Sky News

Video game maker Electronic Arts agrees record $55bn buyo...

The maker of Battlefield, FC 26 and The Sims is being bought - and is the most expensive acquisition of a public company to be taken private.

Probably one of the biggest gaming news of the week and possibly of the year...EA have been brought out by a Saudi Arabia private equity firm for $55bn (around £41bn) and its left some worries in the future of the firm...about AI being implemented into EA games....about inclusion in games like The Sims being taken away or censored...but some also hold hope for the future or that it isn't going to change much..

What are your thoughts? I thought this would make a interesting topic for the gaming forum.

If they strip away the inclusivity in the sims, the community will just mod it back in straight away. But for sure the sims would take a giant reputation and financial hit.

What I’m really rooting for is for PE to do the only thing that PE does and asset strip the f*** out of EA and flog off properties and studios to competitors or managed buyouts. Finally we could see those properties return to glory away from the toxicity of EA

Sadly what I think will happen is an expansion of EAs money hungry ways with more micropayments and monetisation of every single last line of code, along with the shuttering of property that doesn’t generate the billions for them for an overall increasing loss of diversity in the gaming landscape. This is a partially leveraged buyout and there’s no f***ing way EA can service those debts without even more microtransactions than we see today

I also expect them to continue to acquire, ruin, and then kill off new properties and studios. EA will remain EA through this.

I haven't spent any money on EA games for probably over a decade and likely not played very many of those either, so, on a personal level, eh. Too focused on sports games, most of their franchises are tired and they're among the worst for financial practices among AAA companies.

Definitely likely that the oil money buying up huge moving parts of capitalism will make it feel icky to engage with them just like it already does with the sports properties the Gulf monarchies have acquired. Probably is just a big move to get FIFA and the other sports franchises EA does and turn them into a revenue stream. I would think that the non-sports arms of the company will see little change.

Gaming is a very critique/audience based medium, but the games that EA creates are not that, and will sell regardless. Would be worried that it sets a precedent for future gaming buyouts but EA is a very specific studio so for now, less worried than I would otherwise be.