If EA Collapsed...

Say you wake up one morning, and find out that EA has collapsed. The money that it had previously possessed is distributed evenly between the companies it owned. All the IP's it had in it's possession revert to their original owners. Other consequences can be speculated by you. How do you think this would effect the gaming landscape?

Edit: Due to repeated statements of pity for lost jobs: Everyone working for EA who has knowledge or expertise in directly how to make games will be hired by the companies EA had previously owned. Everyone else will be hired in jobs according to their expertise elsewhere, outside the gaming industry. That would include whoever was involved in making the decisions regarding online passes, successively poorer yearly releases, and shoehorning multiplayer into EVERYING, for starters.

I'd be sadpanda since I'm long EA

i doubt it would turn out like you think. EA would probly start selling off whatever IP's it actually owns.

@DoctorDanger99: Nah, I know it would not turn out like that. It's a hypothetical situation, where the stated circumstances occurred alongside EA's collapse. I figured while that would contradict the accuracy of the conclusions in a real world occurrence, I wanted to see how exactly it would effect gamers, game publishers, developers, etc in an ideal solution.

I'd be sad the people who don't make the shitty decisions at EA lost their jobs and more people are unemployed. I really wish people would quit wishing death on companies and hope for reform. 

Longer time between game releases, less DLC and better quality games.

I couldn't imagine what would happen. However, what I want to happen are press releases from Activision, Valve, and Blizzard that just say "LOL"

Also, just so we're all clear, I don't want EA to fail (because I know someone reading the above will think that unless I make it clear otherwise). Lot of people working at EA and as funny as I think those press releases are, I don't wanna see that many people lose their jobs that quickly...

@Bobby_The_Great: That is a partially inaccurate assessment. I don't hate EA in the sense you mean. I think their money grabbing techniques are despicable, yes. I think that money could be put to better use funding more unique video games. I hate their business practices, I hate their decisions, so yes, as a company, I do indeed hate EA. But I'm certain (in theory) that there are perfectly pleasant people working for the company. Them, I have no grudge against. Hence why I stated that the money is distributed evenly between the companies they own, in a hope that in this hypothetical occurrence, less people would lose their jobs.

Cry.

I would be bummed out. 
I'm not one of those people who hate EA for being a business and trying to make money. 
Just like I don't go down to the local super market and kick the people working there between their legs and call them names just because they sell stuff to me. 

On the bright side, we would actually have a decent chance at getting a Mirror's Edge sequel.

That would suck because EA Canada employs 2,000 employees in my city.

I'd cheer regardless.

I'd hope that Westwood Studios would be able to reform an create a real ending for the Command & Conquer franchise.

To quote the end of C&C 4, "Kane's gone? Yeah right!"

I'd be worried about Fifa.

It would suck, EA is one of the least shitty big publishers and they make probably the most games out of any publishers that I love. Also that's a whole lot of lost jobs.

I misread that as

IKEA Collapsed...

I had a panic attack for a moment thinking of all the delicious meatballs and cheap, crappy furniture I'd be missing out on.

EA has tons of great developers and IPs but everything in the administration/marketing/customer service is a fucking trainwreck. In a best case scenario where every developers would remain in control of their respective IPs and everyone working for said developers gets to keep their jobs and be free from the association they have with this disaster of a company it would be an amazing thing to happen to the industry.

Of course they could also just fire John Riccitiello and of the rest of the clowns running the company. Seeing as the company lost half its value in 6 months i guess this will happen sooner rather than later.

http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2012-06-21-stock-ticker-why-eas-market-valuation-has-crashed#justposted

Ah, remember when everyone used to hate Activision? I reckon people are going to move onto 2K/Take-two after they finish hating EA.

You know the new end of Return of the Jedi? Where Luke lights Vader's funeral pyre and looks a bit sad for a couple of seconds, and then people all across the galaxy gaze up at the heavens with a sense of hope and excitement the likes of which they have never felt before; their broken spirits reforged as they step blinkingly toward the light of the glorious new era stretching out before them? And then everybody parties like it's 1999? 
 
