Amazon is allegedly preparing a bid to buy EA, but this might be the beginning of a slippery slope leading to the monopolisation of the market.
The suggestion that Amazon would buy EA, despite conflicting claims, is a clear warning shot across the bow in the present spending frenzy for major publishers.
It appears as though major firms are deconsolidating and reconsolidating the industry. Microsoft's attempt to counter Sony's first-party library by acquiring a number of smaller developers was modest at first. While the company's purchases of industry heavyweights like Ninja Theory, Double Fine, and Obsidian Entertainment in 2018 seemed like a sequence of momentous decisions, they seem charmingly quaint in the present.
A shift in the market where previously inconceivable deals were in play was felt with Microsoft's $7.5 billion purchase of Bethesda. That was only proven when Microsoft dug even deeper into its wallet and paid an eye-watering $68.7 billion to acquire Activision Blizzard. Now that mega-corporations are aiming for ever-larger games, it seems like open season.
Since then, Sony has retaliated by purchasing Bungie, the company that created Destiny 2, for a relatively low price of $3.7 billion. At the same time, Embracer Group paid $300 million to acquire Eidos and Crystal Dynamics, which made up the western portion of Square Enix's development.
poor company
This environment is what the news of EA possibly being purchased by Amazon finds itself in. The dinner bell has rung, and it appears that everyone is now vying for a piece of the gaming market.
This whole scenario stinks in my opinion. The industry's concentration, whether it is Amazon, Microsoft, Sony, or Tencent, is unsettling. Any way you look at it, a future where a small number of the world's largest businesses control the entire market for mainstream video games is unfavourable. It limits the range of voices and the kinds of work that can be produced. Additionally, it makes room for increased monetization.
I agree that all of this wasteful expenditure is undesirable, but some ideas are better than others. It seemed as though the Microsoft acquisition bids for Bethesda and Activision marked the end of the console war and the beginning of something much more significant. But now, the video game capitalism Infinity War has begun.
In it to win it
And that speaks to the core of why any bid to purchase EA by a mega-corporation without a commitment to the gaming industry, or in Amazon's case, a shaky one, is extremely concerning. Xbox and PC games account for a sizable portion of Microsoft's revenue. One of Sony's most significant technological brands is PlayStation. These businesses have a vested stake in the success of the gaming industry. Although I wouldn't trust them to treat gamers fairly, they have a stake in the long-term success of the sector.
For businesses like Amazon, Apple, Disney, and others, that cannot be claimed. Their gaming endeavours do not make or break their business. The fact that the market is booming is what piques their interest. Google Stadia is on the verge of being unnoticeable, but it won't bankrupt the tech behemoth. Google will be alright in the long run even if Stadia is shut down tomorrow. Microsoft would suffer a severe blow if its gaming divisions disintegrated.
Amazon is already in a situation akin to Google's. The introduction of Amazon Luna hasn't exactly lit up the planet. Although the service is still active, it is not a significant participant in the video game industry and might simply disappear.
Because of this, the rumoured acquisition by Amazon is much more concerning than Microsoft's purchase of Activision Blizzard. Instead of being a key component of its business, it appears to be an expensive diversion. What happens if there is a recession in the sector? Will Amazon genuinely persevere if EA's survival isn't essential to its own success as a company? Will it just brush it off, destroy the business, and declare it a failure?
mass impact
EA will employ about 12,900 people as of 2021, according to MacroTrends(opens in new tab) If Amazon made the decision to stop experimenting, those jobs would vanish. There is a massive, most certainly unsustainable influx of potential workers into the job market. Revenue for EA's fiscal year 2021 was $5.6 billion, according to reports (opens in new tab). What occurs to that cash? It may go to other publishers, but a sizable percentage may simply disappear from the market.
One thing to keep in mind is that tens of thousands of jobs are being harmed by uncertainty while brand-focused Twitter users argue about who should acquire Konami, Rockstar, Ubisoft, or whoever is still standing. While a small number of people stand to gain significantly from these buyouts, the majority—particularly those at the bottom of the totem pole—must worry even more.
It's no secret that EA's reputation among gamers isn't great, but the prospect of the company permanently closing its doors is considerably more bleak and dismal. Though many people conceive of publishers as lone entities, in reality, they are primarily a group of talented, driven individuals caught up in the posturing of titans and exploited as currency according to stock prices. Whether Amazon purchases EA or not, the games industry is in a perilous position right now. I'd prefer that games be published independently, but if we live in a world where mega-corporations must acquire everyone who is still independent, I'd feel much better about it if the purchaser was a business with a significant stake in the gaming sector.
The sequel to Left 4 Dead wasn't a failure; rather, developers claim that it was just "ahead of its time."
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