>>28747

Since 1990, EA has been a public company: Like other publicly traded businesses, its ownership—or equity—has been determined by the distribution of shares of capital stock that are bought and sold through stock exchanges. Being a publicly traded company offers advantages, the most obvious being the ability to raise funds by selling shares of stock.

But public companies have their disadvantages, too—particularly for consumers in creative and entertainment industries. Shareholder primacy, the theory that delivering value to shareholders should be the singular principle guiding corporate strategy, is the era's prevailing economic philosophy.

That relentless pursuit of profit maximization, however, often prioritizes short-term returns over quality, creative output, and worker security, manifesting in videogames as risk-averse release strategy, predatory monetization schemes, and storms of layoffs and studio closures—all of which have marked EA's controversial history.