EA Bought Out By People Somehow Worse Than EA

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There are a lot of mixed feelings about EA. The publisher is notorious for buying studios, and then shutting them down. Just look at what happened to Westwood and the Command & Conquer series. But, there are studios within the publisher that are responsible for some of the greatest moments in gaming, largely due-in-part to BioWare. And then there’s the Sims franchise, which, admittedly, has been stripped down to just The Sims 4. There’s the studio behind the Need For Speed series, which is another franchise I’ve enjoyed since I was literally in high school. And, we can’t forget Titanfall and Apex Legends, if you happen to be a player on Windows who Respawn didn’t call a bunch of cheaters (speaking of their opposition to Linux). Suffice to say, EA is more than just a bunch of money-hungry investors destroying jobs and killing studios.

It’s a large portion of the last twenty years of gaming. And it’s being bought out by Saudi Arabia and Donald Trump’s son-in-law.

There’s a lot of bad news lately, or, there has been a lot of bad news this year. A lot of news worse than possibly losing some of the greatest gaming franchises in history. But this is one for the “Oh my fuckin’ god” list.

President Donald Trump's son-in-law, Saudi Arabia's government and other backers are closing in on a $55 billion deal to purchase the video game company responsible for developing and publishing popular game franchises like The Sims, Madden NFL and Battlefield. Electronic Arts, or EA, announced on Monday, Sept. 29 that it will be privately acquired by Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund (PIF), Silver Lake and Affinity Partners during the 2027 fiscal year. The latter of the investors, Affinity Partners, was founded by Jared Kushner, Trump's son-in-law, who is married to Trump's eldest daughter, Ivanka Trump.

Via USA Today.

I was just writing, in my last post, about how everything I’ve enjoyed in the past has been taken away from me, and it looks like that might not stop any time soon.

We don’t really need to go over why anyone involved with Trump is a bad idea to have anywhere close to gaming franchises that feature equality, and women, but, if interested, here’s a short-list on human rights abuses perpetuated by Saudi Arabia.

I’m kind of at a loss for words as I watch people talk about this on social media. Such as the glib-posters laughing into the void, “Who cares about EA?! They’re the worst company!”

Which, yeah, they’re pretty bad. Right up there with Activision. But, I’m more concerned about the studios. The jobs that will be eliminated, especially because part of this buy-out is a bet that AI can or will help cut costs (it won’t, it doesn’t).

Wait was EA’s big GenAI push a bid to convince potential buyers that it could lower operating costs after a purchase to help pay for debts?? They have like four whole game studios making the Battlefield series, you can’t run a CoD-competing juggernaut with automation. www.ft.com/content/be98...

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— Bryant Francis (@bryantfrancis.me) September 29, 2025 at 11:37 AM

Anyway, I hope everyone’s enjoyed the past ten years of The Sims 4, and the past 30 years of Sims-based games. I hope nobody’s betting on Mass Effect 4 coming out any time soon.

I hope one of these studios can find a way out of EA.

And now, you gotta wonder, “If I buy the latest Sims expansion, what exactly am I supporting?”

The buy-out is set to finalize in 2027.