The Activision/Blizzard merger and the (possible) EA takeover of Take-Two means that two companies are going to be producing the majority of games we’ll be playing in the near future.  There is going to be less competition in the videogame world, and we’ve already seen that quality suffers without competition.  EA bought the exclusive NFL license a few years ago and many think that the Madden series has been declining in the subsequent years. With no other licensed American football game on the market, no one is pushing EA to continue to improve. If EA acquires Take-Two, it will also acquire 2K sports - Take-Two’s sport gaming division and EA’s main competition in the sports videogame market. Is EA going to feel the need to continue improving its NBA, NCAA, and NHL games when 2K is no longer releasing theirs? No, they will probably just worry about their bottom line.

Many sites and people have claimed that 2007 was a great year in gaming and that the best games of 2007 brought new ideas and innovations we haven’t seen in a while. Call of Duty 4, Portal, Mass Effect, BioShock, and Rock Band were all praised not only for their overall quality but for their innovations to storytelling or gameplay.  Will Activision/Blizzard and the new massive EA play it safer than they did before? If BioWare had developed Mass Effect under the EA umbrella would they have been forced to change it to Knights of the Old Republic 3?  Would EA have allowed the dark tone and storyline of BioShock or would they have insisted on changing the game to make it more palatable to the mainstream?  These are things that are impossible to say right now, we just have to see how EA handles BioWare, Pandemic, and possibly Take-Two.

Critics accuse both Activision and EA of iterating their series too often. There have been too many Guitar Heroes and Tony Hawk’s already some say. And EA releases its sports franchises every year without fail, sometimes with minimal updates.  Is the game release calendar going to be flooded with sequels just like the movie release calendar is? Already the majority of the big games coming out this year are sequels or new versions of old IPs. Rainbow Six Vegas 2, the next Madden,  Mario Kart Wii, Ninja Gaiden 2, Fable 2, Street Fighter IV, and more. BioShock 2 was recently announced.  Are we going to see games made into series that shouldn’t be? Are great game experiences going to be ruined by their sequels like the first Matrix movie was?