Today is the ninth anniversary of This Week in Aurebesh, and my plans to mark the occasion have been thrown into the dustbin thanks to the news this week that Electronic Arts, the publisher of Star Wars: The Old Republic and, of course, many other games, will be going private thanks to a $50 billion dollar leverage buy out from an investor consortium. The deal won’t close for at least another year and is subject to regulatory approval, which, in the current climate, I would be shocked if it doesn’t get.
This blog is about fake space letters and robots and laser swords, and I’ve always been very careful about commenting about things outside my areas of expertise. This topic is so far outside my bailiwick that it would be irresponsible if I did not choose my words carefully.
But it sucks, right? We all know it. We’ve all seen how it goes when private equity takes over a company and saddles it with massive debt. In this case, EA will be taking on 20 billion dollars in debt, an amount that defies casual understanding. Will EA end up shuttered like Toys R Us or Joann’s? I don’t know. The release statement breathlessly assures us that the deal will accelerate innovation and growth before laughably walking back those claims because “forward-looking statements … are subject to change.”
I don’t need a business degree to see what comes after the deal closes, because we’ve seen it before, most recently with Microsoft’s acquisition of Activision/Blizzard. That 20 billion needs to come from somewhere, and it certainly won’t be coming from the rich assholes lining their pockets from this deal. Studios will be shuttered and thousands of people will lose their jobs. Expenses will be slashed and customers squeezed even more; and it’s not like EA had a good reputation in those areas to begin with.
The question of how this will affect SWTOR‘s story and content concerns me less than the human cost. My hope is that since Disney owns Star Wars and Broadsword is separate from EA, the team and the game will be somewhat insulated from the storm, but I have no way of knowing. Hope is a tough currency to come by these days and a harder one to spend.
However, my understanding is that SWTOR is doing well. The critical success of Andor and the fact SWTOR received attention at Star Wars Celebration have increased interest in the game. With the end to the Voice Actors’ strike, SWTOR’s main story will resume throughout at least the next two game updates at the end of this year and into the next. In 2026 we’ll also see the first new Star Wars movie in years, and that hype cycle should also help SWTOR. I have to think that EA has no reason to mess with a good thing.
Here’s what I do know. Over the nine years I’ve been writing this blog, I’ve been very fortunate to meet and interact with some of the people who make this game that I love. They have been without exception dedicated to making SWTOR the best game it can be. Making video games is hard work. It’s finicky and often thankless, but everything I’ve heard on and off the record about SWTOR’s developers over the years makes me proud to be a small part of the game’s community.
Will that change in the days ahead? Possibly. We should all keep a weather eye out. It has never been my place to tell anyone how to spend their money. We should put it where we think it will do the most good in our lives. That has always been my plan, and that will not change.