Rumors of EA getting taken over?

[Vault101]

I hope they fire all the people at Bioware too.

so they can start up a new developer? because otherwise thats alittle over the top

 

[Vault101]

That would beautiful. With the way EA games sysmetacally gobbles up talented companies and turns them into shit, the idea that an even crappier company might absorbs them, is really delicious in its irony and its justice.

I hope they fire all the people at Bioware too.

Mac Walters is the only one that really deserves it. He's the one who took the franchise away from its original direction, he's the one who wrote the ending, he's probably the one responsible for the little kid fiasco. He used his position of head writer to bypass the peer review process that every other writer's work went through. He (maybe the person who gave him the position) should pay the full price.

I thourght that was casey hudosn

 

[Pumpkin_Eater]

I thourght that was casey hudosn

I've heard that name too, but only in conjunction with Walters. So maybe two writers should get the axe?

 

[Vault101]

I thourght that was casey hudosn

I've heard that name too, but only in conjunction with Walters. So maybe two writers should get the axe?

hudson is pretty much the head of Bioware I think

and that drew guy (who pretty much created ME) left...

..hmmmm

 

[Pumpkin_Eater]

hudson is pretty much the head of Bioware I think

and that drew guy (who pretty much created ME) left...

..hmmmm

Drew Karpyshyr. His absence completely nullifies the artistic integrity rationale for preserving the ending. It's like Stephanie Meyer coauthored Two Towers and wrote Return of the King.

 

[viranimus]

[
EA has dropped from 50$ a share to 12$ before the rumor got out. Amusingly their stock dropped the same time SPORE was released and we all remember how well that went over. They've pretty much been in decline for the last five years or so and ME3 and The Old Republic really hasn't done much to save them. It also might not be optional. Nexon could try for a hostile takeover. It seems more likely that it would be a merger if anything. Nexon with their free to play experience and EA with their titles, triple A games, and desire for better working micro transactions.

EA going down the drain wouldn't be that bad really. Sure we might see less AAA games being pushed out but really that could be seen as a good thing since those games tend to overshadow everything else when they come out and having more attention to smaller developers and their games isn't bad. I mean without google can anyone give me a good list of what other games came out in the same month as Mass Effect 3?

Well not really refuting what youve said, though Nexon would do no better with EA properties, and would only do worse. Basically they would migrate as much as humanly possible into micro transaction models to which people will stop playing and in turn the properties will wilt away. Its not that I doubt it, its that It will be quite depressing if it does happen.


As for games in March... I dont use google for anything. Off the top of my head, Street Fighter x Tekken, I am alive, Yakuza DS, Silent hill Downpour, Silent Hill HDS rehash, Ninga Gaiden 3, RE: Operation Raccoon city. Though honestly im not sure if March was just mediocre this year or still realing from the painful backlog of 2011 titles.

 

[Pearwood]

What if this new company is more evil than EA? EA could be transformed into some Frankinstein's monster made up of super evil.

Well I personally hate Nexon more than EA. Talk about abusing DLC all you want, at least you don't need to buy the DLC to beat the game. Nexon are that special kind of dickhead who think offering a game that's free to download but requires real-money bought items to get anywhere is a fantastic idea.

 

[ultramarine486]

Well not really refuting what youve said, though Nexon would do no better with EA properties, and would only do worse. Basically they would migrate as much as humanly possible into micro transaction models to which people will stop playing and in turn the properties will wilt away. Its not that I doubt it, its that It will be quite depressing if it does happen.


As for games in March... I dont use google for anything. Off the top of my head, Street Fighter x Tekken, I am alive, Yakuza DS, Silent hill Downpour, Silent Hill HDS rehash, Ninga Gaiden 3, RE: Operation Raccoon city. Though honestly im not sure if March was just mediocre this year or still realing from the painful backlog of 2011 titles.

Well at this point it's just speculation. It could end up, and likely will be, really terrible but at the same time it could work on some degree. The target audience might end up shifting to focus to Korea instead of America meaning that EA wouldn't take over as many promising publishers like Bioware or Pandemic. It's hard to say at this point since we still have to wait and see if anything even comes of the rumor or if it is just smoke blowing.

 

[Biodeamon]

This seems false. I don't believe there's any other gaming comapny bigger or eviller to take over EA.

 

[ultramarine486]

Thing thing is Nexon couldnt afford to do a hostile takeover of EA. If anything they would have to be suggesting a merger of the two. EAs shares might be down but they are still to big of a company.


One thing you are forgetting is that EA finances and publishes games for a very large amount of small developers. You woudnt just see a drop in AAA games you would see a massive drop in everything.

Voids in businesses get filled faster then you think. There might be a lull in the amount of games that come out but that would quickly fill as people start supporting other companies and helping them grow to fill the gap. Yes EA going out of business would be bad but it's not going to end the world. It might me we get less games for a short while but someone would quickly fill the gap of producer with large wads of cash since people want their AAA games and will pay for them regardless of who their producer is.

