Not everyone knows much of anything, it applies to all situation in life. They even tried to blackmail their horror-trilogy, Dead Space, devs, by having them working against clock hours and trying to buy the rights. It is safe to say they failed, the ex-devs of DS, came up with their own studio, about 12-15 years later, and released "The Callipso Protocol" in which you play a inmate at a cosmic prison, nicknamed, Black Iron, and you meet certain freaks of nature there, certain failed to contain experiments. They did the same with their racing-saga, NFS.
The ex-studio Black Box, further on, just by a few members, were lucky to get a train ticket to Ghost Games, later, this dissolved, resulting in Criterion Games, with 0 past employees and 0 knowing of what the fanbase of NFS wishes to have in-game. I remember the first Battlefield games weren't even at the level of TF2 popularity and both mechanics/fun, or even G-Mod/Portal/CS 1.6[Source], Black, Postal, Left 4 Dead 2, so on.
They gained some success with this saga by the success of BF Bad Company, but since then, the game is dead and lacks creativity, despite the money they have. I remember one of their dev from BB said that "It's the worst company in the gaming scene, to work for." Their catalogue consist of 97% unfinished rushed games, including their soccer one, FIFA, but with this shit there's a moment solution for, unfortunately for others not so much, as it requires in-depth further modifications, not just a live update. In one word, they survive because of their soccer game. NFL as far as I heard dropped out of zooming zone by a large margin in the recent years. Safe to say, if someone ever buys out FIFA, this company dies on spot
