Show Notes
On Tuesday, Electronic Arts stops being a public company. Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund, Silver Lake and Jared Kushner's Affinity Partners are closing a $55 billion all-cash buyout — the largest leveraged buyout of a public company in history — and PIF walks away with 93.4% of Madden, FIFA, Apex, The Sims, Battlefield and BioWare.
So we spent half the episode on what that actually means: what going private does to a publisher, the $20 billion in debt that lands on EA itself, whether sports betting is the obvious way to service it, and what happens to queer characters in BioWare games under this ownership. Plus the question nobody answers honestly — is boycotting Madden a real position, or does it just feel good?
Then the other half. Tarkov's first post-launch wipe and the Kord Breach seasons drop August 3, so we get into the state of the game right before it resets. Overwatch Champions Series is live in Paris, and the jetpack cat strat does not translate to Silver. And Baldur's Gate 3's new true third-person camera mod set the internet on fire — someone told modders to be nuked off the face of the earth over an optional camera angle in a single-player game.
Jake wants a normal third-person view in everything. Raz is a Larian hipster who was there before BG3. WARDOGS Alpha hits Friday.
0:00 - Intro
0:50 - Pop Quiz: Name That Tarkov AI
2:41 - Patreon Free Trials & August Hangouts
6:37 - WARDOGS Alpha Drops August 7
8:43 - Escape From Tarkov: Back In It
10:50 - Raz Gets Mogged All Wipe Long
16:36 - Jake's Week in Tarkov
22:49 - Tarkov Is the Dark Souls of FPS
24:19 - Overwatch: Bronze 5 to Silver 3
26:12 - Overwatch Champions Series in Paris
27:11 - The Jetpack Cat + Bastion A-10 Strat
31:50 - Saudi Arabia Is Buying EA for $55 Billion
44:23 - Going Private: Actually Good for Games?
50:47 - The $20 Billion Leveraged Buyout
52:15 - The Sports Betting Theory
55:55 - Nobody Here Bets on Anything
1:00:15 - Tangent: The Intel Bet That Paid 500%
1:02:49 - $166 Billion Wagered in 2025
1:04:08 - Why Do People Watch Gambling Streams?
1:05:10 - Gambling Ads and Kids
1:07:23 - There Is No Moral Panic Here
1:15:53 - "Creative Control" and What It's Worth
1:18:29 - Khashoggi, Non-Disparagement, Game-Washing
1:22:10 - Queer Characters, BioWare, and Veilguard
1:26:02 - Would You Still Buy It? (Yes)
1:28:37 - Is Boycotting Madden a Real Position?
1:31:30 - The BG3 Third-Person Camera Mod
1:32:11 - What the Mod Actually Does
1:36:25 - The Two Camps
1:37:52 - Raz Is a Larian Hipster
1:40:06 - Genre Purism: Is Isometric Load-Bearing?
1:42:20 - Jake Writes Off Every Top-Down Game
1:45:11 - The Elden Ring Summons Crowd
1:47:27 - Divinity's Camera, Confirmed
1:48:05 - Larian Shot Down WASD Movement
1:55:35 - That Divinity Trailer
1:57:37 - Why DOS2 Combat Beats BG3
2:01:44 - Outro
_Note: timestamps may be slightly misaligned on podcast apps (but not on YouTube) due to dynamic ads._
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