It could have been a quiet gamescom Friday with Michael Graf just waiting for his Homeworld 3 article to go online. But suddenly breaking news exploded into editorial business: Amazon should buy Electronic Arts and announce it on Friday!
And Micha exploded afterwards: Ha, I’ve been saying that in the podcast for months!
Shortly thereafter, the report turned out to be a duck, the news service USA Today withdrew it due to the unreliable source, and Amazon announced nothing at all.
And now, you don’t have to search the web to read anything bad about Amazon or Electronic Arts, but we still think this acquisition could have been good news.
Micha discusses why in the podcast with Human Nagafi, management consultant at 1789 Innovations and podcasters at Corporate Therapy and Critical Infinity.
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Because tech companies like Google, Apple, Microsoft and Amazon tick differently than publishers like Electronic Arts. The latter have grown rapidly – especially during the pandemic – but still do not have the financial means to take the next step on their own.
That’s why they think very shareholder-driven and try to get the maximum profit out of their current game business. The result is the usual monetization curses: loot boxes, Pay2Win and so on.
Tech companies could relieve publishers of the burden of having to monetize their portfolios so aggressively because they can not only offer them a lot of money, but also a new perspective – for example in terms of cloud gaming.
And Amazon – unlike Google, Facebook or (possibly) Apple – could be a good partner for EA here, as we discuss in the podcast. Because Amazon at least once dreamed of good, creative games – before everything went wrong.
And then there would be other alternatives that would be even less pleasant. Namely classic media companies like NBC Universal. Or Disney. You know, the one with Darth Vader.
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