Author photo, Reuters
Electronic Arts (EA), one of the world’s largest gaming companies, has agreed a deal to sell the company for $55bn.
The agreement was brokered by a consortium including Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund (PIF), Silver Lake and Affinity Partners, which is run by Jared Kushner, son-in-law of US President Donald Trump.
EA is known for developing and publishing best-selling games such as EA FC (formerly FIFA), The Sims and Mass Effect.
If completed, it would be the largest leveraged buyout of a company in history.
As a result of the deal, EA will become a private company, meaning all of its public shares will be bought out and it will no longer be publicly traded.
The deal price is 25% above the company’s market value, EA shares were valued at $210 per unit.
This purchase will be a significant achievement for Saudi Arabia on the stock exchange.
The Saudi fund (PIF) founded Savvy Games Group to pursue a $38 billion investment programme in the gaming industry.
The fund’s interest in video games is part of the kingdom’s broader strategy to invest in sports, including backing LIV Golf, a PGA Tour rival, a share of professional fighters in the League and major investments in football both inside and outside the country, the New York Times reports.
The investments in both of these areas, in turn, are part of Saudi Arabia’s Vision 2030 plan to reduce the economy’s dependence on the oil sector.
The plan has been repeatedly criticised by human rights activists.
In January 2024, the international human rights organisation Human Rights Watch accused Riyadh of a sports resto, which the organisation said manifests itself in the laundering of the government’s reputation through large 0:12)Debt-ridden European football risks becoming a well-paid puppet of the Saudi propaganda machine, bolstering the government’s confidence that its position on the world stage will not be jeopardised as long as it continues to invest in activities that distract us from its blatant violations of human rights
September also saw criticism of the first Riyadh Comedy Festival, which ran from 26 September to 9 October. It presented a stellar line-up of international comedians, including Aziz Ansari, Pete Davidson, Jimmy Carr, Louis S.
K., under the banner of creating “the world’s greatest comedy festival.”
In a press release last week, Human Rights Watch said the Saudi government ala Artists “publicly call on Saudi authorities to release unjustly imprisoned dissidents, journalists and human rights activists.”
The organisation also noted that some of the events coincide with the seventh anniversary of the murder of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi.
A 2019 UN report said “the state of Saudi Arabia is responsible” for the death of the journalist, who had criticised the country’s government.
Saudi Arabia has always denied the accusation.
EA has epitomised the gaming industry for over 40 years. During that time, the company has produced some of the most famous game series in history. Its football games, now known as EA FC, have sold 325 million copies since they were first released in 1993.
Sales of The Sims have topped 200 million copies and Need For Speed sales have topped 150 Ignore the approval of the U.S. Committee on Foreign Investment, a group of government agencies that scrutinise international agreements for threats to national security.
Some lawmakers have previously called for a more thorough review of the Saudi fund’s investment in sports for security reasons.
“People rarely associate video games with national security, but these are platforms that reach millions of Americans and often collect large amounts of personal data,” Aaron Bartnick, a former Biden administration official who has analysed foreign investments from a security perspective and is now a researcher at Columbia University, told the New York Times.
The Trump administration has a cordial relationship with the Saudi government, and the Public Investment Fund (PIF) owns one building of the new Trump Plaza shopping and residential complex in Saudi Arabia’s second-largest city. The $1 billion project will be the second Trump-branded facility in Saudi Arabia, following the launch of Trump Tower in Jeddah last December.
In 2021, Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund (PIF) established Savvy Games Group to pursue a $38 billion investment programme in the gaming industry.
In March 2025, the country’s investment fund paid $3.5 billion to buy the gaming division of Niantic, gaining control of the popular mobile game Pokémon Go. That acquisition became part of Scopely Inc, the developer of Monopoly Go, which in turn was acquired by Savvy Games Group for $4.9bn in 2023.
Saudi Arabia has made a strong name for itself in the cybersports industry, having organised big ones like Nintendo and Take-Two Interactive, but the purchase of EA significantly expands its influence.
Why Saudi Arabia needs it
The deal to buy EA would be another win for Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, who, as Bloomberg writes, is known for his love of video games and especially Microsoft’s Call of Duty.
He controls Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund (PIF), which has hundreds of billions of dollars in oil wealth.
However, the prince’s love of video games is not the only reason for the country’s growing financial interest in the gaming industry.
Between 2023 and 2025, Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund is focusing its investment strategy on increasing its share of investments in American gaming companies.
Saudi Arabia is clearly betting that U.S. gaming companies article on Substack.
“The Public Investment Fund (PIF) strategy is simple: invest huge amounts of money to establish market dominance. Given the Saudi government’s almost limitless resources, this is actually a perfectly credible plan,” Van Drunen writes.