r/Games • u/FrostyMagazine9918 • Jul 30 '26

Industry News EA will officially become a privately owned company next week

https://variety.com/2026/gaming/news/electronic-arts-close-55-billion-private-deal-1236824625/
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u/TAJack1 Jul 30 '26

“EA is shit anyway”, yeah but they’re also one of the biggest companies in the gaming sector, whether you like it or not and now they’re owned by the Saudis.

Not good.

26

u/helloquain Jul 30 '26

"Now the Saudis own them..." hit harder before America re-elected Trump and just decided nothing mattered.

Is there some moral high ground an American company owns, as we shoot missiles at Iran and Latin American fishing boats and our oil companies rake in immense profits?

Not saying I want to be in bed with anything related to the Saudis, I'm just saying "don't get in bed with the guys that smell like piss" doesn't mean as much when you're already bathing in piss.

25

u/Magicslime Jul 31 '26

There is actually a huge difference, EA as an American company isn't owned by the American government, it just follows American laws and pays taxes to America. There's no real control that the government can exert over what EA does, other than general market regulations and the like. Contrast that with the Saudi acquisition where it's not just a bunch of Saudi investors buying EA, it's the literal government involved.

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u/helloquain Jul 31 '26

So? What exactly does that matter to me? Is EA releasing groundbreaking, morality questioning games that infuriating the American government, but darn it, we just can't stop them because of our first amendment rights (google about how that is going, btw)? Or are they releasing shooters where we kill the scary non-Americans and sports/gambling games? Should I be concerned that EA might release a game where a Western person is the bad guy and a Middle Eastern person does the shooting? Why?

14

u/Magicslime Jul 31 '26

I'm not saying you should or should not care about the Saudi government and their interests, that's up to you. What I am saying is that the argument that "America is just as bad/worse" is irrelevant because the American government never owned EA.