A couple days ago, after an excellent dinner, my roommate and I strolled out of Golden Corral and, stomachs bulging with sumptuous food, we felt understandably gigantic. As we pulled out of Golden Corral's surprisingly spacious parking lot, our conversation steered toward a somewhat relevant topic – Electronic Arts, gaming's favorite mistreated giant. Now, I'm no EA fanboy – I don't celebrate each and every EA success as though it were my own – but when I see a gamer wince at the mere mention of the letters "E" and "A," I'll be happy to pull out my surrogate EA Defense Force membership card. So, as you can imagine, I took my roommate on a whirlwind adventure, packed full of "But actually"s and "No, they don't do that anymore"s. Having literally begun a campaign to make the world a better place for EA, one person at a time, I was quite excited today when I stumbled upon not one, not three, but two EA-related articles from prolific game journalists. After reading the two pieces in question, however, it became apparent that their messages – one a Joystiq "Political Game" article criticizing EA's Take-Two buyout and the other a 1up feature highlighting the many changes EA has undergone since John Riccitiello hopped back in the captain's chair -- differed greatly.

Quick question: Why do you think EA is buying Take-Two? What's the most obvious, elephant-in-the-room reason EA could possibly have to bring Take-Two under their umbrella? Perplexing? No. Joe Everygamer would immediately chime in with, "They want GTA!" Well, according to Joystiq's article, Joe would be wrong -- but I'd still kind of envy his last name. What's Joystiq columnist Dennis McCauley's explanation? EA wants Take-Two's sports titles, as they're the only competition Madden and company still face on their Sunday afternoon stroll to victory. Now, his belief isn't entirely without basis; when this EA-Take-Two business was still in its infancy, Michael Patcher, analyst extraordinaire, was quoted as saying, "For EA, sports is enough to pay for the whole [$2 billion] thing. If you get rid of sports competition, you suddenly add Take Two's $200 million per year in sports revenue and EA doesn't compete on price anymore. So, theoretically, they could grow that business by $100 million [per year]."

As McCauley points out, if EA succeeds in purchasing Take-Two, EA will almost certainly consolidate their sports games and then, no longer accosted by the specter of competition, lose their only incentive to lower prices on those titles after they've been on the shelves for a few months. Gamers will be forced to plunk down extra cash unless the Euphoria-powered BackBreaker succeeds in pilfering some market share from Madden, which is an unlikely scenario, as promising as BackBreaker's ballet of violence looks. Overall, this situation paints quite an ugly picture of EA, with colors dripping and running together all over the place.

Really though, it's not so bad. Team Madden will snag a fresh infusion of new creative blood, and gamers – assuming they aren't day-one buyers like a large majority of those who indulge in our hobby tend to be – will only be out an additional $20 or so.

But I'm sure a few of you out there are still saying, "Yeah, so what? EA isn't all about sports. What about their tendency to quash creativity, and that thing they don't have…uh, a soul?" One two-word name: John Riccitello. That's the name of EA's current CEO – the man who engineered EA's benign buyout of Bioware-Pandemic. Note that Bioware-Pandemic is still known as Bioware-Pandemic, and not "EA Bidemic," which, along with being a terrible name, is no longer indicative of how EA does business. Julian Murdoch, in her recent article at 1up, elaborates on the topic:

"Riccitiello's first order of business in the new gig was to reinvent EA on paper. Historically, EA has been a monolith. While studios around the world worked on myriad projects in dozens of offices, they were all part of the big EA machine. Riccitiello recognized that this didn't work, and that it was ineffective at generating new ideas. So he moved the boxes on the org chart, establishing what he's intermittently referred to as the "label" model, or the "city-state" model. The New EA now divvies up the world into EA Sports, The Sims, Casual Entertainment, and EA Games, which rolls up everything from Army of Two to Spore."

And that level of autonomy inside EA's far-reaching walls is only the beginning. As Murdoch goes on to point out, EA's goal is now innovation – not evolution, iteration, or what have you. Will Wright's Spore is an excellent example of this. Wright is doubtless a genius, and EA isn't stifling his brilliance; they're allowing it to run free. And remember, Maxis wasn't always part of EA. They're an example of a wildly successful EA buyout, and a perfect model of how EA plans to handle buyouts in the future.

What does this mean for a hypothetical Take-Two with EA's ubiquitous banner flying over their heads? Foremost, it means that Take-Two studios will likely retain their independence, so 2K Boston (Bioshock 2), Rockstar (GTA), and other Take-Two labels will be free to do their own thing. Second -- and in some gamers' eyes, ironically – it'll allow those studios more breathing room than they currently have, simply because EA has vaults, bags, and swimming pools full of money. That's what I call a win-win.

With any luck, EA's actions and the quality of their releases will give gamers reason enough to remove the stigma they so vehemently attach to the company at present. The way I see it, EA's eventual (it's gonna happen) Take-Two buyout will be the tipping point. Once they witness Take-Two's smooth integration into EA's open arms – arms which no longer strangle promising companies, but pat them on the back for their creativity – Riccitiello will have succeeded. And unlike in days past, I can truly say that success will be a good thing for both EA and the industry at large.