Video Game Union Workers Rally Against $55 Billion Saudi-Backed Private Acquisition of EA (eurogamer.net) 36
EA employees and the Communications Workers of America union have condemned the company's proposed $55 billion private acquisition -- backed by Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund and Jared Kushner's Affinity Partners, "claiming they were not represented in the negotiations and any jobs lost as a result would 'be a choice, not a necessity, made to pad investors' pockets," reports Eurogamer. From the report: Following the announcement, there's been plenty of speculation around the future of EA and its multiple owned studios, split between EA Sports and EA Entertainment. Now, members of the United Videogame Workers union and the CWA have issued a formal response alongside a petition for regulators to scrutinize the deal. "EA is not a struggling company," the statement reads. "With annual revenues reaching $7.5 billion and $1 billion in profit each year, EA is one of the largest video game developers and publishers in the world."
This success has been driven by company workers, the union stated. "Yet we, the very people who will be jeopardized as a result of this deal, were not represented at all when this buyout was negotiated or discussed." Citing the number of layoffs across the industry since 2022, workers fear for "the future of our studios that are arbitrarily deemed 'less profitable' but whose contributions to the video game industry define EA's reputation." "If jobs are lost or studios are closed due to this deal, that would be a choice, not a necessity, made to pad investors' pockets - not to strengthen the company," the statement reads.
"Every time private equity or billionaire investors take a studio private, workers lose visibility, transparency, and power," it continues. "Decisions that shape our jobs, our art, and our futures are made behind closed doors by executives who have never written a line of code, built worlds, or supported live services. We are calling on regulators and elected officials to scrutinize this deal and ensure that any path forward protects jobs, preserves creative freedom, and keeps decision-making accountable to the workers who make EA successful." As such, workers have launched a petition in a "fight to make video games better for workers and players -- not billionaires". The statement concludes: "The value of video games is in their workers. As a unified voice, we, the members of the industry-wide video game workers' union UVW-CWA, are standing together and refusing to let corporate greed decide the future of our industry."
This success has been driven by company workers, the union stated. "Yet we, the very people who will be jeopardized as a result of this deal, were not represented at all when this buyout was negotiated or discussed." Citing the number of layoffs across the industry since 2022, workers fear for "the future of our studios that are arbitrarily deemed 'less profitable' but whose contributions to the video game industry define EA's reputation." "If jobs are lost or studios are closed due to this deal, that would be a choice, not a necessity, made to pad investors' pockets - not to strengthen the company," the statement reads.
"Every time private equity or billionaire investors take a studio private, workers lose visibility, transparency, and power," it continues. "Decisions that shape our jobs, our art, and our futures are made behind closed doors by executives who have never written a line of code, built worlds, or supported live services. We are calling on regulators and elected officials to scrutinize this deal and ensure that any path forward protects jobs, preserves creative freedom, and keeps decision-making accountable to the workers who make EA successful." As such, workers have launched a petition in a "fight to make video games better for workers and players -- not billionaires". The statement concludes: "The value of video games is in their workers. As a unified voice, we, the members of the industry-wide video game workers' union UVW-CWA, are standing together and refusing to let corporate greed decide the future of our industry."
Was any of the companies the bought "struggling?" (Score:3)
I know in a long run this will be bad, but that's the perfect end for a publisher that killed so many
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I don't think I've played an EA game since SimCity 4. I don't see much loss if EA disappears. Maybe the employees can find jobs where they are allowed to develop interesting games.
That said, I think it's more likely people keep buying the same EA game every year, but now the dictatorships in Saudi Arabia and the US get a cut. That is, of course, a bad thing.
The problem is they aren't going to disappear (Score:1)
You're going to get more buyouts and more small struggling studios snapped up and crushed.
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Archon, M.U.L.E., Adventure Construction Set, Bard's Tale. Some of EA's best ever. Established them as a quality game house, even if they didn't actually develop any of those (they just published them).
After that...IDK. The last EA game I ever played was, I believe, NHL 2005. I have no idea if they are doing anything major other than endless yearly rotations of sports games. Apparently that sells so no need to innovate.
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Archon, M.U.L.E., Adventure Construction Set, Bard's Tale
Those were from the days when EA was about making the developers the stars, and they prominently put their names on the packaging.
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> I don't think I've played an EA game since SimCity 4.
