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Apple is involved in negotiations to acquire EA...and they should buy them.
- Thread starter Imhotep397
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When I see the majority voting "no" here...
...I immediately know it's a good idea for Apple to pursue an EA acquisition
If Gruber comes out against it, the idea gets upgraded to "must do it" status.
...I immediately know it's a good idea for Apple to pursue an EA acquisition
If Gruber comes out against it, the idea gets upgraded to "must do it" status.
Sure, if that's how things would be. But we're already reading "Mac first, bad ports for PC" in this thread.
If they'd restrict releases for Apple systems only, it would be bad for everyone. They can't even remotely generate sales to get the development costs back for these games.
Adding iOS/macOS releases to what EA is already doing now makes me wonder what the difference is to what we have now? Sure, they could force ports and probably make a loss with it. Apple could just as well throw money at EA for every title to port and be done, no difference.
The longer I think about it, the more I think about an Apple powered EA game store / Origin for Windows/consoles with Apple taking their usual cut while they let EA go along with their Windows/console business.
Too many here aren't able to be big picture objective and ingest all the data we have about modern Apple and looking forward.
EA has an enormously valuable catalog and company and gaming is a major money machine.
I'm not saying EA should be the only target or necessarily is "must have", but Apple should absolutely be considering buying up some IP and talent and jump starting their gaming efforts -- especially in light of their services push and the big role that sort of content will be for future revenue generation.
EA's place in sports gaming is a natural thing to want moving forward with the potential tie ins to fantasy/gambling/NIL/etc
I'm not saying I love or agree with those things, but Apple is all about growing revenue and those are areas of major revenue growth (just look at how sports leagues are going all in themselves)
Just the return of NCAA Football + NIL stuff could be massive
Microsoft is attempting a monopoly and has openly opposed, boasting deliberate denial, competition. Sony and Nintendo are small companies in the grand scheme of things. Anyone else entering the game to keep microsoft from furthering their monopoly is a good thing.
So Apple should enter the multi platform gaming market?
I mean, that's the only way to really make money with the EA acquisition. On the other hand Apple never really cared about what others do and other than releasing Safari and iTunes for other platforms, they've never done it before. Not that it can't happen, but it would be something completely new for Apple.
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Sure!
Or just use the control to get great IP on their own hardware platforms, while also continuing to service and profit from other platforms.
Apple has limited its own choices for "working with others" because they never are willing to do anything to become attractive to dev shops -- and their marketshare and unique technologies makes some of that challenging and unattractive.
i.e. They have to either make their own (TV+ style) or buy some IP/talent/shops -- or both..
Point being -- Yes, they should absolutely be looking at buying up companies like EA.
This is about money. Gaming and related and increasingly intertwined complementary revenue sources are major growth areas.
Let's not forget about the smoke re: AR/VR
Some cool real world normal stuff you can do there, but the elephant in that room is obviously gaming and great IP and talent
I vote no out of pure selfishness. I don’t want Apple to shift any meaningful attention to gaming on macs. I want them to focus on productivity and creativity, and lord knows there’s enough work to do in those areas.
I think this would be an awesome company for apple to get but they won't, not only have they said they're only looking to acquire companies that bring something more unique to the table. But with all the anti trust stuff there's just no way.
Why not both?? Both of them are natural extensions to markets they’re already in.
Apple acquiring EA is an interesting idea, especially EA’s sports portfolio considering Apple’s AR interests. Imagine stats, instant replays, etc. at a live game. There would be a lot of people peering over shoulders to check out the new hotness.
Plus, such a subsidiary could have a macOS/iOS focused division to build out game engines that other studios could license for fabled Mac AAA gaming.
OTOH, EA’s CEO must be crazy (quote from Apple Insider):
I could see him running a gaming-focused subsidiary, but a merger with Apple/Amazon/etc. that results in him as CEO of the main company? Has he been smoking Musk’s secret stash?
Plus, such a subsidiary could have a macOS/iOS focused division to build out game engines that other studios could license for fabled Mac AAA gaming.
OTOH, EA’s CEO must be crazy (quote from Apple Insider):
I could see him running a gaming-focused subsidiary, but a merger with Apple/Amazon/etc. that results in him as CEO of the main company? Has he been smoking Musk’s secret stash?
EA needs to be fixed, so I am all for this. Activision Blizzard needs to be fixed, so hopefully Microsoft acquisition gets completed and Microsoft fixes them.
I do have a bad feeling of the gaming industry in the next 5 years. If these purchases keep going we might only have Sony, Microsoft, Nintendo and (maybe??? possibly???) Apple here for game producers? I am not TOO worried about it, most of the best games I have played in the past 5-10 years have been indie games/very small studios where you can really tell the passion is there.
