They’re in alignment with a sense of pride and accomplishment, I guess?
They put "art" in their name, thought it was enough concessions to the unproductive concept called "culture" and then they made sure to focus on compensating this benevolent act by creating as many shitty products as possible.
Historical tangent: Electronic Arts was originally supposed to be named "Electronic Artists" (as a play on United Artists, the film company). The whole reason the company was founded was because Atari and Activision made game designers anonymous cogs in the machine. EA was like "we'll actually pay solid compensations and we'll actually put your name on the cover, how's that sound?" But, of course, the founders noticed that they weren't the artists in question, the game designers were, so they changed it.
EA has been dead for over a decade honestly. With the new Saudi owners they are just being turned into a zombie.
Holy shit you aren't kidding!
I'm looking at the releases and honestly none of those games are Day 1 must buy for me.
I think the Saudis bought it for the sports games. And those games are pretty cookie cutter and they sell well thanks to the chuds.
Everything is just a remake of something good from 20 years ago, an expansion pack for The Sims, or a sports game. Although in slight fantas to them Star wars squadrons actually was good. I think the leadership forgot about that that one because it never even had micro transactions or loot boxes or anything.
If you like strategic fps, Battlefield has always been the best game in my eyes. I bought it right before news of the purchase came out... Let's just say I wasn't impressed. Fuck the saudis, but Kushner is the real ghoul.
Also skate doesn't exactly have any competitors. I have always loved skate, and would consider the new one quite enjoyable (if its code wasn't 50% computer-crashing kernel level nonsense).
Jamal Khashoggi
Beheadings, shooting people with impunity, monarchism, modern slavery, being the origin country of the most 9/11 hijackers, underaged arranged marriages, paying random women and girls from the Internet to go over there and then literally shitting on them. Buying children from Trump to sex traffic... and yes, using violence and torture to surpress journalism and political dissent.
the origin country of the most 9/11 hijackers
That's underselling it.
If I remember correctly, all but one of them were Saudi.
Ah, okay. So only 4 who weren't Saudis.
Also ... I'm detecting a notable lack of Afghanistan on that list...
They all traveled through countries (passport stamped and all) deemed not allowed for Saudi Arabia > United States travel. The Saudis allowed them to move freely. That was the detail that has stuck with me from the 9/11 commission report.
Despite assurances from management, some workers believe the company will be subject to censorship by its new owners.
Assurances from anyone with an MBA are worth less than nothing. They are professional liars. They pretend they aren't with the bullshit "optimism isn't lies", except it absolutely is when you KNOW your optimistic interpretation is bullshit. It's like that Dr. Nick bit.
Dr. Nick: "With my diet, you can eat anything you want, any time you want!"
Marge: "And you'll lose weight?"
Dr. Nick: "You might! It's a free country!"
I don’t know why you got downvoted. This is a valid point.
It’s almost as if people who will “toe the line” are more likely to get promoted to management. Until the leopards come for them as well.
I've been 'fuck EA' for a long time, but this buyout has guaranteed I'll never touch another of their games again under any circumstances.
I’ll never touch another of their games again under any circumstances.
What about the circumstance of having pirated the game?
Do they have any worth the effort?
You're asking the wrong question. They absolutely have games that are worth the effort, the question is "will they make new games that worth the effort?"
It's surprising that isn't obvious.
I'll allow it.
Yeah, I will stop buying, will continue boycotting and avoiding ea games
Isn't EA mathematically doomed to die off due to the absurd amount of profit they need to pay off the debt the saudis put on them so that they could own them? Like, who cares about actually working there, you're as good as already laid off. The sword of damocles is swinging.
A tale as old as time. Hedge fund buys a company. Company has too much debt from the buyout. Hedge fund strips out assets of the company. Company dies.
I think the sword of damocles more dangles menacingly than swings.
The pendulum in The Pit and the Pendulum is the sharp object that swings.
Swinging sounds like you're giving it a higher chance to miss
The last EA product I purchased new, that the company would have gotten paid for, was Desert Strike for SNES. In 1993.
I didn’t even pay for that one lol. Always a trash company.
Hard to feel good about being bought out by a regime that's very much at odds with progressive society
... and EA was the bastion of rights and good treatment of people before?
Saudi: "Hey you know that part in Mass Effect where you punch a reporter? Can you expand that to a whole game?"
"Hey remember Tali in Mass Effect? Yeah make all the women dress like that"
In fact take it further and cut em up
BONESAW IS READY
Yeah the job market is abysmal right now. I can't blame them at all if they have nowhere else to go.
They should be doing that right now. The tech industry fucking sucks across the board, but tons of folks in the field make excuses because the pay is too good. Regardless of where you work, leave your job board accounts active. I still get tech job listings daily. Even at a pay cut, you’re still above a lot of the struggling working class in terms of income. It’s not like EA being terrible is a new discovery.
gaming and the tech market arnt exactly hiring in large numbers anymore. they might not even find another job if they quit.
I want you to know it did not take me long to find this.