I imagine it'd be something like that.

I'm seeing a lot of saying how great EA's collapse would be, which is kind of hilarious in the way they say it, but I was kind of hoping for speculation on how it would change the gaming industry.

I'd declare that capitalism clearly fails if they could go from the largest games company in America to bankruptcy without a single soul noticing beforehand. You can say it's a hypothetical all you like, but it's an impossibility for a company that large to fall without complete forewarning.

It's one thing for 38 to have gone broke without people noticing, but EA will be a very different company if it's in financial decline. As a result, the gaming landscape would have already changed drastically in the decline of EA. For example, a declining EA means 2K would likely be HUGE as the other major American companies, as it would once again own all of sports (outside of baseball.) It'd probably mean that Capcom and Zenimax would have larger shareholds of the American games market with titles like Resident Evil and The Elder Scrolls superseding the Dead Space and BioWare franchises even more so than today. And who would be the biggest name in arcade-style racing? Ubisoft, with Driver and TrackMania replacing Burnout and NFS?

Reconciling an ailing EA with what's currently happening in the games market is a nonsensical conversation. To say that the games developed by EA would still have their devoted fanbases defeats this argument, as that just means that EA would make enough money to get floating again by selling games in those franchises or by selling franchises off to other publishers. As a result, the only way they could fall completely is a severe lack of interest in the games they publish, which would become apparent to the public eye very, very quickly.

@JonSmith: I'd say EA is like the Alexander the Great of video games. It absorbed a lot of smaller developers, but they haven't been destroyed outright. If EA "dies", I'm sure the gaming industry would adjust without much hassle. There might be a little instability right after in terms of who goes where or what goes where, but the way they absorbed smaller developers makes it an easy out for the developers to simply reform into their smaller development teams once more, which might positively affect their direction on IPs a lot more is it would be more inline with what the developers want instead of EA's larger picture, which is probably more aligned with corporate moneymaking interests instead of the creative interests of the development teams.

In my example (which I hope was among those you found hilarious), I would've really liked Westwood Studios to end the C&C franchise in earnest with their own vision. I was okay with Command & Conquer 3, but I couldn't even pick up the last game because it changed the game so drastically and sort of had a forced, awkward conclusion to Kane's narrative.

An example that'd probably be better recognized by others would be Maxis. I'm sure without EA they'd stop releasing crappy content packs for The Sims 3 and actually do more productive things with The Sims 3 engine like they used to do with their predecessors. And I would be much less half-hearted in my excitement for the SimCity reboot, although I must admit that I'm actually still really excited for it.

Everyone who wishes for a company to go under rarely thinks of the real ramifications of such an event. It's almost never the CEO shareholders or upper management that get's the railing that everyone want's no it's the little people who end up suffering the most, I use to work for EA at one point back during one of the upswings when it was ok to like them around the time the first dead space came out. Every time I'd see I wish EA would go under post during that time I'd think ah your wishing me to lose my job, possibly my home so on. Well in return I hope that every one who wishes for any company to to collapse loses their job the same day themselves. As for what would happen they'd just sell their IP's.

@DanteFaustEsq said:

Everyone who wishes for a company to go under is a disgusting piece of shit, I use to work for EA at one point back during one of the upswings when it was ok to like them around the time the first dead space came out. Every time I'd see I wish EA would go under post during that time I'd think ah your wishing me to lose my job, possibly my home so on. Well in return I hope that every one who wishes for any company to to collapse loses their job the same day themselves. As for what would happen they'd just sell their IP's.

You're reading too much into it. When people wish for a company's demise, they normally envision the downfall of those responsible for the deplorable business practices, not the demise of hard working underlings who happen to be collateral damage from the fallout.

