Video game publishing giant Electronic Arts (EA), known for its annualised sports titles like “NHL,” “Madden NFL” and “EA Sports FC” to its game franchises like “Battlefield,” “Need for Speed,” “The Sims,” “Dragon Age” and “Mass Effect,” is reportedly in advanced talks to go private.
According to The Wall Street Journal (via Reuters), a group of investors including private equity firm Silver Lake, Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund and Jared Kushner’s Affinity Partners are looking to unveil a deal that would be the largest ever leveraged buyout in history.
The deal’s valuation comes in at roughly $50 billion according to sources and could be unveiled as soon as next week.
The offer comes at a crucial time for EA, which needs its “Battlefield 6” and “FC 26” titles to perform well as gamers have become a lot more picky with their spending on video games and more aware and wary of microtransactions and other money-making tricks.
That said, EA’s annualised titles have their audience and make for predictable revenue/profitability, which makes for a desirable acquisition target. The global success of the soccer “FC” titles in particular is being seen as a big draw.
EA also is fairly famous for the criticism lobbed at it over the years, officially dubbed the worst company in America at one time. Controversies have ranged from loot boxes and aggressive microtransactions, to overworking employees, buying up and then closing smaller talented game studios, and poor reviews for games – the sports titles often slammed for boasting just minor iterative changes.
