.
Don’t they need to get at least $36 billion from that for it to be worth it?
No shit. My question is whether there’s enough value in EA’s IP get more than their investment money out of doing that.
If the IP isn’t worth enough, they can’t get their money back, no matter what method they use to extract it
That was exactly my thought. Extract cash for the owners through massive cuts, gut the company and discard the husk. Classic leveraged buy out scheme.
Might as well consider EA dead.
1982:
Good?
As long as someone buys the rights to…half a billion video game franchises EA is sitting on, yes. It is good.
On paper EA being dead is good, but I’d like it to be dead and without parasites making money off of the corpse.
It’s a zombie, you’re gonna have to try harder.
It’s been a rotting corpse for a while now.
Also, a bet on consumers being willing to pay AAA prices for slop
They already do, the only difference is now the slop will be made by AI instead of underpaid developers in Romania.
I’ve not bought an EA game in 11+ years and see no reason to start now.
“And then it got worse” isn’t only a valid description of Russian History.
Kind of a strange bet to make when AI use has been going down in large companies lately. Hope EA goes down as well.
Leveraged buyouts are so stupid to me. “Hi, I’d like to buy this company, but since it will be my company, the company needs to have the debt, not me. So if it goes wrong, well, that’s the company’s fault, not mine.” Should be illegal.
It’s like buying a house, and then expecting the house to pay the mortgage.
I mean,isn’t that what a foreclosure sale is?
I’m honestly asking. The world of corporate raiding is a foreign and distasteful place to my arts and sciences brain. The world of home buying is also foreign to my arts and sciences brain, but that’s cause I leaned more into arts than sciences.
That being said, you put up 20 grand of your money for a down payment. The bank loans you 200k. You fail to make your payments. Bank forecloses and sells off the property to cover the remaining debt, or at least claw back whatever they can get from it. Would that be so different than what’s likely to happen if EA fails to pay JP Morgan back? Is it the liability of Kushner et al vs the liability of a homeowner that is the primary difference?
That’s the idea at least, but a corporation is a vastly different thing. A piece of property doesn’t have employees, obligations, etc etc. (Well okay, large properties often do, but they aren’t hired by the buildings themselves.)
EA Sports It’s in the slop
Has been for many years
This is a very longwinded way to say “EA will die in a few years”.
“I don’t care who wins. I just want EA to lose.” Star Wars guy
This, they destroyed the art of US video games because it was promoting bad values like gay marriage in The Sims
Hope their IP gets sold to other companies. Would love to see another wing commander in my lifetime.
I have good news and bad news on that front. The good news is that the original wing commander dev is making a spiritual successor to the game. The bad news is that it’s star citizen.
Fuckin oof
For a brief moment, I had hope. Then, poof, it was gone.
Technically, the Wing Commander successor is Squadron 42. Star Citizen is a Freelancer successor.
I understand if this brings you little comfort.
More comfort than before. Thank you, kind internet stranger.
They’re over leveraged on AI so they’re trying to create markets for it, lol. Jesus christ this economy is a ponzi scheme