Madiator's CornerIt’s official: EA is selling to private equity in $55 billion deal
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arstechnica.com/gaming/2025/09/its-official-ea-…
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 have been boycotting EA for over a decade. I can’t boycott any harder.
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.
Well EA is done now. It was already down hill, bad Linux support.
EA is now fully over.
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.
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
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.