If anyone knew video game publisher Electronic Arts, they knew it for two things. One is its endless annual sports games with predatory monetisation, another is its graveyard of acquired, and subsequently closed, studios. But at least one of its executives seemed to have conveniently forgotten the latter, as evidenced in its recent investor call.
PCGamesN reports that during the call, EA CFO Blake Jorgensen said that Codemasters and F1 2021 have done well under the company following the acquisition. He would then go on to say “when we bring in acquisitions, we work well with them”, as well as “I think we don’t get enough credit for this”.
Jorgensen would then bring up Respawn Entertainment, and the success of its game, Apex Legends. He calls the studio the “poster child” for successful EA acquisitions, and that the studio “partnered with us extremely well to drive what is now coming up to almost US$2 billion (~RM8.44 billion) in business over two years”. Which is apparently unheard of in the video games industry.
Naturally, Jorgensen gives himself a cop-out by saying “I don’t really care” that the publisher supposedly isn’t getting enough credit for it. He probably remembered at that moment the long list of studios that EA acquired, only to later shut down. That list consists of names like Westwood Studios of Command & Conquer fame, Pandemic Studios of the original Star Wars Battlefront series pre-EA, and Black Box Games that worked on the Need for Speed and Skate series.
(Source: PCGamesN)
