Saudi Arabia’s US$55 billion acquisition of gaming giant Electronic Arts (EA) has officially closed.
The massive deal was announced in September and has since been approved in various global markets. This is the second-largest acquisition in video game history after Microsoft’s US$69 billion buyout of Activision Blizzard in 2023.
Now, EA is privately owned by the Saudi regime’s Public Investment Fund (PIF) and the U.S. firms Silver Lake and Affinity Partners, the last of which is owned by Jared Kushner, the son-in-law of U.S. President Donald Trump.
In a news release, EA CEO Andrew Wilson offered the usual corporate speak about being excited about this “next chapter” for the company. He added that he’ll be working closely with EA president and chief studios officer Cam Weber and president and chief operating officer David Tinson through this transition.
On the one hand, this deal felt inevitable given the general volatile state of the gaming industry and EA’s own overall stagnant revenues over the past few years. In particular, the company has laid off more than five per cent of its workforce over the past couple of years. All the while, Wilson earned nearly US$40 million in the 2026 fiscal year.
With the deal closed, EA’s future remains uncertain. Over the past year, many concerns have been raised regarding this deal. From a purely financial standpoint, this being a massive leveraged buyout (LBO) means that EA is now saddled with billions in debt which will, presumably, lead to many cost-cutting measures including further layoffs.
On that note, it’s important to mention that EA owns several studios in Canada. BioWare Edmonton (Dragon Age, the upcoming fifth Mass Effect) is arguably the most famous, but other Canadian EA teams include EA Vancouver (the EA Sports and NHL series), Vancouver’s Full Circle (Skate), Montreal’s Motive (Dead Space, the upcoming Marvel’s Iron Man), Victoria’s Metalhead (Super Mega Baseball) and Glu Toronto (Kim Kardashian: Hollywood). It remains to be seen what may happen to these studios under the new leadership.
And speaking of EA’s new owners, they have been a source of controversy since the deal was first announced. In the U.S., Kushner’s close relationship to Trump raises eyebrows, especially as we’ve seen how the president’s ties to the Ellison family-owned Paramount have already impacted that company’s business.
And on the Saudi front, there’s the matter of the PIF’s roughly US$900 billion in global assets, as well as the regime’s numerous human rights violations, including the alleged murders of multiple journalists who were critical of the government. There’s also speculation that the notoriously anti-LGBTQ+ government may influence the content of EA games, especially progressive works made by the likes of BioWare and The Sims maker Maxis.
Image credit: EA
