this post was submitted on 29 Sep 2025
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In a deal involving a company owned by Jared Kushner, a company that is basically just the Saudis, and $20B of debt.

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[–] FlashMobOfOne@lemmy.world 265 points 5 days ago (2 children)

Just when you think EA can't get any shittier, they find another way to lower the bar.

[–] p03locke@lemmy.dbzer0.com 144 points 5 days ago (3 children)

Going private could have been a net positive. But, not from venture capitalists, and certainly not from the Saudis.

Also, taking on this much debt as part of the buyout is just asking to be gutted and carved out, complete with record-breaking layoffs.

[–] lordnikon@lemmy.world 59 points 5 days ago

Toys R Us anyone?

[–] arudesalad@piefed.ca 25 points 5 days ago (2 children)

So we won't even get a shitty titanfall 3?

[–] RepleteLocum@lemmy.blahaj.zone 30 points 5 days ago (2 children)

Titanfall is cooked. They’re 100% killing the servers. I guess we’ll have to go back to the northstar client.

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[–] CosmoNova@lemmy.world 47 points 5 days ago

EA 0.00052 seconds after hearing Nintendo is the worst game company…

[–] mohab@piefed.social 226 points 5 days ago (9 children)

Saudi owning FIFA is hilarious seeing most of its profit comes from gambling. Muslims my ass 😂 Not that they ever practiced what they preached anyway—Islam or not, religion has always been nothing but a tool of oppression to rulers.

[–] sdcSpade@lemmy.zip 62 points 5 days ago (4 children)

Instead of lootboxes, you cut open journalists to get your prizes.

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[–] brucethemoose@lemmy.world 34 points 5 days ago (1 children)

It would be interesting if EA pulled away from lootboxes for their owner's ideological reasons.

[–] sundray@lemmus.org 22 points 5 days ago (1 children)

You can bet they'll pull away from LGBTQ+ representation.

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[–] False@lemmy.world 20 points 5 days ago

Maybe they'll remove the gambling. Probably not but it would be good if they did.

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[–] JakenVeina@midwest.social 82 points 5 days ago (3 children)

Oh, cool, another buyout where the buyer doesn't have to actually pay for it, they just take out a loan and magically make the company pay for it.

[–] Bronzebeard@lemmy.zip 14 points 4 days ago (1 children)

This shit needs to be made illegal. All it does is kill off businesses. Sears and JoAnn Fabrics both died to this trash.

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[–] Konraddo@lemmy.world 20 points 5 days ago

Basically Tesla, oof

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[–] Pronell@lemmy.world 99 points 5 days ago (2 children)

I was already not buying their crap.

Now I can do so gleefully.

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[–] daggermoon@lemmy.world 45 points 5 days ago (1 children)

Y'all shouldn't be buying EA games anyway.

[–] mic_check_one_two@lemmy.dbzer0.com 28 points 5 days ago (25 children)

At this point, I see pirating The Sims as a moral imperative. There’s no reason the full game should be ~$1500.

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[–] zewm@lemmy.world 71 points 5 days ago

E A Sports. It’s in the shame!

[–] EldenLord@lemmy.world 56 points 5 days ago (1 children)
[–] NikkiDimes@lemmy.world 15 points 5 days ago (1 children)

If we're lucky, they'll do a Toys-R-Us and make EA fund it's own buyout.

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[–] expatriado@lemmy.world 63 points 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago) (1 children)

going private with debt is a sign of upcoming bankruptcy, possibly dissolution. but with Kushner and the Saudis, probably more a sign of money laundering

[–] someguy3@lemmy.world 23 points 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago)

Nah the Saudis are desperate to diversify. And they have the money to do it. I know it's leveraged but they'll see it through.

[–] thatKamGuy@sh.itjust.works 29 points 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago) (1 children)

EA has basically been dead to me for a very long time, even though I know a couple of people who work there.

While the whole Saudi Arabia / Private Equity angle is terrible, part of me thinks/hopes/wishes that this is part of their whole sports-washing angle - and there is a slim but non-0 chance that there will be an improvement in the quality of their studio output over the next few years.

I’ll continue to avoid buying their games, but it would be nice to see those that still do not getting nickel-and-dimed as hard as they currently are.

