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News Reporter Ciara Clarke explains the EA buyout
American gaming giant Electronic Arts (EA) has been sold for $55 billion to a group of buyers including Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund (PIF) and Affinity Partners which is led by US president Donald Trump’s son in law, Jared Kushner.
EA, which is known for making and publishing best selling games such as EA FC (formerly known as ‘FIFA’), The Sims and Mass Effect, will now be a private company, meaning that all of its public shares will be purchased and no longer traded on a stock exchange.
The company was sold under a leveraged buyout which means that a large part of the money used in the purchase was paid with borrowed money. PIF put in $36 billion but needed to borrow the final $20 million from investment bankers JPMorgan in order to close the deal. This debt will be taken on by EA.
There has been a lot of speculation as to how paying back this debt will affect EA. In a post on Bluesky, Bloomberg’s Jason Schreier noted that this “could mean mass layoffs, more aggressive monetization, and other big cost-cutting measures”.
Many fans of EA’s games have raised their concerns about the buyout particularly fans of The Sim’s franchise which is known for its inclusivity and LGBT+ relationships. In Saudi Arabia, consensual same sex relations can be punishable by death or flogging under Sharia Law.
In late 2025, content creators that specialise in creating content about The Sims 4 left EA’s creator network, an official platform created for content creators by EA which gives them early access to new content along with “exclusive opportunities”.
In a post to her Youtube channel Kayla “Lilsimsie” Sims, whose channel has over 2 million subscribers, stated that, “I have made the decision to remove myself from the EA Creator Network. It is my hope that pressure from creators and the community might encourage EA’s leadership to reconsider the long-term impact of this sale and to preserve the values that have made The Sims so beloved”. Sim’s has previously worked with EA in the past to develop new downloadable content for The Sims 4.
Many questioned why the Saudi government would be interested in a gaming company such as EA and why they would spend such a large amount of money to acquire them.
Journalist and author of ‘Power Play:Video Games, Politics and the Battle for Global Influence’, George Osborn, pointed out how the longevity of the company, which has been around for 35 years, is “seemingly evergreen” with their live service games which are frequently updated after release.
The gaming industry has seen multiple setbacks over the past few years such as layoffs and game cancellations. Despite this, EA still generated a revenue of $7.5 billion last year.
Osborn noted that EA’s value to PIF was not purely economic and is about “owning a soft power asset that is quietly entrenched in the sporting community”.
PIF previously spent over £300 million to take over Premier League football club Newcastle United, and has used their money to fund large sporting events and grow their influence.
In the crossover between gaming and sport, Saudi Arabia previously hosted major esports tournaments such as the Esports World Cup in 2025 in Riyadh.
A recent report from Bloomberg claims that the PIF is looking to fold EA into The Savoy Group, another company they own in an attempt to create a single “mega publisher” under one group.
The Savoy Group is a Saudi owned gaming group that was established in 2021, which has gone on to buy multiple game studios and mobile game publishers.
Bloomberg notes that the company was given a budget of $38 million to build up their gaming portfolio, this portfolio includes parts of Niantic (the company behind Pokemon GO). They are also currently in the process of acquiring major mobile developer Moonton for $6 million.