Gaming The System - The Feminist Gaming Podcast

Breaking News: EA Bought Out — What Does It Mean for Gaming?

• Gaming The System - The Feminist Gaming Podcast

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In this Gaming the System breaking news episode, Jem, Alex, and Matt dive into the shocking $55 billion sale of Electronic Arts (EA) — the publisher behind The Sims, Battlefield, and Dragon Age — to a consortium led by Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund (PIF), alongside Silver Lake Partners and Jared Kushner’s Affinity Partners.

The team unpacks what this means for the gaming world, from concerns about human rights and LGBTQ+ representation to the growing influence of “sports-washing” and “game-washing” in global entertainment.

Alex explains Saudi Arabia’s wider Vision 2030 strategy, including its push to dominate eSports and professional sports, while Matt breaks down the financial mechanics behind the leveraged buyout — and what that could mean for EA’s future stability, creative direction, and staff.

We dig into how EA’s new ownership connects to Trump’s political circle and the potential disappearance of queer and diverse narratives. And ask about the broader moral and cultural implications for developers, players, and the industry at large.

This episode asks the big question: Who really owns gaming — and what happens when creative freedom collides with authoritarian money?

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Speaker:

Hello and welcome back to another episode of Gaming the System, the podcast where three intersectional feminists examine gaming and games through a feminist lens. I'm your host for today. I'm Gem, and I'm here with my friends Alex and Matt. So before we get started, if you want to support us, you can subscribe to our patron at patron.com/gaming the system for some exclusive content. Or you can send us a one-off donation via PayPal to our email address. We are gaming the system@gmail.com.

Jem:

we decided that we'd hop on and discuss the news that video game Giant. Electronic Arts known as ea, publisher of the Sims Battlefields and Dragon Age, amongst many others, has been sold for 55 billion US dollars to a consortium. Which is largely made up of the Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund, otherwise known as PIF. So that's the Kingdom's Sovereign Wealth Fund. It's also includes Silver Lake Partners, which is a US tech focus, private equity firm, and crucially, in my opinion, affinity Partners run by Jared Kushner. Donald Trump's son-in-law. This is massive news because EA is currently a public company and this sale will make it a private company. So it's gonna take it off the public books and into private hands. EA itself is. Huge, has many fingers in many pies, throughout the gaming industry and has been a fundamental force within the gaming industry for, a long time. There are considerable concerns about what impact this may have on eA titles such as The Sims and mass Effect, which have been hailed as being quite inclusive and diverse given that Saudi Arabia has a reputation for being very hard line, very. Conservative and discriminatory in its, approach to issues such as same sex marriage same sex relationships and, women driving there are considerable concerns about Saudi Arabia's human rights, behavior, and its, recently been looking at diversifying into sports and, it seems likely that one of the key reasons they were so interested in EA is because EA has a massive eSports, sector, and is huge in that industry there's a lot of money in eSports and it's a growing industry and this is relevant to Saudi Arabia because obviously they're. Main source of income at the moment is oil, that's going to become, less of a, pot of gold, over time. The argument is that Saudi Arabia is. Diversifying its income and revenue streams. And this is one of the ways that it can continue to do that the flip side of this is that there's concerns that this is game washing. And that Saudi Arabia are going to be using the reach of electronic arts. Across the globe, as a way to promote soft diplomacy, improve its image around the world and potentially and probably more worrying, promote its, views through gaming. The industry has reacted with quite a lot of shock to this news, because there had been some rumors that it was coming, but I don't think it was expected to happen quite as soon as it did and in the way that it did. I took a look at, one of our favorite subreddits, girl gamers, to see what they were thinking, and there's quite a lot of concern there about what impact this might have on the Sims going forward and other games that are very much beloved for their L-G-B-T-Q. Plus inclusivity. And some people were saying, you know, this is my life. I love Sims. Sims is what I play. Sims is how I deal with, the day-to-day challenges. And I don't feel like I can continue to play it because I don't want to be giving money to a regime that has such dubious, and. Concerning attitudes to, people's human rights. Other people are less concerned. There is obviously an argument that electronic arts has been struggling. We know that they've had quite a few layoffs recently. We also know that the. Latest Dragon age, offering has been largely panned by, the industry and they are not necessarily at the top of their game some people are saying, well, you're taking on a dead horse, basically. How good is that really going to be? There's another argument that says Saudi Arabia is endeavoring to improve its, position on the world stage, resulting in some changes at home and, in their culture within the country. I wanted to see what is your initial response to this? How do you feel about this news and where do you think it might take, not just EA or Saudi Arabia, but also the games industry as a whole?

Alex:

I was quite, disappointed and concerned to read the news, to be honest. I have some familiarity with PIF, the Public Investment Fund because I'm a big tennis fan as listeners to the pod might know. And, they sponsor the A TP World rankings.

