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Electronic Arts Up For Sale?

Posted by Soulskill on from the take-a-check? dept.

John Wagger writes "One of the world's largest gaming publishers and developers Electronic Arts has quietly put itself up for sale. While there have already been talks with private equity companies, the talks have not resulted in anything concrete. One of the sources is saying that EA would do the deal for $20 per share (currently at $14.02). Over the past year, EA's stock price has fallen 37 percent. Like other major game publishers, EA has been struggling against growing trend of social and mobile gaming."

12 of 196 comments (clear)

  1. Stuggling versus mediocrity actually by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    EA has a long history of pressuring developers to rush out projects before they are ready. If they claim they are struggling to compete with social gaming, it has way more to do with people not having to download 3 additional patches a game to get a finished product than social gaming being more popular.

    1. Re:Stuggling versus mediocrity actually by arth1 · · Score: 5, Insightful

      EA has a long history of pressuring developers to rush out projects before they are ready. If they claim they are struggling to compete with social gaming, it has way more to do with people not having to download 3 additional patches a game to get a finished product than social gaming being more popular.

      With EA, the customer pays for patches and a finished game through DLC.

      Releasing unfinished products and then using DLC to extract even more money from customers who have already started hating you isn't exactly a recipe for continued success.

      As for "social gaming" (which really means casual gaming, because there's not much social about playing Angry Birds), that isn't a competitor. It's not like people buy a simple game instead of good games - it's an addition, played under different circumstances and times.

      I'm not going to play Flight Simulator X, L4D2 or Borderlands during my lunch break. (Those are social games, by the way.) But I may play a game on my phone/tablet/PSP.

    2. Re:Stuggling versus mediocrity actually by hairyfeet · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Jim Sterling at Zero Punctuation spells out in this videos EXACTLY why EA is in the shape its in, and it all comes down to screwing the customers. day one DLC, online passes for single player games, overdone DRM crap, watch the video because he gives a list of just one douchebag practice after another with EA. he says they are a perfect example of the bloated, overblown, grey sludge spewing corporate game publisher. Everything the industry does wrong? EA does it worse and I have to agree.

      Once upon a time EA was a great gaming house, now they just spit out one more generic POS after another and like Symantec and MSFT just destroy any company that is stupid enough to be bought by then instead of using that talent to make even better games. Bullfrog, Westwood, the list of companies gutted by EA is a long one and in each case EA lost what could have been another great team making great products. So yeah no surprise here, company puts out overpriced garbage and treats its customers like crap, company goes to hell.

      I'd love to see how much Origin cost them, my guess is that was the final boat anchor that sunk them as I know a LOT of people, myself included, that were lined up to buy a product for them and when we saw it was Origin said "fuck that!" and bought something else. I learned after GFWL that if it requires anything other than Steam to avoid like the plague, and the rep EA got for banhammering any customer that dared to complain about bad service was just the shit icing on the fail cake.

      --
      ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
    3. Re:Stuggling versus mediocrity actually by Dunbal · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Not only that but perhaps people are finally getting fed up of "Last Decade's Popular Title XIII" and such iterations. But hey, blame piracy, right? The sweetest thing is that while there may not be any more Electronic Arts games once this leviathan goes down, there will always be new and innovative games. Ubisoft should be next. SSI was great. Ubisoft showed promise but committed suicide.

      --
      Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
    4. Re:Stuggling versus mediocrity actually by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      What frustrates me is this: the specific people who are responsible for these bad decisions will all ride out on golden parachutes. The punishment for their failures, and the near-universal hatred they earned, will be a life of wealth and luxury and (probably) another chance to pull the same crap again at a different company for even more wealth and luxury.

      One thing is clear: humans are not very good at justice.

    5. Re:Stuggling versus mediocrity actually by Man+On+Pink+Corner · · Score: 5, Insightful

      I love the CEO's bio:

      Prior to joining Electronic Arts, he served as President and Chief Executive Officer of the worldwide bakery division at Sara Lee Corporation. He also served as President and CEO of Wilson Sporting Goods Co. and held executive positions at Haagen-Dazs, PepsiCo, Inc. and The Clorox Company. Mr. Riccitiello holds a Bachelors of Science degree from University of California, Berkeley. Mr. Riccitiello lives with his wife and children in the San Francisco Bay Area.

      I guess he decided to apply at EA after he made his mark on the ice cream, bleach, sugar water, and coffee cake industries.

      Sounds like a real gamer's gamer. I wonder where he'll end up next? Monsanto? Amway? JC Penney? General Motors?

  2. Oh, totally. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Yep, it's totally the market and not the universal hatred that EA has garnered from the gaming community.

    Meanwhile: http://www.gamesradar.com/valve-reports-seventh-year-100-sales-growth-steam/

  3. Social and mobile gaming trend? by DayTradingYankee · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Or perhaps they are struggling with the repercussions of how they treat their customers.

  4. Dear Gaben by Dyinobal · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Dear Gaben, please use some of that money you keep in your money pool to buy EA, and then make it awesome.

  5. Re:EA has been struggling by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    by putting out the same shitty content for 60$+DLC over and over and reducing the player base as they escape to social gaming to find what they want.

    Is still upset about Mass Effect 3.

    Somewhere along the last decade EA (among others) forgot who its customers were, and even what the term customer means. Put the customer at the center of your business strategy and suprise surprise. Treat them like shit, and they will give you the finger.

  6. Re:EA has been struggling by TheRaven64 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    They also forgot that they were selling luxury goods. A company like Oracle or Microsoft can get away with a certain amount of customer irritation because people use their products to make money and need to plan a migration strategy and spend money to switch away. A game publisher is not just competing with other game sellers, it's competing with other sources of entertainment for a finite budget. In a recession, luxury spending is the first thing that most people cut and that pushes down the supply of dollars that EA is competing for. They made it very easy for people to put them at the top of their spending cut list.

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    I am TheRaven on Soylent News
  7. It's not social and mobile gaming... by sr8outtalotech · · Score: 5, Insightful

    This part made me laugh, "EA has been struggling against growing trend of social and mobile gaming." You can only exploit a hit game for a few iterations before you have to get off your ass and come up with something new. But, it's hard to come up with something good when the talented developers get wise to your project [mis]management and either leave or won't work for you. http://ea-spouse.livejournal.com/274.html