I do have a bad feeling of the gaming industry in the next 5 years. If these purchases keep going we might only have Sony, Microsoft, Nintendo and (maybe??? possibly???) Apple here for game producers? I am not TOO worried about it, most of the best games I have played in the past 5-10 years have been indie games/very small studios where you can really tell the passion is there.
What if this is part of a long game strategy started by Steve Jobs?
- Create a music player and make buying digital music easy & legal, essentially creating a new industry
- Solve the flip phone / 50 different OS for phones issue - again creating a real app business
- Meet secretly with Apple and encourage them to create Android to put off monopoly issues (Steve did meet with Sergei remember)
- Build a massively ingrained ecosystem that includes tvs (Apple TV)
- Buy one of the biggest game publishers with tons of titles
- Release Mac OS for non-Apple hardware. Hardware is a small part of their business and they will still sell plenty of Macs…
- And BOOM…Windows is in column B.
Don’t be silly mate. We all know it’s the alien lizard people living inside Earth which is actually hollow. They’re the ones pulling the strings.
If only "are they finally getting serious about gaming?" wasn't such a recurring theme with Apple.
Sure, they're probably making tons of money with casual games (and associated in-app purchases) on the App Store. But while EA does have some casual games as well, they're probably most well-known for their "blockbuster", triple-A gaming titles. You just don't buy EA without "being serious" about gaming.
Apple on the hand... every once in a while there were these moments, WWDC announcements or demos of new products, that prompted me to ask myself "could it be that they're finally getting serious about gaming?" Positioning the Mac as a serious gaming platform? Or their TV boxes as a viable competitor to gaming consoles? I mean, being a consumer-focused company themselves, it makes sense and synergies, doesn't it?
Alas, their (non-casual) gaming efforts always seemed to underwhelm or fizzle out after a while.
Bit similar to Linux on the desktop.
"Linux has become a very capable desktop system. It has all the bits and pieces to become popular with consumers. Could this be the year that it realy, finally takes off on the desktop?"
No time like the present to show us a new leaf..
Hard to know what to make of all this with VR and/or AR headset rumors also
The sports game/money making angle also I'm sure is appealing to many folks.
Apple won’t buy EA. The cultures would clash too heavily, and the business models already do. Apple only has a handful of first party titles for purchase out there, they’re not suddenly going to start selling games and competing with their own customers.
What Apple should do is buy Unity3D, roll it into Xcode, and add Swift as a game logic scripting language, but continue to allow it to target non-Apple systems. It would encourage more game development for Apple platforms, and encourage more game development on Apple platforms.
What Apple should do is buy Unity3D, roll it into Xcode, and add Swift as a game logic scripting language, but continue to allow it to target non-Apple systems. It would encourage more game development for Apple platforms, and encourage more game development on Apple platforms.
I would say that Apple is sorely lacking in content in a broad spectrum of businesses in which it hopes to compete. Buying EA and Paramount would be great steps in filling those holes in a major way. It would help them sell both hardware and services. It would make them a large player in two separate markets that currently they are very small players in.
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what makes them logical? I would argue they are not logical at all
It would also put them in all sorts of regulatory investigations. Apple has done pretty well by not providing much in the way of content through their own services.
Fortnight coming to iOS was a big deal for Apple. From what I've read or watched (though I can't site any sources now), Apple worked closely with Epic to get it running well on iOS. I was developing a game for UE4 at the time, and had seen optimisations that were done to the game that were later released as new features in the engine, which we could then use on our own games on all platforms.
And now for some speculation.
At this point, I believe that Apple was thinking about a further partnership with Epic. After all, the biggest game on the planet and the hottest game engine in the industry were now running on all Apple platforms and Apple was aware internally that the M1 was on its way - which would mean that the whole Apple ecosystem would now be viable for gaming. Whether this partnership was simply placing Apple engineers on site to ensure that MacOS and iOS would remain in the forefront or UE4 and UE5 development, or publishing / licensing deals, who knows.
Then of course, we know what happened and that partnership is no more. Since then, support for iOS in UE4 hasn't been great. There have been some bugs such as some basic Augmented Reality features being unimplemented for years, and Intellisense / Code-complete on XCode has been broken for a while too (so it makes more sense to develop purely on a Windows PC, and only use a Mac for making iOS builds).
I believe that Apple learned a couple of lessons from this:
1. Having a wildly popular game on your platform can generate significant income (who knew???)
2. If you support a AAA studio or engine developer, such games can thrive on your platforms.
3. This all happened by chance because Apple was adopting a "build it and they will come approach". Maybe they approached Epic or vice-versa regarding the iOS port, but Fortnite on iOS mostly happened because of the platform's market share, and the generally good CPU and GPU performance on iPhones and iPads. Because of how organically it came to being, it's not surprising that it organically stopped being a thing too.