Jem:

Mm.

Alex:

So it's the PIF, they sponsor the World Tour Finals. I think they have some involvement there as well. But essentially they're trying to involved in a big way with tennis as a professional sport. It's all part of the bigger sports washing narrative. We've seen it with the Liv Golf tour, with WWE having its biggest, tournament of the year in Saudi Arabia. Buying EA and thinking about the eSports, it's just an extension of that sports washing,

Jem:

Hmm.

Alex:

So yeah, I can definitely see a trend, happening and it's all to sanitize the image of Arabia and draw attention away from the less moral aspects of the regime. That's a big worry, I think, generally, and, it is disheartening to see so many, big sports sell out I know they're offering a lot of money, it is very difficult, obviously. Particularly I think since the pandemic has had a big financial impact the world and people are struggling right now. So the offers must be quite lucrative, it doesn't fill me with good feelings about the moral, what does this mean morally for a lot of things. And, what's the bottom line? What does it dictate? How is it going to control how everything is presented? It's interesting, thinking about what could happen in the future. I certainly think there would be more eSports tournaments taking place in Saudi. More exhibitions, more big Dudley tournaments, that kind of a design to bring in perhaps big names of gaming. They'll be looking at that sort of thing. I think, I was reading an article about. It's spelled QI double DIYA and Gaming District, which is part of the area's entertainment and tourism project in Riyad. And it will become a hub for gaming. So what they're hoping to do is to attract, 10 million visitors a year to its venues by 2030. This is part of their project, 2030 that Saudi Arabia is trying to do's. Getting all of these investments into, kind of, as you say, shore up. Finances in the event it runs out of oil. it's all part of the master plan, known as the National Strategy for Gaming and eSports, which aims to incubate 250 companies, create tens of thousands of jobs and contribute$13.3 billion to the country's GDP according to PIF. So that's what they've got on the PIF website, which is an interesting read. They're definitely looking at eSports.

Jem:

Hmm.

Alex:

yeah, and I think it's interesting because eSports is popular, but not in a way yet. Because of the games that are played during eSports, you've got your very typical stereotypical gamers, young, nerdy young men I don't feel like it's the most inclusive of environments at the moment

Jem:

no.

Alex:

I feel like that will just take that and run with it. I don't see it becoming more inclusive in any way. I dunno how you feel, Matt, about it all.

Matt:

There are no positives to this. The least objectionable thing is still not good because you look at their list of games. The only ones that I cared about are the Bioware ones,

Alex:

Hmm.

Matt:

which is the Dragon Age, salted the earth. Then the next mass effect game is going to be just as annihilating for that franchise. So I'm not even looking forward to what that, that could be all the other staff is the Madden staff mainly. that makes a lot of money. And I heard the way they phrase their monetization strategies is post-release monetization strategies. So they don't care about making a game and selling it. They make the game sell it like with Madden for 70 pounds and then pack it full with unbelievable amounts of micro transactions. another problem with this is I am not an accountant. I don't have billions of dollars to invest in things, unfortunately. This isn't as simple as the private equity firms$55 billion to the ea executives, and then that's that They pay 35 billion dollars. the remaining 20 is actually a loan that is

Jem:

Hmm.

Matt:

It's called Leveraged Buyouts. And apparently this is what happened to Toys R Us and what is, what ruined Toys R Us and the EA is, is taken on 20 billion of debt. And they have to pay that back with interest. So EA is putting itself in a precarious position. Another problem with all of this is the distribution of wealth. It's getting worse. More gets distributed around that level of people. The executives of EA. They're laughing all the way to the bank it's just like the capitalist ruling class now, because you can't have people in charge who have no true stakes involved in the success of what they're working on. There were no executives in these massive corporations like Warner Brothers EA Disney, and Amazon, their entire corporation could disappear like that and then they'd, wouldn't impact them at all. They'd just go, oh, nevermind. And go off with their hundreds of millions of dollars. So they have no incentive otherwise to do anything other than just take the money and then come out with their corporate double-speak. there's this, someone shared the memo that the EA CEO sent out to its employees announcing this deal. It could have been written by an, an AI thing, just say all the corporate platitudes about innovation and excitement and, and opportunities. But clearly this is, not a PR thing. It's a internal memo thing. This is a historic moment and with the support of our new partners, the future we are building together is brighter than ever, then directly after that is the cautionary statement regarding forward looking statements. Bear in mind it says, the future is brighter than ever. Some statements set forth in this communication contain forward looking statements that are subject to change. It is brighter than ever though statements, including words such as anticipate, believe, expect, intend, estimate, plan. Predict seek goal will, may likely could, and the negative of these terms future and similar expressions that predict or indicate future events or trends that are not statements of historical matters may identify forward looking statements

Alex:

Hmm.

