The rumored leveraged buyout of Electronic Arts manifested this week as it was confirmed Saudi Arabia’s PIF, Silver Lake, and Affinity Partners were going to acquire the company for $55 billion, effectively taking it private when the deal closes in Q1 2027.
The announcement quickly sent ripples through the entire video games industry, with most analysts, developers, and journalists expecting even more layoffs across the publishers as EA tries to keep up with the $20 billion debt (plus interest). Now, we have ex-BioWare executive producer Mark Darrah, who’s just launched the action-RPG Eternal Strands at Yellow Brick Games earlier this year to moderate success.
Darrah has been openly talking in depth about his time at EA and BioWare and what the future might hold on YouTube, so it’s not a surprise to see him quickly addressing the news that everyone is talking about. You can watch his entire video on the subject below:
Unsurprisingly, he reckons EA Sports will be “very safe” as the entire organization faces an uncertain future. That branch of the company makes up almost a third of its entire current yearly revenue, and Saudi Arabia’s PIF probably sees it as the crown jewel of the acquisition and a potentially fantastic PR machine: “It’s hard to imagine that acquiring a $55 billion media company, which is ultimately what EA is, won’t play into that effort, won’t be used in some way to further their own political goals in terms of public perception of the country.”
As for Respawn Entertainment, that studio has been “a consistent cash revenue source” with Apex Legends, yet future Star Wars collaborations might be in question. When it comes to EA’s massive bet on Battlefield under the Battlefield Studios umbrella, Darrah simply states: “I guess we will see what happens with Battlefield 6.”
“The groups working on the Marvel games and, of course, BioWare are, I think, going to be in a different position,” Darrah notes before explaining they might not fit the structure EA’s new owners are gunning for nor the values they might want to quietly push. “It’s hard to imagine that you have BioWare pivot from having very progressive messaging to having the reverse, because it’s what the government wants. It’s hard to imagine that the public perception of a game that comes out of BioWare, even if you do that, isn’t apocalyptically bad,” he adds.
This line of thinking may also affect the teams behind The Sims, a series that’s been doubling down on inclusion and progressive values for years now. At the same time, The Sims (even without a fifth entry on the horizon) continues to be a big money-maker at EA, so the new owners might look the other way as long as it’s helping the overall business.
While Darrah isn’t entirely sure about the fate which awaits the more vulnerable EA Entertainment studios (we’re hoping for sales here if they have to go), he believes the dustier IPs could become quick and easy money if they’re given away: “EA has a huge repository of dormant IPs that are just sitting there dormant. It seems unlikely that the new resulting structure is going to be eager to suddenly revive a bunch of those IPs. So, one option might be to sell the whole lot of them for $100 million if you could get it, because $100 million can come off the debt.”
At the same time, he posits the new overlords might just be looking to sell the entirety of EA Entertainment to a gaming giant like Sony while keeping EA Sports for themselves: “It is conceivable that EA’s new structure was intentionally conceived with this action in mind. Or you could imagine that what happens is this new [owning group] plucks all the parts it wants out of EA Entertainment and then sells off whatever is left over.”
Last but not least, and on the most optimistic side of the scale, EA going private could be positive for such studios should the powers that be choose to keep them around. Without the pressure of shareholders, “if they want to see a studio go dark for 25 years in order to investigate some sort of radical new way to develop games, they can do that.” Just look at how Valve has been running its business by staying private, for example.
Whatever happens next at EA, it’s clear everyone should be prepared for more layoffs and even studio closures even if there are some small positives on the horizon. It’s hard to predict how the new ‘captains’ will choose to command that massive ship, and the new EA will be facing a lot of pressure after the deal goes through.
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