4. Apple had no control over any of this. Apple isn't used to not being in control. Being a mere gatekeeper isn't enough anymore, because developers can just opt to not release content on your platform (just ask Netflix what it's like not having any Disney content any more).
5. Just because iOS has a strong market share of mobile gaming now, it's not infallible.
So, how does EA fit into this?
Since the games industry is still pretty lucrative, and the build-it-and-they-will-come approach leaves potential income completely to chance, it makes sense to absorb one of the bigger game publishers and developers in the world to guarantee and expand on the library of games that appear on iOS (thus encouraging people to stick to the platform) and expand that to MacOS.
Apple will also gain control of the Frostbite engine (and other engines) used internally by EA and may opt to develop it into a publicly available Unreal Engine rival, with licensing that encourages developers to release their games on iOS and MacOS. Effectively, they'll be doing what Epic is already doing and attempting to take market share from them.
This will obviously require a lot of work by everyone involved to turn into a reality, and it's not a given that this will profit Apple in 5 years time. It all depends on whether Apple thinks it's leaving money on the table.
And now for some speculation.
At this point, I believe that Apple was thinking about a further partnership with Epic. After all, the biggest game on the planet and the hottest game engine in the industry were now running on all Apple platforms and Apple was aware internally that the M1 was on its way - which would mean that the whole Apple ecosystem would now be viable for gaming. Whether this partnership was simply placing Apple engineers on site to ensure that MacOS and iOS would remain in the forefront or UE4 and UE5 development, or publishing / licensing deals, who knows.
Then of course, we know what happened and that partnership is no more. Since then, support for iOS in UE4 hasn't been great. There have been some bugs such as some basic Augmented Reality features being unimplemented for years, and Intellisense / Code-complete on XCode has been broken for a while too (so it makes more sense to develop purely on a Windows PC, and only use a Mac for making iOS builds).
I believe that Apple learned a couple of lessons from this:
1. Having a wildly popular game on your platform can generate significant income (who knew???)
2. If you support a AAA studio or engine developer, such games can thrive on your platforms.
3. This all happened by chance because Apple was adopting a "build it and they will come approach". Maybe they approached Epic or vice-versa regarding the iOS port, but Fortnite on iOS mostly happened because of the platform's market share, and the generally good CPU and GPU performance on iPhones and iPads. Because of how organically it came to being, it's not surprising that it organically stopped being a thing too.
4. Apple had no control over any of this. Apple isn't used to not being in control. Being a mere gatekeeper isn't enough anymore, because developers can just opt to not release content on your platform (just ask Netflix what it's like not having any Disney content any more).
5. Just because iOS has a strong market share of mobile gaming now, it's not infallible.
So, how does EA fit into this?
Since the games industry is still pretty lucrative, and the build-it-and-they-will-come approach leaves potential income completely to chance, it makes sense to absorb one of the bigger game publishers and developers in the world to guarantee and expand on the library of games that appear on iOS (thus encouraging people to stick to the platform) and expand that to MacOS.
Apple will also gain control of the Frostbite engine (and other engines) used internally by EA and may opt to develop it into a publicly available Unreal Engine rival, with licensing that encourages developers to release their games on iOS and MacOS. Effectively, they'll be doing what Epic is already doing and attempting to take market share from them.
This will obviously require a lot of work by everyone involved to turn into a reality, and it's not a given that this will profit Apple in 5 years time. It all depends on whether Apple thinks it's leaving money on the table.
The fact that Apple is even at that table tells me that they are open to multiplatform development since EA already has all that established in their pipelines. As it's been pointed out Apple is already been going in that direction and reaping the benefits.
I've posted a couple of times that console gaming even with the onslaught of games as a service games coming is less volatile over the next 36 months to Apple than mobile gaming since Apple will be losing it's ability to claim their 30% of ALL post install purchases of ALL iOS games.
Apple is smart to start looking to cushion the upcoming revenue losses even though I don't know yet if they'll actually get EA.
I've posted a couple of times that console gaming even with the onslaught of games as a service games coming is less volatile over the next 36 months to Apple than mobile gaming since Apple will be losing it's ability to claim their 30% of ALL post install purchases of ALL iOS games.
Apple is smart to start looking to cushion the upcoming revenue losses even though I don't know yet if they'll actually get EA.
Well, it's personal belief. As Apple is trying to push their Arcade ecosystem, it makes sense to bring in a game-maker powerhouse.