Electronic Arts Buy-Out Of 52.5 Billion Dollars

Mikayla Leskey | Arts and Entertainment

About a month ago, Electronic Arts (EA) a company that creates video games such as “The Sims,” “Madden NFL,” and, “Battlefield,” announced that they are being acquired for a $52.5 billion deal by private equity firm, Public Investment Firm (PIF) Silver Lake, and Affinity Partners. This deal, if it goes through as planned, then it’ll be the biggest buyout funded by a private-equity firm.

The news itself was unexpected. There was noise from every fan of EA, all wondering what’s going to happen with their favourite games when the deal finalizes, planned to be early 2027. With this acquired deal, EA also acquired 20 billions dollars in debt. Which, of course, means there’ll be staffing cuts, which’ll eventually lead to slower updates to everyone’s favourite games, maybe even discontinuing some games, depending on how much money they make and how popular that game is.

As mentioned earlier, this news came as a shock to everyone. It was unprecedented, this buy. Many fans of EA felt betrayed in some way, shape, or form. Not understanding how the maker of their favourite games could do this. Some have decided to take a stand. Almost a week ago, the majority of Sim content creators decided to pull out of the “EA Creator Network”.

For the Sims game specifically, the “EA Creator Network” gives sim content creators DLC early, for the creators to review the new DLC for them, giving more advertisement to the game. Along with that the “EA Creator Network” gives a code to every creator in the program, allowing them to receive a small commission if someone uses their code.

These influencers are putting pressure on EA. They relied on this network to further advertise their game, refusing to let their favourite game be sold like it was. Especially with all the movements the Sims had made in the past few years, like adding the ability to add pronouns to your sims, or making sure to add different cultures to the game, even fixing certain things when they got it wrong.

The private-equity firm that bought EA is based out of Saudi Arabia, and their company itself does not stand for what The Sims, at the very least, stands for. There’s been whispers about them removing updates from the game that don't fit their ideals, but again, nothing concrete. The deal won’t close for another year, so there’s no telling what will happen from then until now.

This deal could potentially change gaming as a whole. EA going private, theoretically, could give them the chance to produce better games, at a more rapid pace. Along with that they’d be able to be more specific in the games they produce. As mentioned earlier, there’s also the chance of more gaming studios being shutdown. Especially with the debt EA collected from this deal.

There’s only theories and hypotheticals about how exactly this deal is going to play out and how much it will impact the gaming world. Influencers are clearly taking their stance, pressuring EA. Most of their fans are right along with them. There’s no telling what exactly will happen, but nothing about this deal seems to okay.