Yeah, this can’t be a partisan thing. That’s just feeding into the same nonsense division governments manufacture. It has to cross those aisles and educate folks on the fact that all working class are in the same battle against the same collective ruling class around the world. We’re seeing authoritarian regimes forming around the world and they are working together. We have to do the same.
You, 2 weeks ago. Emphasis mine.
So worker solidarity and all that, but "employees who don't hold shares, including many who are classified as "'temporary fulltime,'" don't count. Just like they don't count for healthcare and labor protections. They're just villains eh?
Well, one way or another, I agree with something you said. It's just unfortunate you don't.
Working for the enemy helps the enemy and the enemy has been around and known for decades (tech was at least one decade) so what the fuck are yall doing besides making excuses to make more money?!
So... where else should I work boss? What business, what employer, is free from the corrupting effects of capitalism? "Independent daycare" like that's not subject to the same problems as any other small business - power tripping owners, cutting corners to save money, exploiting labor, etc. There is no business in the entire world that is utopic. You know this. So should we all be subsistence farmers? Pick up a weapon and die for a cause? Why do you want everyone to be just as miserable as you?
What a reductive way to see the world. I feel sorry for your anger, you'll clearly never be free of it for the rest of your life.
Exactly this. EA has been garbage for ages. This isn’t a scenario where a company was going about its business and then suddenly got bought by a military contractor. It’s harder to account for when you’re one day working on software for the airline industry, and then suddenly software for threat targeting. Instead, this is a scenario where EA told everyone exactly how terrible they are, and then doubled down by selling to oppressors (that have also openly displayed how terrible they are for years).
I’ve worked in tech for nearly 2 decades and even the lower end salaries are better than most fields (aside from the obvious ones like medical, law, etc).
Tech is unique. I know because I’ve been trapped in it for years. There is no excuse for working at these companies because tech salaries are all far higher than most other fields, and there are a multitude of other companies to work for that aren’t military and surveillance contractors (not to mention EA has been terrible for years). I’ve had this choice my entire career and have always refused to work anywhere that helped abhorrent industries. I’ve known folks that refused to leave these industries because the pay was too good. This isn’t a scenario where they’re not aware of what the company does. Hell, I know someone that knowingly and willingly builds software for military drones. There’s no fucking excuse and your gotcha was a worthy attempt but I don’t play that kind of bullshit on the Internet.
Edit: this is an unstructured mess but I’m tired and dealing with a family member loss, so fuck it.
Because affording housing and food is such a non-excuse. AI and mass tech layoffs already, but hey, throw away your job before you have a new one just to appease the morally injured. Same shit in every industry.
It’s hard to have a lot of sympathy since I was homeless after I quit a job due to them attempting to frame another employee. It was years of struggle but I managed to eventually figure out how to survive better without a job at all. If you work for bad people you have to take some of that stink onto yourself. You are the bad guy compared to say, a person that survives running an independent daycare. You don’t get to pretend you aren’t a part of the problem.
Ppl in tech don't all make hundreds of thousands a year. Ppl are scraping by, especially after the last 5 years of inflation. Y'all have insane expectations you'd never personally meet because this the internet and you can just say shit.
Even the lowest salaries in tech are often still higher than the average salaries in other fields. The bargaining power is rubbish now because tech was too comfortable to unionize, but the salaries are still higher than most blue collar roles. I’ve taken lower salaries in the past myself just to avoid terrible industries—in some cases well under $100k—and they were still higher than other fields.
Liberal just means rainbow capitalism
Reminds me of that Ricky Gervais golden globes roast, where he looks at the actors in the face and says something like "half of you would happily work for Al Qaeda if your production company demanded it"
Rich greedy assholes gotta ruin everything...
Fuck EA
In 5 years someone will publish an article about how the representation of minorities in EA games fell off a cliff starting this year.
so leave. let shitty and/or immoral people join up. it's not going to get better — why are you still there?
EA gonna be paying the Meta tax soon so atleast people will get a pay bump while they work at Evil Arts unless they were brought just for the IP's, then nobody gonna work there soon.
Lube up boys
How does a literal country purchase a game studio anyway?
Let's say you're a monarchy. You want to help yourself to money from the state without looking corrupt. So you create a sovereign wealth fund, completely control it, and help yourself.
"shitty company finds out their newest shitty owner is shitty"
Better late than never.
Ooh damn, is this about Intel? /S
I mean the trump regime is very much at odds with progressive society too so it's a wash I'd say
I am so bleak that the Battlefield IP is owned by EA 😭
Yeah thats the biggest problem here
"Despite assurances from management"
Who the hell believes management in this kind of situation? They'll be looking to kow-tow to demonstrate their usefulness to the new regime.
What do they care about lying to a bunch of people beneath them that could be fired within the week?
The employees under contract are mostly assets, included in the price of their purchase. Scaring the valuable ones so they think about quitting is going to lower the value of the purchase (provided they wouldn't get severance).
I've been in too many companies that have been purchased to listen to managers telling me how i should feel, verbatim from a memo.
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@sh.itjust.works
Video game news oriented community. No NanoUFO is not a bot :)
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When has EA ever been in alignment with progressive society?
save