Prelude to pain
Ambivalence is the equivalent of room temperature when it comes to laymen interpretations of the mysteries of brain chemistry. I myself often throw up my hands and go "I don't really know how I feel about this, I guess I'm on every side", as you'll observe often on this blog unless I'm pushed into establishing a definitive on a review or some such. And it is an embarrassing state of affairs to admit to, because we do so hate a fence sitter; one who can't fall one way or the other and merely squats the high-ground as if with some self-aggrandised moral superiority. Damn them and damn the every crafty little shadow of such quandaries, called 'Nuance'. And why am I waxing poetic about ambiguity? Because for every star in the sky and twisted molten rock in Vesuvius, I cannot decide how I feel about the, currently rumour, that Electronic Arts is in the market looking to make a sale of itself.
I mean wow. Even in the stage of plausible deniability where the proposition is just floating above the surface as a dangling 'maybe', I can't help but tent my fingers and muse at the possibilities, Mr Burns style. It's as though a culmination of outrage and righteous indignation which was largely thought wasted had really boiled up into a scalding finisher we never saw coming, whilst at the same time it feels like a cop-out escape from a much grander humiliation that the sworn-enemy-of-consumers was scheduled to taste. A buyout? After everything they've done? All the ways they hurt the community, bought to life some of gaming's worst practices and then twisted and bent their audience to bray like submissive imminent lamb-chops? It doesn't feel right, and whatsmore than even that, it doesn't really feel all that real.
What are we supposed to believe, that one of the biggest games studios in the world is just throwing away the total autonomy they've lavished in (to the detriment of everybody else) for the past decade or so because, what, they grew bored? Well, we actually don't know the reason yet, and isn't that just the worst of it? Not knowing what tortures such a prevalent and pervasive antagonistic force. Seeing evidence that they're in pain and suffering, but not knowing why or how I could possibly step in to make it worse for my own sick amusement. Gah, the secrets drives me crazy! All I ask is to know why a greedy and proud beast such as EA feels the need to pawn itself, or bits of itself, off to bigger entities looking to get into gaming. I've heard the reports of how it's to 'capitalize on bigger interests' but we all know exactly how much it'll bite at those marauders over at EA to be told their schemes need to go through another layer of approval. Oh, I'll bet it'll just eat them up from the inside out!
It seems like there's a trend, one birthed from regular large movements across the business world that lie far out of my areas of expertise and so I can't really speculate on to any seriously insightful degree, wherein gaming companies are falling over themselves to be constricted into huge super groups. At least when you have herding forces like Sony and Microsoft going around doing their whole Pokemon Trainer 'gotta catch 'em all' routine, we can see the hands of competition turning. That's simple business, same as it always has been. To shore up fiefdoms that cultivate quality content and keep the starving masses satiated and position adjutants to organise directed exclusivity strikes that hit out directly at their enemy's value proposition with the sword of FOMO. It's an idiot's game of action/reaction, played out on the stage of industry economics and bathed in the burnt billions of an over funded entertainment sector. But what's happening with EA isn't that.
Reports indicate that this alleged merger is aiming itself at some of the biggest players in the entertainment industry as a whole, although obviously not Microsoft because the upset of balance can't possibly be tipped that much. You've got preliminary talks apparently being opened up between EA's head office and Disney, Apple and Amazon; which tells me at least that the interest must have spawned from EA itself and not the idle speculation of curious bit-part players in these various huge companies. Afterall, Disney used to own its own game studio and shut the thing down because they were so absorbed with their work in traditional media that they couldn't devote themselves to building a functioning and competitive game studio. Though they've actually worked quite a bit with EA to put out their properties in the time since, and it would naturally make sense for the two to seek an arrangement if, indeed, EA were looking to 'get out of the limelight'; but a merger would put Disney right back in the position of having to manage a studio whilst they're wrapped up in their biggest 'TV-cross-movie' initiative that they've ever worked on. I just don't see such an idea spawning from those very busy people.
Amazon and Apple, on the otherhand, are ambitious men. The type not only willing, but desperate to identify their own Rubicon so they can happily skip across the river on their death march directly into the heart of the gaming industry. Amazon have their own studio trucking away at scoring their first big sustainable hit, which has resulted in misses (such as the hilarious terrible Grand Tour Racing game) and meteoric hits that have then quickly faded into just moderate successes (Which would refer to 'New World' as of right now. They did about as well as you could hope for from a new untested MMO, I guess.) Would Amazon take the shortcut to glory by buying up EA? In a heartbeat. And Apple? They're trying to break into anything outside their typical purview. Streaming, gaming, probably space travel at some point in the future. They've already got MAC, but any gamer with a Macintosh PC will tell you that their computer of choice is typically a hinderance to conducting their favourite hobby, not a boon. Whereas the Apple Arcade on the phone is a rather interesting and promising initiative to scrounge indie diamonds out of the mobile market rough, with results that already have me scratching with the longing of being left out. (I still wanna play that Fantasian.) I think any developer could wiggle their way into an Apple acquisition with a strong enough sales pitch.
But is all of this in the best interest of EA as an entity, I hasten to propose; because although I cannot speculate on the shifting nature of the large lumbering beasts of big business, I can hardly live with myself without a bit of fruitless speculation. Well I believe such a measure could, should current EA management care for such a thing, work to circumvent the seemingly inescapable aura of rightfully earned condemnation that the pariahs over at EA have earned over the years. Remember these guys were voted the worst company in America for several years running, and that was an opinion spouting from employees, customers and contemporaries; the holy trinity. People tend not to like or trust EA, and maybe it's starting to build into a problem that management want to head-off by placing themselves under a bigger company to shoulder some of the blame for their regularly-scheduled monetary incidents, so their viability as an employer doesn't suffer. That is complete supposition on my part though, as I've no evidence, either observed or incidental, to imply that EA's reputation has cost them significant sales or talent acquisition opportunities. (I'm sure some outlying examples exist, though. I'd love to see them.)
At the end of the day it's important to remind ourselves that these are vague leaked reports of preliminary discussions; meaning even if there is a kernel of truth to these stories, it could easily end up fizzling out into nothing. Recent movements in the industry has trained us all, Pavlov style, to be on guard for the next large gaming acquisition, as with the currently still fresh tens of billions pouring out of recent buy-out wounds it certainly doesn't look like anyone is safe from the sweeping scythe of consolidation. But that doesn't mean such measures are an inevitability, and I wouldn't be surprised if all this sizzles out into nothing but hot water. But what if it doesn't? What if some day soon we'll see the sudden disappearance of the industries favourite common enemy, would we celebrate the fall of titan or turn our hostilities on each other? And which ending do the sadists over at EA want to see more?
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