EA Rumored for sale

That's the theory, but it doesn't quite work out that way in practice.

As for the subject at hand... honestly I will be curious to see A) if this rumor about EA is true and if so, B) what repercussions it will have for the gaming industry.

Surprised no-one is holding up signs and proclaiming the coming of another Crash (and I don't mean the Bandicoot!)

It would at worst be a substantial setback, but there's more than just the megapublishers. New developers and publishers will eventually come.

I'm almost 100% certain if EA is bought it'll be by some massive corporation that we barely heard of and is never involved in video games.

Not much different from EA's CEO coming from Pepsi Co, if I recall correctly.

If the five biggest publishers all crash at once, that's all the industry will lose. Any unrelated developers and publishers won't immediately shelve all their ongoing projects.

I bet they'd go on a headhunt.

edited 21st Aug '12 4:09:05 AM by Recon5

If EA crash, the most likely outcome is that the retailer industry is also going to crash.

edited 21st Aug '12 5:44:13 AM by fakeangelbr

Not that I wish for it to happen, but it would be interesting how a new crash plays out. The last one didn't have much of an effect outside of America, since the computer-dominated European market was going strong on their own and Japan's was pretty much completely isolated, but with America having a bigger role in both markets now, things would probably be different this time.

Japan would still be relatively safe, but only because how, for the lack of better word, xenophobic the japanese are to foreign games.

And their industry is also in decline, so there's that.

Honestly, all of this is a little messy.

edited 21st Aug '12 7:26:02 AM by fakeangelbr

While a crash would be interesting I'm actually more interested in what would happen if one of the big three bought. That's a lot of profitable games that are suddenly going to be exclusive. Would this alter the balance of power drastically or would people just move on to different games?

Unless it's by microsoft, a lot of assets would be lost, because neither Sony nor Nintendo have any interest in PC games, while EA was actually showing more interest in that front.

On that note, Steam could maybe deflate a little if those games would suddenly become exclusives to GFWL.

Maybe.

This needs a Kickstarter.

So, I'm curious...is it a good thing for one big company to own just about everything (i.e. a monopoly), or is it a good thing to have lots of small companies, each one owning a piece of this or that?

People seem to talk about monopolies in the Video Game industry like they're inherently bad, but is going the other way better for the industry?

The latter is preferable because, in theory, competition breeds excellence.

This isn't always true, of course, but in a monopoly, the only company dictates everything in how the industry works and nobody can challenge that without it crash down first.

A monopoly is bad because the head of the monopoly gets too much say on the matter, leading to more powerful and jarring Executive Meddling. The deadlines are set more unreasonably and the decisions made will often be unchallengeable and detrimental for the monopoly's own future. Companies spread in number will prevent that from happening, as the companies will actually compete in quality to make sure what they sell are worthy copies

I have several trillion dollars! I'll buy it!

I just hope the company doesn't crash outright. I have issues with EA and Activision but I don't want to see that many people unemployed.

EA and Activision should be split up. All the different developer companies should become independent. Both companies are already far too big, being bought by another big company would only be a detriment.

I wish it was possible for EA to crash without all the developers they own crashing as well.

edited 21st Aug '12 11:50:43 AM by Mukora

EA crashing might be better in the long run. With no other company to pick them up devs will transition into other fields or form companies of their own. You'd see smaller games but ultimately that's not a bad thing. smaller games = smaller prices and more risks. That spirit gives us hits likes minecraft and dayz.

But I like Battlefield. I like big AAA games. I don't want to sacrifice them for some indie stuff.

You know, even if EA is sold to someone, the people under it don't just die. Its expected that there's going to be some upset in the development teams and that some projects may get canned in favor of different ones, but I doubt AAA titles like Battlefield would have that much of an upset. At most, I would expect a few names on the development to team to be shuffled.

I hope EA stays fine. I don't know why everyone hates them.

This might explain some of the reason why, while trying their best not to bash the company

And this is by people who work in the same industry and field as EA does.

edited 21st Aug '12 1:36:37 PM by Vyctorian

Here you go.

A less refined approach, but certainly noteworthy.