Episode 764: EA Goes Private

This week, there’s a lot of discussion about the Tokyo Game Show, Epic pulling controversial Peacemaker dance emote, and Minecraft entering The Copper Age.

News:

  • EA to be acquired by Public Investment Fund, Silver Lake, and Affinity Partners for $55bn
  • Halo Studios revealing more on next projects at next month’s World Championship event

Let us know what you think.

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The guys talk about the new trailer for Doom: The Dark Ages, which reveals the medieval equivalent of the BFG is a huge crossbow, Another Crab’s Treasure getting a huge ‘Year Of The Crab’ update, Devolver Digital revealing Cult of the Lamb is its best-selling IP at around $90 million in revenue.

The news includes:

  • Star Wars Zero Company gets first trailer with 2026 release window
  • Gamers shocked as Elder Scrolls IV revealed and launched on same day

Let us know what you think.

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Jonah finally finishes the strange puzzle platformer Inside and discusses it with the crew during the post-podcast discussion. Otherwise, there’s news galore, as well as a Gaming Flashback of the notorious flop Sonic the Hedgehog from 2006.

It includes:

  • Quantic Dream is “not exclusive to any platform anymore”
  • An enhanced edition of System Shock 2 is in development
  • Nintendo Switch SNES controller spotted
  • Minecraft‘s Super Duper Graphics Pack officially canceled

Let us know what you think.

Imagine a Spore Engine, Might Be RealImagine a Spore Engine, Might Be Real

Electronic Arts may be considering the Spore system as an “Engine” for licensing to other developers to build RPG’s, action games, web-based games and many other options. Much like ID Software and Epic Games have done, this could be a build system for new creative additions to the industry.

Considering the amount of crazy Spore mini-games that have hit the street in the last few months, it seems possible EA’s already using this technique in-house to build hype and extension to the Spore product line. Usually such engines are licensed by smaller developers (smaller compared to Electronic Arts anyway) and not a big publisher such as EA.

Frank Gibeau, president of Electronic Arts’ Games Label says, “What’s so beautiful about Spore is that it’s extremely malleable, you could add RPG or action, you could take it to different platforms, like (Web-page) flash games, the PlayStation 3, the Xbox 360, Nintendo’s Wii” (kotaku)

While EA did use the word “you could” they may be referencing the fact that “one could do it, if they worked at EA.” Electronic Arts wants to win the battle of the publishers, no doubt, and they continue to grow in size; would they let loose the Spore engine on outside developers? Or, would they keep it as an in-house engine for their own groups to leverage in future projects?