r/masseffect • u/Rondine1990 • Aug 05 '26

NEWS Its official, Saudi-led group bought EA...

https://www.theguardian.com/games/2026/aug/05/video-game-maker-ea-bought-by-saudi-led-group

I honestly fear for the open-minded future of our franchise. Mass Effect was a big part of my life, and I loved that it tackled topics that might be controversial in its own way. It was never in your face, but subtle enough to be believable... especially with the choice of a badass female Shepard.

Let's hope they don't meddle too much, too quickly...

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u/Yukina-Kai Aug 05 '26

I'm betting a few IPs/Studios get used and the rest sold. That would make the most sense logically and financially.

The sports games will get used because the people buying them are absolutely mindless and will pay for it with absolutely no regard to it's quality. (Yes I am 100% insulting you if you play sports games from EA)

The others like Bioware will probably either have their IPs sold to other studios or just straight up sold themselves. I don't see them trying to continue a failing studio. Bioware has had way too many failures to be a financially sound investment.

They'll probably keep the Star wars stuff so expect even worse garbage.

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u/HugeNavi Aug 05 '26

EA has a history of vaulting IPs instead of selling them, to prevent enabling their competition. They are more likely to sit on the IPs then sell them and hope to generate revenue through licensing. The PIF also owns a company known as Savvy Games Group. They specialize on live service, mobile and e-sports, something that EA wants, but they don't have IP, which EA has. It stands to reason that EA plans to make revenue out of licensing their IPs to Savvy. That way, they make money, and don't enable their competition, as Savvy is a sister company at this point, while not taking any risks, financial or otherwise.

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u/Yukina-Kai Aug 05 '26

I would agree if not for the fact they are so far in the red selling shit they're not going to use is literally their only way to profit.

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u/HugeNavi Aug 05 '26

I don't disagree, but using Savvy to basically shift the PIF's money from one hand to the other is a surefire way to get money, possibly more in the long term from profits and licensing, than by selling the IPs entirely. Especially since some IPs don't exactly fit in the portfolios of other publishers, where it would fetch the highest price. If EA were to sell Ultima for example, Richard Garriot would absolutely bid for it, but if EA wanted to sell it to Tencent for more money, it is questionable whether Tencent wants to buy it. Etc. It is also not unlikely that they will split the vault down the middle and sell some IPs while licensing some others.