Good for you, however to realise how much EA really moves money around and how many people do like when games are well made: Battlefield 6 just sold over 7 million copies in less than three days.
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Doesn't look much different than Battlefield 2, other than the graphics. I acknowledge that people buy these games, but that doesn't make them interesting.
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Video Game Union Workers... (Score:3)
Re:Video Game Union Workers... (Score:5, Insightful)
Actually, most of their arguments can be answered with, "But you already work for EA".
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Well, they could scuttle a sale by walking out.
So union busts itself? That would probably make the company MORE valuable for a sale.
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Arabs are semites too!
Re:While so many rant about Jewish Inflience... (Score:5, Interesting)
While so many rant about Jewish influence in media, politics and such, the Arabs have been quietly making inroads for a bit now. They kinda own F1 now. the head of FIA is Arab.
Hm. "Quietly making inroads". Have you heard of this commodity called "oil"? Seems to me it's been influential for a while now. Maybe gaining influence in sports. The main sport that comes to mind is polo, very popular in Arab countries for a few centuries. There's even a breed of horse called the Arabian.
And Arabs are actively shaping politics in Washington.
Again: oil. I notice you don't provide any actual examples, nor any evidence that this is new.
And, yeah, it is kind of racist to imply that all Arabs are the same. The Palestinians don't have any influence; they couldn't even get one person on stage at the Democratic National Convention. Not to mention that Jared Kushner is involved in both this story about EA and the "peace" plan for permanent oppression the Palestinians had no voice in.
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Never be rude to an Arab,
An Israeli, or Saudi, or Jew,
Never be rude to an Irishman,
No matter what you do!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
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The two are intertwined. There's a reason why Kushner is being highlighted. Look up the Abraham Accords at some stage. This is yet another Trump "deal."
Upcoming EA games (Score:4, Funny)
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Should pressure to sell studios off (Score:2)
\o/ (Score:2)
The reason they are in this position is because you guys believe they have something and need to work for them. What they have is the ability to convince you of this. You make the games - organise yourselves into small groups and make games for yourselves.
Stop letting asshats exploit you.
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EA specifically makes a lot of its money from having agreements with other big companies: FIFA, NFL, NHL, F1, NBA, etc. That requires a lot of money that the employees probably don't have, and also probably multi-year exclusive contracts EA has locked up.
However, they could quit and go make new games instead of adding a few more polys to the models and updating the database of player names every year. Maybe ask the union for some startup capital. Helping employee-owned companies get started would seem to be
Good, let EA go bankrupt (Score:2)
That works for gamers just as well.
Err, really (Score:1)
The ones really afraid of losing their jobs (Score:3, Informative)
Are the kind of people who tanked Bioware by acting like Cartman in that recent South Park episode where he kept saying "put a chick in it and make it gay and lame."
That studio went from the heights of games like KOTOR and the original Mass Effect triology to the absolute sales dumpster fire of Veilguard because it was a bad game written by super activist types. The "creative team" at Bioware is even threatening SA with retaliation if they "censor the gay stuff" in Mass Effect 4.
SA absolutely should threaten to censor them for no other reason than to fire everyone who is more concerned about things like "queer representation" than making a game worthy of following up the original triology.
EA is sitting on a lot of valuable IP but with a lot of people who need to be purged because they're abusing the hell out of the IP for their own agenda.
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The "creative team" at Bioware is even threatening SA with retaliation if they "censor the gay stuff" in Mass Effect 4.
As someone who considers Mass Effect their favorite game, all the way to actually-liking Andromeda (I read the novel that replaced the Quarian Ark DLC)...ME4 is something I'm keeping an eye on, but have zero hope about.
We're coming up on four years since the release of the teaser poster, and three years since the trailer...and by all accounts, the game is still in pre-production. *PRE* production, for longer than it took to make ME3, and a year less than the time it took to make ME:A.
This leads me to believ
but I thought... (Score:2)
"Jeopardized" (Score:1)
Sure they will.
Histrionic language designed to spur sympathy.
No, you're being bought by a big funding firm. Nothing here necessarily implies you're going to be "victimized" in any way.
To be clear, I personally don't like VC takeovers, which is essentially what this is - they DO tend to have negative results on companies in the long run. But if a business is up for sale, the future for that firm is not "Happy lucky everyone happy utopia" vs "terrible VC acquistion". Rather, the options are "long dwindling
Saudi Arabia's buying everything including comedi (Score:2)