@DanteFaustEsq said:

Everyone who wishes for a company to go under is a disgusting piece of shit, I use to work for EA at one point back during one of the upswings when it was ok to like them around the time the first dead space came out. Every time I'd see I wish EA would go under post during that time I'd think ah your wishing me to lose my job, possibly my home so on. Well in return I hope that every one who wishes for any company to to collapse loses their job the same day themselves. As for what would happen they'd just sell their IP's.

If you had bothered to read the actual post, all of your complaints would have been both nullified and laid to rest. Obviously you didn't, and as such, while I apologize for stating it so frankly, you really have no business posting an opinion without knowing precisely what it is you're posting about. I won't say I have NO desire to see EA go under, but I have no desire for hardworking people within the companies to lose their primary source of income. This was a hypothetical situation I created merely to discover what people thought would happen to the gaming industry if EA collapsed, within the parameters I set down. Which you wouldn't know about, since you didn't read. So. Have a nice day, sir.

In the event you also had no desire to read that, to summarize:

@Lunar_Aura said:

You're reading too much into it. When people wish for a company's demise, they normally envision the downfall of those responsible for the deplorable business practices, not the demise of hard working underlings who happen to be collateral damage from the fallout.

well, it kind of is. their stocks have been going down ever since the old republic came out. the old republic has become somewhat free, it's free up to level 15.

i would enjoy for EA to be gone. i hope that the companies that EA bought become separate companies. their games are just alright. SSX the newer one was alright. the only thing is that they made a rewind feature that it's pretty useless. when you use it the other people can still go forward and you also lose points.

@JonSmith: I see what you're getting at and here's my read: If EA goes down it would have a very real detrimental affect on the industry, other large publishers who are already incredibly wary of doing things new and unique for fear of the bottom line will be even more careful and paranoid. One of the largest publishers in the world will have gone down so release of games will come slow down a great deal, people here seem to be forgetting that these companies owned by EA don't just magic up the money and make the games they want, EA gives them the money to realise the games.

In the end you'll see a drop in games being released for a while until other publishers raise capital to fund in the absence of EA and you'll just have activision buy up all the choice ip's and then be incredibly cagey with them and refuse to invest in new and exciting ideas for fear of going the way of the fallen EA.

if ea went under and its studios became independent, one of two things would happen in my opinion: either someone, or a combination of many someones, would step into the ea role and buy those companies, or many those companies would be one game away from going out of business. like it or not, being owned by a big company like ea or activision actually allows studios to take risks they otherwise wouldnt be able to. the marketing push is probably the most important thing to a new games success (just look at homefront), and many simply could not afford the marketing blitz required to make something like dead space successful.

@BeachThunder: After all the Blizz D3 stuff I think we'll see a return of Activision hate. I've always found hate on publishers super dumb because of how quickly it moves on to a new target and everyone forgets what they said about the other publishers.

Dungeon Keeper 3 needs to be fucking made god damn it.

@Jimbo said:

You know the new end of Return of the Jedi? Where Luke lights Vader's funeral pyre and looks a bit sad for a couple of seconds, and then people all across the galaxy gaze up at the heavens with a sense of hope and excitement the likes of which they have never felt before; their broken spirits reforged as they step blinkingly toward the light of the glorious new era stretching out before them? And then everybody parties like it's 1999? I imagine it'd be something like that.

In the context of the hypothetical, this.

I like ea

I guess I would be happy. Sometimes when something becomes too rotten it must be tron down and rebuilt. Ea has done many stupid things to the point where I would rarely buy any of there new games. same with other companies like ubi-soft and activision. Change can be good.

@BirdkeeperDan said:

I have a pretty long memory with this stuff. Over the EA has stained it's name so many times with me it's like the anti-brand. I hope they just become so unprofitable that they get bought out, restructered, and the EA name can finally die.

That said a company can repair it's reputation regardless of how bad it is: Fords disgusting Pinto "analysis" is mostly behind them now. But as far as I'm concerned EA is just digging a bigger hole.

Wait... isn't the Pinto that one car that if you bump the back of it that it explodes... or am I thinking of something else completely different?

