EA Goes Private: What Could Possibly Go Wrong?
EA Goes Private: What Could Possibly Go Wrong?
So, EA. Yes, that EA — king of loot boxes, destroyer of beloved studios, eternal villain of gamer rants. They’re going private.
The numbers are insane: the biggest leveraged buyout in history. $55 billion. That’s $35 billion for the company and EA left holding $20 billion in debt. $35 billion for a company making around $5 billion profit a year. Which means about a cool $1 billion a year just in debt payments. High repayment costs? Check. Great start, right?
And who’s buying? Oh, just Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund, Jared Kushner’s Affinity Partners (yeah, that Kushner, with the Trump baggage), and Silver Lake. Totally normal investor trio. Nothing sketchy about that. Silver Lake’s Egon Durban has been eyeing EA for years, and now he’s got the deal of a lifetime. PIF already had 10% of EA, so for them this is just loose change from the oil money sofa cushions. EA’s investors get a lovely payout — $174 per share bumped to over $200. Everyone wins. Well… except the people who actually make the games.
Slash and Burn Incoming?
Big leveraged buyouts usually mean one thing: slash and burn. Cut jobs, cut costs, cut quality. Sprinkle in AI to “replace” actual people, squeeze out profits to keep the debt monster fed.
And this is EA we’re talking about. Their rep is already garbage: loot boxes, aggressive monetisation, shutting down studios, ruining Bioware. You think this ends well? I half-expected Ubisoft to go first (they’re a trainwreck), but they barely dodged takeover by spinning off profitable bits. Don’t be shocked if EA tries the same trick — keep FIFA (sorry, EA Sports FC) and Apex running, kill the rest.
Life After Wall Street
Here’s the spin: EA’s been on the stock market for 36 years. Going private means no more quarterly reports. No more Wall Street breathing down their necks.
That could be good. Maybe devs finally get breathing room. Maybe Bioware cooks up one brilliant RPG instead of rushing Anthem-level disasters. Maybe Respawn actually gets to focus on making games instead of live-service treadmill nonsense.
Or maybe it’s just layoffs, closures, studios sold off. Do we really think private equity backed by the Saudis is in this for creativity and gamer joy? Or is it just for FIFA loot boxes printing eternal money? My money’s on the loot boxes. EA’s umbrella is massive: sports games, Sims, Battlefield, Apex Legends, Dragon Age, F1, It Takes Two. Live-service spigots everywhere. That’s what they’ll keep. The rest? Dead weight.
Saudi Arabia’s Gaming Play
This deal isn’t just numbers. It’s part of Saudi Arabia’s global shopping spree: football clubs, esports, now one of the biggest gaming companies on the planet.
It’s soft power. Clout. Image-polishing. Oil money diversifying. Maybe some of these investors even care about games, but let’s be real — it’s about influence. Politics. Owning a slice of global culture.
And the other investors? Silver Lake and Kushner’s fund have way more to lose if this gamble goes south. Saudis will shrug it off. But together, they’ve got the cash and the leverage to make it stick.
The Industry Is Already Drowning
Meanwhile, the games industry itself is oversaturated. In 2024, over 18,000 games launched on Steam alone. Add in consoles, mobile, other storefronts… it’s endless.
Most games sink without a trace. Even the good ones. Why? Because players are locked into live-service behemoths. Fortnite, Call of Duty, Genshin, Final Fantasy XIV, GTA Online — these things eat your free time alive. You can make a masterpiece and still watch it flop because everyone’s already glued to a battle pass elsewhere.
That’s the real risk for EA. If even one of their big cash cows falls into the gaming graveyard, the whole debt-driven empire wobbles. Respawn’s Apex Legends is safe for now, but Bioware? No cash cow. Just pressure.
The Gamble
So, EA’s “going private” bet? Massive gamble.
Best case: they shake off Wall Street, give devs some creative freedom, focus on fewer but riskier projects, maybe surprise us.
Worst case: junk-rated debt strangles them, layoffs gut the studios, creativity dies, and EA drowns in the same short-term greed it’s been selling to everyone else for years.
And honestly? That would be poetic. EA built an empire by buying and gutting studios. Greed is baked into the culture. If they end up crushed under the weight of their own overpriced buyout? That’s very EA.