Yeah, I don't know. That's why I asked the question.
Back in October, 2025, I bought the 2023 remake of Dead Space, developed by Motive Studios, a subsidiary of EA Games, and published by EA Games.* I did this for two reasons. First, the game was on sale for $11.99, down from the MSRP of $59.99 (and would drop further to $8.99 on November 20th). Second, because on September 29th, 2025, EA released a statement that they were being purchased by a consortium of private equity firms, one owned by the Saudi Prince and orchestrator of the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, Mohammed bin Salman, and another with the son-in-law of fascist and wannabe dictator Donald Trump, Jared Kushner, which received $2,000,000,000 of its start-up capital from the Saudi government. The point of all that is to say that I wanted to support Motive Studio for the work they did (albeit, support them after the game had gone on sale) before any of that money could be paid to EA after they were officially acquired by a dictatorship and fascist government.
We're going to stick with games published by EA Games, apparently. That was not the goal, but here we are.
On August 27th, 2026, EA released Star Wars Zero Company to widespread praise. I don't think I've read anything excessively negative about the game apart from aspects of the game people don't like, not that the game itself is a bad game. All of the stuff about EA Games under new ownership aside, four days after the game was released, it was reported that developer Bit Reactor had put 80% of the development team behind Star Wars Zero Company on unpaid furlough. Now, I love me a good Star Wars game that expands upon the canon of that galaxy, far, far away, but how do you go about buying (leasing?) a game that looks and sounds like a lot of fun, without saying to the company that just furloughed nearly 80 of its workforce, "I support your decision"? Now I feel like I have to do additional work, looking into Bit Reactor's press reports to see if the furloughed workers have been brought back, but now EA Games is officially owned by the fascist conglomerate. I don't want to support that.
Most recently, as of Tuesday, September 22nd, Microsoft/Xbox Game Studios was consulting "...with employees [of developer Ninja Theory] on a proposed closure." And it was just over the summer that Xbox touted the release of Senua, the third game in the Hellblade trilogy, which has received nothing but stellar reviews since the first game was released. How do you buy a game from a publisher that has closed down the studio that developed it without coming across as complacent and compliant with the closure of the studio that developed the game? I get that part of the decision was likely financially based in that it would look better on the company's financials to report a loss and to be able to "write off" that expense, especially with Senua essentially completed and slated for release sometime in 2027. It'll look great for Xbox and Xbox Game Studios CEO and CCO Asha Sharma and Matt Booty, respectively, when they present to their board of investors that they were able to trim costs, bring down expenses, and bring in a net profit in the red in Q4 2026. Bonuses and dividends all around. Except for the employees of Ninja Theory. And Halo Studios. And all of the other thousands of employees impacted by these cuts.
I don't have an answer, hence the first sentence up there. I just needed to expand on that.
*P.S. What is it with studios developing games in the Dead Space franchise and then EA having them develop a Battlefield game that essentially grounds the studio? EA did this with Visceral Games/EA Redwood Shores after they finished Dead Space 3 in 2013, then went on to develop Battlefield Hardline in 2015. Then Motive Studio developed Dead Space in 2023 and then assisted with a couple of other EA-owned studios on Battlefield 6 in 2025.
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