// PC GAMER — GAMING
Will the next Mass Effect actually release under EA's new owners? 'I'll believe it when I see it,' says former EA manager turned Newzoo analyst
Emmanuel Rosier is here to pour cold water on my hopes and dreams.
When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission. Here’s how it works.
This month, the biggest leveraged buyout in the history of private equity went through and now EA is owned by a consortium made up of Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund and the investment firms Silver Lake and Affinity Partners. We don't know what EA will be like under its new owners, but Employees are bracing for the worst. The company took on $20 billion in debt as part of the deal. Will that change the way it does business or encourage it to rely on the formula that's gotten it where it is?
I asked Emmanuel Rosier, director of market intelligence at industry analysts Newzoo, who spent nine years as a senior manager at EA.
"I think everything is open at this point," Rosier says. "I suspect that sports will remain the key focus for EA, particularly European football, soccer, because of the importance of that sport in Saudi and in Middle East territories. You see a lot of synergies in that context. You can also expect that they will push even more for esports, also given the popularity of esports in Saudi and in some other territories. The question mark is probably the second-tier or third-tier IP in the portfolio of EA."
As someone who had to double check whether the FC in EA Sports FC really does stand for football club (it does), I am personally more interested in these lower-tier properties.
"They have a lot of dormant IPs that have not been used for so many years," Rosier says. "You know, they have IPs like Ultima, they have IPs like Wing Commander and this and that, and it's not being used at all. So the question is, would some of them be maybe sold, or will they hire studios to leverage these IPs? Because we see every day the importance of IPs."
There's a real "monkey paw curling" element to the idea of Ultima and Wing Commander being revived. I remember the browser-based Evony clone Lord of Ultima from 2010, an attempt to jump on the "play now, my Lord" bandwagon with the Ultima brand that lasted a mere four years before being shut down. Much as I'd like to see something more respectful, like a tasteful remake of Ultima 4 and a remaster for Wing Commander Privateer, that would rely on anybody at EA actually caring about those games beyond their value as "intellectual property", a possibility Rosier dashes with the next words out of his mouth.
"I think there are plenty of IPs like that at EA that nobody cares about at this moment," he says. "I think probably they will leverage that either by just selling it or trying to find external studios that can work on that. Maybe mobile games."
Keep up to date with the most important stories and the best deals, as picked by the PC Gamer team.