Jem:

Hmm.

Alex:

Wow.

Matt:

that is another part of the problem can say. Anything. But then in the small print, they say the absolute opposite of that.

Jem:

Mm-hmm.

Alex:

Hmm.

Matt:

The only thing that is guaranteed is that they get the money,

Jem:

Mm

Matt:

is

Alex:

Hmm.

Matt:

subject to change. Then Saudi Arabia sports washing things, they've got a trillion dollars in this fund, and they show that to everyone and go, you can have a chunk of this. That's why you've got ea It's why you've got the a TP, it's why you've got golf.

Alex:

Hmm,

Matt:

got, football. They're moving into boxing and MMA and they

Alex:

that's all right.

Matt:

had Jason Statham

Alex:

Hmm.

Matt:

with his arm around the prince of the investment fund. And all this money is going to the people who already have fabulous wealth and they just want more of it

Jem:

this is one of the only kind of positives that I think might come outta this is that when something this big happens to something this well known, that's when people start looking below the surface at these things and at how our world is actually. Managed and who is managing it. So do you guys know who currently owns ea?

Alex:

I do not.

Jem:

Oh,

Matt:

No

Jem:

7% is owned by the Vanguard Group. 6% is by BlackRock. Remember that bank that was so involved in 2008? Yeah. Um, then we have State Street corporation. They own 4% and then a big chunk is owned by Morgan Stanley. Fidelity Capital Research, and then you have the EA executives and employees who hold stock options. The large portion of this company is owned by people who are just out to make money. So I'm guessing they were very happy to do this deal, which as you said, Matt includes a 20 billion debt that gifting to ea. I suppose from the perspective of the current. Shareholders. It's like, well, it's not our problem now. But obviously there are, a huge amount of staff and, employees. The new owners are going to have a massive foothold in the industry. I think EA itself holds about, 3.5 to 4% of the global games market. But when you look at AAA games, that jumps up to almost 10% and they have 30% of the sports gaming market. The other thing that I hadn't realized until I was looking into this This isn't the only games, company that they,

Alex:

No, I've, I, I've got a list.

Jem:

yeah. Do you want to share that Alex?

Alex:

Yeah. I was looking this up and was quite surprised to read about it. This is an article I've been reading from polygon.com. the Public Investment Fund acquired Pokemon Go Maker through publisher Scopely and its Savvy Games Group, snapped up the Evolution Championship series. Through The Investment company, which is owned by the PIF Savvy Games, also owns ESL Faceit Group, which merged two major eSports organizers and has invested billions to acquire stakes in companies like Activision Blizzard, Capcom Embracer Group. Nintendo two, interactive, and also ends fighting game maker SMK. And some in the ga in the gaming community believe that the content has been influenced by their most recent game, Fury, city of the Wolves, which I don't know and haven't looked into, but, interesting to find out what they've been saying. Definitely.

Jem:

mm.

Alex:

So it's got lots of fingers in lots of gaming pies

Jem:

Hmm.

Alex:

yes.

Matt:

One of the critical problems is on the first page of every single interaction that Saudi Arabia, that this public investment fund has in anyone that it wants to give money to is a non-disparagement agreement,

Jem:

Hmm.

Matt:

that you cannot, and there is no more vague word than disparage, you can't say anything that might possibly be construed as maybe negative against

Jem:

Hmm.

Matt:

Which means that's why everything is the positive side of what it could be. We don't talk about murdering and cutting up the bodies of dissident journalists. We don't talk about disappearing people. so it's that sanitizing voice they all speak every time you read any, any statement from the a TP. The, the soccer players, the gaming people, the boxing people, they all speak with that same voice of neutral positivity going, oh, it's good. And the future looks bright. One of the former Bioware writers said they're gonna take away any sign of LGBT people. These nations with global, global outreach now, where they know that LGB people exist and they have human rights in lots of countries so the cat's outta the bag with that. But in their own nations, part of their control is making it seem like LGBT people don't exist. And that if anyone has any feelings like that, it's an aberration. It's that they're sick. And so when it comes to games, just like with films and tv, when the producer wants to sell that to the country and release it in the country, they send a list of things you can't have any gay people in this. you go, oh, why? Because it's socially disruptive when it just means we can't show our people, gay people, because that's part of our control system. And so that means that any. EA game now is just going to not have them in. It's not gonna go, oh, we're not against LGBT people. We're just gonna make it seem like they don't exist.

Jem:

Hmm.

