At long last, EA is crumbling. Huge news has come out of EA today for the massive publisher has said that they are “moving away” from licensed IP-games in the future!
Hallelujah!
After years of tyrannically owning the video game adaptation license for so many of our favorite franchises, EA at long last looks like they’re releasing their grip on these franchises and turning to in-house IPs for the future of the company. And, if you couldn’t tell, I think this is the best news I’ve heard out of the company in a decade!
EA is a cancer in the gaming world. My opinion, of course, but everyone knows it to be true.
So, I really don’t think I need to remind anyone how horrible Electronic Arts has been to not only its own fans and the franchises that they have the sole license to adapt, but also the gaming market itself over the last…well…forever. I mean, EA is the company that you can essentially thank for loot boxes, excessive “crunch time” for its employees, jacking up the prices of games, the incessant microtransactions that now pollute the gaming world, monopolizing nearly all sports titles and many other famous franchises (aka: Marvel, Star Wars), and just being flat out dicks to its fans.
Hell, these idiots had John Riccitiello, perhaps the incarnation of Satan himself in the gaming market context (there’s a running competition between him and Tencent, so I don’t know who will win lol), as their CEO for nearly 5 years…which is when they were named the “Worst Company In America” TWICE!
This is the kind of trash company Electronic Arts has been and probably will always be.
Nevertheless, with the massive layoffs currently going on in the market (there’s been over 10,000 people fired already) and huge studios like Activision, Sony, Ubisoft, and Microsoft all laying off hundreds of people, EA has not been exempted from this whirlwind as they reported today to be laying off 670 or so employees and shutting down the Ridgeline Games studio too.
Obviously, it’s never great to see people lose their jobs and especially not in a scale as large as this mass industry layoff, but that’s not the news I’m excited for. No, what really caught my eye was the fact that the EA CEO, Andrew Wilson, also announced that the company will not only be cancelling a first-person shooter Star Wars game and a few sports mobile games, but that the company will also be “moving away from the development of future licensed IP”.
Yeah, you read that right. Electronic Arts is going to be “moving away” from developing and licensing out any future IPs. That’s HUGE NEWS!
This means that EA is most likely going to STOP going out and acquiring more of our favorite franchises in television, film, novels, etc., and will only focus on the IPs they already own. Does that suck for those IPs? MOST DEFINITELY!
But it’s great news to hear that no future franchises or IPs will be affected by this company’s greedy, insatiable desire for profits and revenues at the expense of practically everything a game should be. And, I do have a little hope that Electronic Arts will also loosen its grip on the franchises it already licenses, such as Star Wars and Marvel, for they are already canning and removing Star Wars and Marvel games from their lineup.
And, when those deals with Disney run out, are they really going to want to renegotiate even higher licensing fees? I don’t know.
But I do know that at least the remaining franchises out there will be safe from EA’s corrosive touch…for now.
Images Source: Featured Image: (Electronic Arts/Disney) (Star Wars Jedi: Survivor – Official Story Trailer (youtube.com))
