The board, executive management, and major stockholders will walk away well compensated while employees, vendors, customers, and state and local governments will end up paying the consequences. But at least there was the pretense of wanting to run the company, of seeing it as a valuable asset. But in the face of that the EA deal the new owner group isn’t even trying to put up a facade of a business plan to preserve the company. In the overall picture Broadsword is small potatoes and it feels just as likely that the company could simply pull the plug. The destruction of Electronic Arts as a player in the video game industry is here.