It’s official: EA is going private.
The leveraged buyout will be financed by a staggering $20 billion of debt, which likely means some *aggressive* cost cutting is ahead for EA in the coming months and years.
https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20250929186526/en/EA-Announces-Agreement-to-be-Acquired-by-PIF-Silver-Lake-and-Affinity-Partners-for-%2455-Billion
In a deal involving a company owned by Jared Kushner, a company that is basically just the Saudis, and $20B of debt.
Huge fucking yikes on the privacy side of things, if you didn’t learn from the other 100 negatives about this company…. Enjoy fucking yourself and the world. Stop feeding evil.
I’m surprised that there isn’t any government organization that controls or oversees this kind of buyout, especially when so many billions are involved.
Had an EA Play so I could play NHL and FIFA, and the occasional ME Trilogy replay. Canceled it the moment the news broke about Kushner and the Saudis. Had paid for the year and was willing to sacrifice the final five months in the name of morality. But luckily they refunded me the difference.
This is a genuine question and not a passive aggressive one: why make the submission a link to a social media post when that post is mostly just a link to a news site anyway? (you could include link to or even quote the commentary either in the submission body or a comment if you think it’s a valuable addition)
edit: has since been answered in another comment orz, I opened this and then was talking to people for a while before commenting
But you aren’t wrong. There’s no way to know that via Bluesky unless you’ve happen to read his stuff from Bloomberg and before. It’s almost like Twitter is a terrible format for news or something…
All we can hope for is that after EA gets absolutely gutted, a bunch of new indy splinter studios spring up to use their development experience minus the corpo cash grabbery.
I was thinking about this deal and… I guess it makes sense the Saudis want in on the gaming industry. I recall a long while ago an old article about the industry (probably second hand via Polygon) that noted just how much Saudis whale on mobile and loot box games. It was so disproportionate, their nobility was like 2% of a mobile title’s revenue… literally just a few big families.
So my thinking is, EA, being the kind of shitty company it is, is actually probably pretty popular among Saudi nobility. That and FIFA, of course — imagine pay to win when you have infinite money.
I’m more cynical than that, I think it’s that Kushner and the Saudis have both identified gamers as a group susceptible to be influenced by auth-right messaging, and they want a piece of that.
Saudi owning FIFA is hilarious seeing most of its profit comes from gambling. Muslims my ass 😂 Not that they ever practiced what they preached anyway—Islam or not, religion has always been nothing but a tool of oppression to rulers.
Why do people always connect saudi to Islam when it’s pretty obvious no muslim other than Saudis likes the Saudi family as they are infamous for their practises. While even a slight hint at israel and Judaism or rich jewish assholes with judaism would get you down voted to the ground even when it’s an appropriate callout.
Edit: I am not challenging the comment, i am just curious as to why. One reason I could think of is that jews are considered an ethnic group so they may not be religious at all but that could apply to any religion no?
Weird how everyone is mad or upset about EA going out of business. I look at this as a positive. EA makes 90% shit games and 10% games that are unique or could be good that I refuse to buy on the grounds that it is still owned by EA.
If the few decent IPs get sold off to a different company I might actually buy it as long as it’s not one of the other mega shit companies. At least now there’s a chance.
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Huge fucking yikes on the privacy side of things, if you didn’t learn from the other 100 negatives about this company…. Enjoy fucking yourself and the world. Stop feeding evil.
It’ll be interesting seeing how the worst games company manages to find a way to become even worse.
I’m surprised that there isn’t any government organization that controls or oversees this kind of buyout, especially when so many billions are involved.
There is, but do you know who Jared Kushner is?
His dad is the president of Nintendo!
Is he a weed baron?
Had an EA Play so I could play NHL and FIFA, and the occasional ME Trilogy replay. Canceled it the moment the news broke about Kushner and the Saudis. Had paid for the year and was willing to sacrifice the final five months in the name of morality. But luckily they refunded me the difference.
So THAT’S why they allowed Battlefield 6 to be so good. Had to pump up those player interest numbers.
This is a genuine question and not a passive aggressive one: why make the submission a link to a social media post when that post is mostly just a link to a news site anyway? (you could include link to or even quote the commentary either in the submission body or a comment if you think it’s a valuable addition)
edit: has since been answered in another comment orz, I opened this and then was talking to people for a while before commenting
To add to this, Jason Schreier is a well known, and well sourced, gaming journalist.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jason_Schreier
But you aren’t wrong. There’s no way to know that via Bluesky unless you’ve happen to read his stuff from Bloomberg and before. It’s almost like Twitter is a terrible format for news or something…
Hell yeah, Jason Schreier is thé GOAT !
