The EA leveraged buyout acquisition raises a few questions, in my opinion

Great Debates
1

Jared Kushner, Saudi Arabia Team Up To Buy Video Game Developer For $55 Billion | HuffPost Impact

It is the largest leveraged buyout in history, Silver Lake Partners, Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund PIF, and Affinity Partners will pay EA’s stockholders $210 per share (about 25% higher than the price before news of the acquisition). Affinity Partners is run by President Donald Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner. The company was floundering recently so I am wondering what is really going on here.

2

Probably more sportswashing using the FIFA series. Saudi Arabia did a bunch of esports recently as well.

3

JFC, $210 a share! I sold a bunch of EA about ten years ago for around $67! That represented a tidy little profit but holy cow, if I had just held on!

4

I smell a massive sell-off of assets in the near future, and if anybody has any EA games on Steam I think they should do their best to acquire full versions of those games.

5

That and more friendly content.

6

I’m concerned that the Mass Effect and The Sims series will become less inclusive.

In Mass Effect, you can have homosexual romance, and you can even choose your own pronouns in the latest Sims games.

7

Honestly I’d be amazed if Mass Effect even continues to exist in a recognizable form. Private-equity acquisitions almost always lead to the stripping-out of unstable assets. EA will likely shrink to a roster of stable and reliable earners like sports titles, online shooters, and anything else that’s supported quarter-after-quarter by in-game purchases. BioWare has been a troubled studio for years and there’s a better-than-even chance that EA guts it or dumps it off entirely.

Regarding the motivation for the buyout more generally, Saudi Arabia has spent the last few years using its wealth to buy influence in various institutions and cultural spheres that up to now have been resolutely Western. See also its golf tournaments, involvement in F1, and, most recently, the Riyadh comedy festival, whose announced headliners are being roasted by comics with a moral spine.

8

I am no fan of EA at all. As a PC gamer I view them as the Eye of Sauron looming over the PC gaming landscape.

That said, I have never seen a leveraged buyout like this work out. The buyers are there to loot to company and sell the bones. They are never there to make a better product.

As said above, I am no fan of EA. I fucking hate them and the damage they’ve done to PC gaming which I love. But, as much as I hate them, I think this is worse for us as consumers. What was bad likely just got awful. I will not buy a game from them for years till I see how this settles out. (because now you never own a game…you have a license to use it which can be removed at any time)