 

[Something Amyss]

on the other hand, EA has done a lot to make me hate them, and at this point they've come to represent everything wrong with the games industry so them going away and never coming back would really be ok with me, not say it'd be better under Nexon but they can hardly do worse

They really can do worse. Take the two business models and combine them in some beautiful amalgamation of horror.

I don't know if you remember the old "They got peanut butter in my chocolate" deal, but this is the opposite. This is "they got arsenic in my bleach slurpee."

 

[Something Amyss]

Thing thing is Nexon couldnt afford to do a hostile takeover of EA. If anything they would have to be suggesting a merger of the two. EAs shares might be down but they are still to big of a company.

That's not entirely true. It's been suggested they would become a minority owner in EA because they can't buy all their assets. However, this is still likely a stepping stone to an eventual takeover.

Voids in businesses get filled faster then you think. There might be a lull in the amount of games that come out but that would quickly fill as people start supporting other companies and helping them grow to fill the gap. Yes EA going out of business would be bad but it's not going to end the world. It might me we get less games for a short while but someone would quickly fill the gap of producer with large wads of cash since people want their AAA games and will pay for them regardless of who their producer is.

Voids don't always get filled fast, though. Publishers are less and less likely to take risks these days, and want large returns. We're not as likely to see that void filled quickly right now. Additionally, just the damage done to those smaller developers could end up killing a good chunk of those devs if they can't get a new publisher right away or pretty damn close to.

Combined with other factors in the current environment, this could be far more disastrous than it would if EA were to roll over and die in a vacuum.

This is all speculation, and I understand that a lot of my own comments hinge on the "maybes" and "ifs," but these are very real issues one way or t'other.

 

[Lunar Templar]

on the other hand, EA has done a lot to make me hate them, and at this point they've come to represent everything wrong with the games industry so them going away and never coming back would really be ok with me, not say it'd be better under Nexon but they can hardly do worse

They really can do worse. Take the two business models and combine them in some beautiful amalgamation of horror.

I don't know if you remember the old "They got peanut butter in my chocolate" deal, but this is the opposite. This is "they got arsenic in my bleach slurpee."

>.> well there is that. but I'd rather not think of a company TRYING to be worse then EA.

cause its depressing, and like i said, Nexon has gotten a little better in the short time i've had to deal with them.

catchpa: Slippery Slope
>.> oh shut up you

 

[VoidWanderer]

Are Nexon known for good customer service and customer friendly behaviour?

Can it get worse?

 

[AngleWyrm]

You know what's great about the micro transaction model? You don't have to pay $50-60 up front for a week's worth of video game, and then go "that was lame" AFTER they already got your money. Mcro transactions are far superior; they are the evolution of shareware.

It isn't perfect - but then what is? There will be games like CivWorld that attempt to be Pay2Win instead. But better competition for your gaming time & money is going to kill those off.

 

[Owyn_Merrilin]

Okay, I'm confused. Nexon is a Korean company, not Japanese. Following the actual link shows that Forbes knows this, but they obviously didn't at the time of writing, because the URL clearly says "japans" in the place where the title of the article says "South Korea's."

As for the notion of Nexon buying EA, I didn't belieeve it at first, but considering that what the actual article says is that Nexon is buying up a bunch of stock in EA, that at least is plausible. Is it really a big enough company to buy a controlling share of a company like EA, though? That would be like Valve buying out Activision.

 

[PinkiePyro]

I for one think it would be a good thing EA are a bunch of morons and I used to play nexons maplestory and later mabinogi mmos overall they are a pretty nice company (my only major complatant is they are not good at bot control) i bet they could whip EA into shape and after mabinogi I would welcome a nexon console or non-mmo pc game

 

[Guffe]

It already has... BY THE EVIL DEMI-GODS OF GAMING!!
Well this is interesting, might bring something new or then we won't even notice it.

 

[LilithSlave]

Nexon isn't all that good. But they're not worse than EA that I'm aware.

In a happy world, happy for me at least, this would mean Nexon types of games and aesthetics would influence EA games. But I know better than to assume that would happen. Corporate takeovers rarely influence anything other than who the money goes to. Eidos is now owned by Square Enix, but their haven't changed at all. Also, Marvel was acquired by Disney, haven't seen much of anything change there.

If anything though, I would like to see South Korea become a bigger force in video game developing and publishing in general. Mostly right now they are known for anime style MMORPGs. But their manwha industry is growing and they are slowly starting to experiment beyond the online-only game industry.

I wish the best to that. Until now, about the only place for Eastern culture in the gaming world was Japan. Now South Korea and even China are slowly starting to contribute. I think that would be a good balance to the Western culture boom right now that is dominating things. And people would definitely have to start taking Asian style video games seriously again, if the West not only had to contend with Japan, but South Korea as well.