What if Valve bought EA?
- Thread starter Gameguy20100
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It ain't Microsoft.
A lot of people would end up being unemployed, namely all managers EA had up to that point. Employees will be a lot happier with the new company structure, and would start producing some games they actually want to (like HL3 for example). Bioware would end up making RPGs again. 3DS Max will stop bugging out and my cat will come back to life.
A lot of people would end up being unemployed, namely all managers EA had up to that point. Employees will be a lot happier with the new company structure, and would start producing some games they actually want to (like HL3 for example). Bioware would end up making RPGs again. 3DS Max will stop bugging out and my cat will come back to life.
Well, for starters, nothing at all would happen for at least a year. 
I think Valve would treat EA as their publishing arm, someone to fund third party developers' projects in exchange for a cut of the earnings. Most of the staff probably wouldn't change, except for the people at the top whose business practices run counter to Valve's philosophy. Most existing IPs would stay around. In short, they would remain separate companies for the most part, but EA wouldn't be quite as evil as they have been of late.
Eventually Valve will start trying to consolidate things, folding Origin into Steam and such. The creators of the Frostbyte engine will be folded into the development team for Source 2. Valve's push into the living room will mean that EA's console games will migrate to the "Steam Box", meaning future EA games will all have native Linux ports (and probably Mac as well). Sports franchises will become single games with annual automatic updates, and complaints will start pouring in from people who didn't want roster updates pushed on them and didn't realize you have to turn updates off ahead of time. And the Battlefield franchise may be shelved due to concerns that it's competing with Counter-Strike.
I think Valve would treat EA as their publishing arm, someone to fund third party developers' projects in exchange for a cut of the earnings. Most of the staff probably wouldn't change, except for the people at the top whose business practices run counter to Valve's philosophy. Most existing IPs would stay around. In short, they would remain separate companies for the most part, but EA wouldn't be quite as evil as they have been of late.
Eventually Valve will start trying to consolidate things, folding Origin into Steam and such. The creators of the Frostbyte engine will be folded into the development team for Source 2. Valve's push into the living room will mean that EA's console games will migrate to the "Steam Box", meaning future EA games will all have native Linux ports (and probably Mac as well). Sports franchises will become single games with annual automatic updates, and complaints will start pouring in from people who didn't want roster updates pushed on them and didn't realize you have to turn updates off ahead of time. And the Battlefield franchise may be shelved due to concerns that it's competing with Counter-Strike.
It would be terrible for everyone involved. Valve would die, EA would die.
Luckily Valve would never do it or want to do it. In their handbook they list one of the flaws of the management system is it only works with a very specific type of person whose got a very unusual skillset for the industry, and that even one or two people who don't fit into that system can cause them a huge amount of internal problems.
I think it's safe to say, EA with their hundreds and hundreds of employees will have many people who don't have that very specific unusual skillset.
And then think about it, who in Valve has experience in publishing games? In managing studios across multiple locations? Who would sort out their taxes? Do they have the financial wizards required to do this sort of thing? Do they know how to perform a shareholder meeting?
How can you remove the entire management structure of a huge multinational entity and then replace it with a company that has no management structure whatsoever and have it work out? And if Valve plays 'nice', they don't pump out yearly sequels, they don't run franchises into the ground, where are they going to find the finance to employ all those hundreds and hundreds of people to survive the first 3-10 years when companies readjust, create new games the slow way and find markets for those games?
It would be like putting the painter Monet in charge of making a nickelodeon cartoon. He doesn't have the right skillset to manage that sort of production line and you can't actually afford to have someone individually crafting masterpieces in every single frame. The things that make Monet good can't translate to something that requires manufacturing loads and loads to survive
Luckily Valve would never do it or want to do it. In their handbook they list one of the flaws of the management system is it only works with a very specific type of person whose got a very unusual skillset for the industry, and that even one or two people who don't fit into that system can cause them a huge amount of internal problems.
I think it's safe to say, EA with their hundreds and hundreds of employees will have many people who don't have that very specific unusual skillset.
And then think about it, who in Valve has experience in publishing games? In managing studios across multiple locations? Who would sort out their taxes? Do they have the financial wizards required to do this sort of thing? Do they know how to perform a shareholder meeting?
How can you remove the entire management structure of a huge multinational entity and then replace it with a company that has no management structure whatsoever and have it work out? And if Valve plays 'nice', they don't pump out yearly sequels, they don't run franchises into the ground, where are they going to find the finance to employ all those hundreds and hundreds of people to survive the first 3-10 years when companies readjust, create new games the slow way and find markets for those games?
It would be like putting the painter Monet in charge of making a nickelodeon cartoon. He doesn't have the right skillset to manage that sort of production line and you can't actually afford to have someone individually crafting masterpieces in every single frame. The things that make Monet good can't translate to something that requires manufacturing loads and loads to survive
I'd consider it the worst thing that Valve could ever to. Sure, Valve could bring some serious quality to a lot of EA titles, but I don't believe that Valve is capable of managing an entity that large. Valve's "do your own work/peer review" system wouldn't help produce good games from the current dev studios, because most of those people aren't used to working like that. Worse still, assuming that they do manage to manage those studios conventionally, I could see the conventional management tactics bleed back into Valve itself, ruining much of what we like about it now.
Well, it would be ironic, but kinda' dumb. Yes, let's buy up a 50 billion dollar promissary note, a liability, a backseat driver, a stupid putz, a grungy old man, a castle in a swamp-
Can we just agree that it's a bad business move?
Can we just agree that it's a bad business move?
Battlefield Bad Company 2 would get a fuck tonne of extra DLC and mod support. Because it's has a 2 in it.
I could totally live with that.
I could totally live with that.