Matt:

And the only way to beat this kind of thing is. Because what all these people who are selling out to them could do is say, right, if you want me, if you want Kovich, Nadal, or Federer, you want the biggest names in these things, these legacy names in the contract. You have to these certain amount of rights to some people. Have that as part of the deal but the only way that could inoculate ourselves against being able to be bought by like Saudi Arabia is things like women's team sport because with the rugby. And the soccer teams, it's getting more and more popular. Those teams are just saturated with LGBT people. The extent to which LGBT people are, central to organizations means that they can't be bought. Because they're all out, they're all in relationships. They're all over social media. You can't just sense them outta things like you can with games but yeah, every time places sell out to that, they're telling, every gay person every lesbian person. That if you weren't allowed to exist, I wouldn't care.

Jem:

Back in 2024, there was a leaked draft of, a penal code they were writing and Amnesty, international took a look at it and found that, far from liberalizing, because that's one of the things I was talking about earlier. Are they actually liberalizing? Is this actually a sign of a positive movement towards a more, um, liberal, position? But the evidence sadly points to the fact that that's not the case. This report backs that up they're looking to codify, their repressive practices such as, criminalizing insulting the judiciary, same sex acts and abortion. There's a quote here from, amnesty International from the Secretary General Agnes Callard, who says, as it stands, the draft codes shatters the illusion that the Crown Prince is pursuing a truly reformist. Agenda. The draft code doesn't allow for the criminal prosecution of individuals who commit acts in the name of honor, which can include assault or murder, and is obviously something that women and girls experience. More in, Saudi Arabia. They also are codifying the use of the death penalty. There's been a surge in ES executions and, the Crown Prince Mohammed bin Sal salmons, rule, including the largest mass executions in recent decades. There was 81 people. Executed in March, 2022. So, yeah, there's not a lot of evidence that there is cultural change going hand in hand with this, movement into the, wider world. I just wanted to touch on the. Fact that Jared Kushner is involved in this and he is related to Trump there is a lot in the news about Trump's, increasing, relationship with, Saudi Arabia. I just wondered if you had any thoughts about. That.

Alex:

Well, I think it is a kind of inevitability really, that it would all be connected. All these people are helping each other out. They're the ones pulling the strings a lot of the time, unfortunately, in the world as it is right now. I'm afraid. Yeah, that's kind of sums up my thought. I'm not surprised, even though I didn't know about the connection. But now that you've said it, I'm not surprised at all.

Matt:

Yeah, they literally just, they're by people, and some people it's simply just go, we'll give you some money to come in. Come and take some photos with our people and say, you're having a great time, future looks bright. And then some people that Donald Trump's going, we just give his family a little bit of money and he'll do literally whatever we want. We don't have to be subtle with him. We give them a few billion

Alex:

Okay.

Matt:

They did this in Trump's first term. American politics work like that. You can give unlimited amounts of money to, elected people. They do it for money anyway.

Jem:

Hmm.

Matt:

just much more extreme with Trump'cause he's such a lunatic narcissist. And so yeah, it's just more power. for Trump going in the wrong way, and

Jem:

Mm.

Matt:

Can't they just leave gaming alone?

Alex:

Hmm. I just wanted to add, I found out what they've done to that fighting game.

Jem:

Yeah.

Alex:

It was published in April, earlier this year, Fatal Fury, a beloved 2D fighting game series hadn't seen a new entry since 1999. The excitement for this new game turned to bewilderment when the company revealed last month that global soccer star Christiano Re, would be a playable character, joined days later by Salvatore Ganache, a Bosnian Swedish dj. This is more than a way to sell a single video game. It's also the fruit of Saudi Arabia's efforts to invest in sports and entertainment through it's a nonprofit organization, the MISK Foundation. Founded by Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Saman. Saudi Arabia now owns 96% of SA and k Ronaldo plays for a Saudi pro league soccer team owned by the Saudi Royal family. And GCI has performed at Saudi sporting events. So that kind of draws a nice little

Jem:

Yep.

Alex:

doesn't it?

Matt:

Yeah.

Alex:

So it all joins up and it illustrates that everyone's just helping each other out and all the money is going back to them they're trying to do it to get more people to play that fighting game. I mean, it's not odd for them'cause it makes sense for them. But who'd have thought Christiano Ronaldo under Swedish. Dj odd combination for a fighting game. if that's a sign

Jem:

Yeah.

Alex:

to come, who knows what shape EA will take

Jem:

Mm

Alex:

in the future.

Jem:

mm Well, I think that's, about as positive and end as we can bring it to at this point. We'll obviously come back to this and, follow the story and see what happens. I think overall it's a no from us. Anyway, we just wanted to bring you this, as a bit of a breaking story because it's very close to our hearts and we know it's close to many of our listeners' hearts. Let us know your thoughts and we'll see you every Thursday thank you both and bye.