Friday’s reports that Electronic Arts planned to go private were publicly confirmed Monday morning. Silver Lake, Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund (PIF), and Jared Kushner’s Affinity Partners will join together to pay an estimated $55 billion for the video game mega-publisher in a deal being described as the “largest all-cash sponsor take-private investment in history.”
Gross - guess I won’t even wait for BF6 reviews to not buy the game.
I think this is a potential windfall for gaming… Sure, it could be terrible, as other commenters have stated, but EA was already terrible. A national investment fund may very well have a better understanding of long-term investment and pull away from lootboxes and microtransactions. I’m certainly not holding my breath… but if I were in a position to buy an entire catalog of IP that people loved in their youth, I think this could be a sound strategy.
If Saudi Arabia took EA and all it’s properties and made it what 90’s gaming was… this would be monumental and I think it’d pay off; as well as a slap in the face of the modern game publishers’ business model.
We just saw this with Silksong: Make a good game, treat your customers with respect, and we will break records for you, even if it takes a decade. If the Saudis don’t act like vulture capital and instead play a longer game, they have the money to fund actual quality development.
I’m not convinced this is worse than being publically traded. Now instead of being beholden to faceless investors who only care about number go up, it’s one specific owner? I mean, considering who it is, it isn’t better. But I struggle to imagine it as worse.
Doesn’t matter, I’ll still either avoid their games or pirate.
Co-op/freelance > small business > large single-owner business > publicly traded business > private equity business.
The hordes of faceless shareholders is mostly regular people’s retirement accounts. It’s still a net-negative for society, but now it’s not even helping someone retire comfortably. With Saudi Arabia involved, that means it’s also going to be laundering the image of a monarchy.
A few years ago everyone was talking about how crown prince Bin Salman ordered the brutal execution and dismemberment of a journalist. Now the E-sports world cup is in Riyadh.
Depends on the private holder. Look in example to Valve (Steam), who are a private company and do well and good for themselves, the gaming industry and their fans (relative speaking for the most part).
But a super rich Saudi Arabia people and Kushner, Affinity Partners’ CEO and the son-in-law of President Trump connection, I don’t know man. BTW its not just one owner, as I understand. The difference to stockholders is, that a few people who don’t understand videogames have direct power and control over the company, while stockholders are many little.
Good suggestion a friend gave me: Go to the Electronic Arts Steam page and mark them as an ignored creator. It won’t block everything EA but can add a banner to EA products that says you’ve added them to your ignore list.
Fuck EA.
I have been boycotting EA for over a decade. I can’t boycott any harder.
Well EA is done now. It was already down hill, bad Linux support.
EA is now fully over.
And for once, nothing will change
Actually, it’s pretty clear they are planning on completely gutting this company. They’re taking on debt to buy this deal, which they will put on the company. Their pitch is to eliminate jobs with AI (which they probably know won’t work) which means they’ll cut most of the staff and “replace” it with AI, likely contracts with companies they own so that they can continue to leech off whatever income comes in from game sales. The company will continue to churn out trash and make some money by repeating last year’s sports game this year but now with AI coding until it eventually declares bankruptcy and is either auctioned off to be stripped for what’s left of its parts or simply shutters forever.
I doubt it. The Saudi-Arabian monarchy doesn’t invest in things because they want to make money. They do it for power, image, and influence in the world. They just threw a lot of money into the E-sports world cup in Riyadh. I think they’re buying what’s needed to make Saudi-Arabia a gaming hub. They’re doing the same thing with sports and racing and all sorts of entertainment. For that reason, I doubt they’ll strip EA for parts. All of the competitive games that EA makes will suddenly have tons of prize money and developer-backing for competition and E-sports. And the final big event will always be in SA.
Yea fair there is definitely the sportswashing angle on this, but they are absolutely leveraging debt for this purchase which they will put on the company. Their deck also talks a ton about AI, which is where the AI/stripping angle comes from. As to whether they can just ignore the debt because oil money, that’s I suppose another question entirely.
They’re taking on debt to buy this deal, which they will put on the company.
That right there, that’s how they ruin companies. Anyone remember Toys R Us?
There’s an entire list of companies that private equity have ruined
Ah fuck I think they have the WRC license nowadays. Welp Dirt rally is still very good.
Actually they don’t! The rights went back to NACON a few months ago. Good timing, although I know not everyone likes the older WRC games either.
https://www.gamingonlinux.com/2025/05/fia-world-rally-championship-wrc-games-return-to-nacon/
They do have the license for wrc and I don’t like it.
Fortunately the WRC rights went back to NACON after that one game, so they won’t be affected!
Block all updates to the games and launchers you have, just in case. Sims 4 is dead, guys
Well, at least they’ll finally go away after the hostile takeover. Shame about all the employees though.
How dare that article use the Electronic Arts logo
EA ≠ Electronic Arts