The post replies also provide more context as someone that doesnt understand the legal lingo of the official article
Just when you think EA can’t get any shittier, they find another way to lower the bar.
EA 0.00052 seconds after hearing Nintendo is the worst game company…
Going private could have been a net positive. But, not from venture capitalists, and certainly not from the Saudis.
Also, taking on this much debt as part of the buyout is just asking to be gutted and carved out, complete with record-breaking layoffs.
All we can hope for is that after EA gets absolutely gutted, a bunch of new indy splinter studios spring up to use their development experience minus the corpo cash grabbery.
So we won’t even get a shitty titanfall 3?
All I want is more BT 😢
Why does it even matter? Why would you buy it?
I wouldn’t buy it if it was bad, but any form of titanfall 3 would at least be something
Titanfall is cooked. They’re 100% killing the servers. I guess we’ll have to go back to the northstar client.
And now we wait for the potential “spiritual successor” 🤞 .
You mean Diesel Knights?
Toys R Us anyone?
I was thinking about this deal and… I guess it makes sense the Saudis want in on the gaming industry. I recall a long while ago an old article about the industry (probably second hand via Polygon) that noted just how much Saudis whale on mobile and loot box games. It was so disproportionate, their nobility was like 2% of a mobile title’s revenue… literally just a few big families.
So my thinking is, EA, being the kind of shitty company it is, is actually probably pretty popular among Saudi nobility. That and FIFA, of course — imagine pay to win when you have infinite money.
Makes me think why Houthis and the Iranians hate them. Not just sectarian but also wanton excesses of kingdom.
I’m more cynical than that, I think it’s that Kushner and the Saudis have both identified gamers as a group susceptible to be influenced by auth-right messaging, and they want a piece of that.
A link to the article in the skeet. https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20250929186526/en/EA-Announces-Agreement-to-be-Acquired-by-PIF-Silver-Lake-and-Affinity-Partners-for-%2455-Billion
It was pretty dry, so I opted for the skeet instead.
I was already not buying their crap.
Now I can do so gleefully.
They don’t even make anything anymore. Just sports games, mobile games and Sims expansions.
I set EA to Ignore on Steam two years ago. Ubisoft too.
Saudi owning FIFA is hilarious seeing most of its profit comes from gambling. Muslims my ass 😂 Not that they ever practiced what they preached anyway—Islam or not, religion has always been nothing but a tool of oppression to rulers.
It doesn’t exactly scream “Shariah Compliant”, no.
Instead of lootboxes, you cut open journalists to get your prizes.
Buy now 20 Jamales one gold drops guaranteed 40% discount.
What are the odds of getting the golden jet in your ultimate team?
Wasn’t that Qatar?
You are not wrong and I am.
The only part of the religion that matters is the part that lets them treat women as sex slaves anyways.
Why do people always connect saudi to Islam when it’s pretty obvious no muslim other than Saudis likes the Saudi family as they are infamous for their practises. While even a slight hint at israel and Judaism or rich jewish assholes with judaism would get you down voted to the ground even when it’s an appropriate callout.
Edit: I am not challenging the comment, i am just curious as to why. One reason I could think of is that jews are considered an ethnic group so they may not be religious at all but that could apply to any religion no?
The religious skirting around the doctrines of their faith for personal gain is a feature, not a bug.
Maybe they’ll remove the gambling. Probably not but it would be good if they did.
It would be interesting if EA pulled away from lootboxes for their owner’s ideological reasons.
You can bet they’ll pull away from LGBTQ+ representation.
Yeah. There’s domestic pressure for this anyway, unfortunately.
Except ea lost the FIFA licence in 2023.
Didn’t as much lose it as they called FIFA (an organization worse than EA)'s bluff when FIFA wanted like a billion for the naming rights.
How much couch money do I need to acquire Westwood’s NoX out of this?
The new FIFA will be crazy. To celebrate a goal, you can now kill and dismember a sideline reporter.
I gave up on EA a long time back, and them not making Alice: Asylum was the final nail in their coffin.
Weird how everyone is mad or upset about EA going out of business. I look at this as a positive. EA makes 90% shit games and 10% games that are unique or could be good that I refuse to buy on the grounds that it is still owned by EA.
If the few decent IPs get sold off to a different company I might actually buy it as long as it’s not one of the other mega shit companies. At least now there’s a chance.