I would sit in a corner and think about my life. EA rocks, cuz i loved it since i was 4.

I'd be dancing...

in the street.

Evil never dies, EA will endure. *cry*

Tons of developers would become owned by Activision, because developers can't publish their own games most of the time? Seriously guys, at least try to think this through.

wouldnt that be absolutely horrible for gaming? EA is a huge publisher, it does more good than it does bad. sure it does alot of bullshit, but it also gets games into our hands, without it most of those games wouldnt have happened.

the demonization of publishers these days is getting out of hand.

i mean int he hypothetical pushed in the first post, alot of those developers would be screwed. more would be bought out by other publishers, the rest would attempt to publish it themselves and fail.

any bullshit money making schemes EA pushes on people successfully isn't EA's fault, its their job and purpose to make money, its the gaming communities fault for buying into it. so don't hate on EA, they're like a feral dog, of course they're going to bite you if you let them. just dont put your hand near the damn crazy dog and all our problems are solved.

That would not be good for California jobs.

@AhmadMetallic said:

Battlefield would return to its glory. That would be the fucking day. Please collapse, EA.

Because fuck all the people who would loose their jobs right? =D

...But I agree.

EA collapsing would suck, because...

I don't see EA as the worst of the big 3 of developers, Activision being still the worst, and Ubisoft well not being all that bad (just pretty bad to the pc audience).

The way I see it is that while these 3 stick to their core games, their big moneymakers, EA has been more receptive to publishing newer untested IPs.They've gambled on unsure bets. The EA partners is still a great idea. At the same time, their big games are still pretty solid for the most part.

On the flip side, their policies do tend to suck and rightfully people get angry at them. Day 1 DLC, online passes, Origin, etc. All the other publishers are dealing with the same problems. How do they get people to buy new copies instead of used? How do we make it look like we're adding value to new copies without it looking like we're just withholding content? (Well for that one I think most people will always see that extra content as withholding content) How do we get them into our ecosystem? EA is the one in the forefront really trying to figure out how to tackle these problems and of course they're taking all flack. Having said that, I think EA is definitely going about it the wrong way and drawing the ire of its consumers.

And between them and Activision, I thought about why Activision hasn't been the one to push the kind of policies that EA and others have is: Because when you're Activision and you're only realistically putting out 1-2 big games a year, you don't have to make policies like EA, because you're making so much money on those 1 or 2 games that you don't worry about funding more than 20 good solid games at once like other publishers do.

Overall it'd be great that IPs would go to their original owners, but I think it'd have a negative impact on the industry with a move to the better. There would a time of instability as the industry just lost a big competitor. Activision would love to get their hands on the Battlefield dev teams like DICE, also maybe the team at Black Box to maybe do a new Tony Hawk. Best case for Bioware, Visceral, and Criterion is that they go to 2k, maybe Ubisoft, Mythic and EALA would go to THQ, some of the EA sports guys taken into 2k to help with their sports games. You'd see a whole lot of movement within the industry to prevent something like that from happening again.

I don't know. I'm now just thinking of like game developer fantasy league.

EA has tons of great developers and IPs but everything in the administration/marketing/customer service is a fucking trainwreck. In a best case scenario where every developers would remain in control of their respective IPs and everyone working for said developers gets to keep their jobs and be free from the association they have with this disaster of a company it would be an amazing thing to happen to the industry.

Of course they could also just fire John Riccitiello and of the rest of the clowns running the company. Seeing as the company lost half its value in 6 months i guess this will happen sooner rather than later.

http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2012-06-21-stock-ticker-why-eas-market-valuation-has-crashed#justposted

Why do people hate EA so much?

To answer the question, I would be super sad.

I'd hope that Pandemic would return and give me Mercenaries 3 / Inc.

And Westwood, too, for more CnC.

The video game market would go into a crisis, as both internally and externally EA finances a great number of developers and subsidiaries.

.. then the world would be a better place.