Who knows, there is also the potential that this buyout backfires and Saudi’s human rights abuses become even more public knowledge as a result?

When times are as bad as they currently are, we have to hope.

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[–] ChaoticEntropy@feddit.uk 39 points 5 days ago (1 children)

I couldn't be ​more ​excited about ​what's ​ahead,” said Jared Kushner, Chief Executive Officer of Affinity Partners.

Because it just wouldn't be a story without a Trump family angle.

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[–] DarrinBrunner@lemmy.world 17 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago)

Good riddance. I hope by "private" they mean we won't hear from them again--they're a very private company, they keep to themselves, and never say anything. That sort of private.

(I know that's not what it means)

[–] MHLoppy@fedia.io 44 points 5 days ago (3 children)

This is a genuine question and not a passive aggressive one: why make the submission a link to a social media post when that post is mostly just a link to a news site anyway? (you could include link to or even quote the commentary either in the submission body or a comment if you think it's a valuable addition)

edit: has since been answered in another comment orz, I opened this and then was talking to people for a while before commenting

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[–] ABetterTomorrow@sh.itjust.works 37 points 5 days ago

Huge fucking yikes on the privacy side of things, if you didn’t learn from the other 100 negatives about this company…. Enjoy fucking yourself and the world. Stop feeding evil.

[–] Bluefalcon@discuss.tchncs.de 40 points 5 days ago

The new FIFA will be crazy. To celebrate a goal, you can now kill and dismember a sideline reporter.

[–] mrfriki@lemmy.world 32 points 5 days ago (1 children)

I’m surprised that there isn’t any government organization that controls or oversees this kind of buyout, especially when so many billions are involved.

[–] ampersandrew@lemmy.world 51 points 5 days ago (1 children)

There is, but do you know who Jared Kushner is?

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[–] Reygle@lemmy.world 13 points 4 days ago (1 children)

And the worst get worst-er

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[–] PalmTreeIsBestTree@lemmy.world 30 points 5 days ago (4 children)

Guess I am not playing Battlefield 6 then…

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[–] Tigeroovy@lemmy.ca 23 points 5 days ago

Just when you thought EA couldn’t suck worse they find a way!

[–] dependencyinjection@discuss.tchncs.de 8 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago) (3 children)

Hopefully it’s a leveraged buyout and this is the death of EA.

Edit: Haha I clicked the link and it really is an LBO.

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[–] ChaoticEntropy@feddit.uk 22 points 5 days ago (3 children)

Holy shit, that is a lot of debt... EA is going to be absolutely gutted. I imagine the ones gutting it will be paid generously for the trouble though.

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[–] Sam_Bass@lemmy.world 9 points 4 days ago

Couldn't happen to a nicer company

[–] Kelcho@lemmy.zip 18 points 5 days ago (1 children)

Truly sad times

Not because of EA, but because of the private equity shit. They want to control everything

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[–] vga@sopuli.xyz 10 points 4 days ago (7 children)

Is this better or worse than being a public company?

[–] Bronzebeard@lemmy.zip 29 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago)

This specific instance? Worse.

It's being bought by blood money (Kushner's $2billion investment/bribe to hush up the US government about the brutal murder of a US resident journalist at the hands of the Saudis). Plus a country that somehow is even more squeamish about content than the US is in charge - look forward to way more censorship.

[–] kadu@scribe.disroot.org 13 points 4 days ago (6 children)

Reddit, and by extension Lemmy, have this infatuated vision of how private companies are actually great for customers because whenever somebody asks about Steam the explanation given is that if this were a publicly traded company it would be horrendous but because it's private everything is perfect and there are rainbows inside their offices.

The truth is EA will be just as aggressively profit driven as it already is, the new owners will try to reduce costs just like always, and IPs that sell more will continue to be prioritized just like before.

[–] boonhet@sopuli.xyz 6 points 4 days ago

Essentially a private company can be owned by a dickhead, or a nice person who's not all about profitmaxing. A publicly traded company is forced to maximize shareholder value.

Valve as a publicly traded company would quickly become another EA/Microsoft/Whatever, because it's only the next quarter that matters. Valve under GabeN has been built to bring in large, and yet sustainable profits.

EA's new owners are going to be the absolute worst. So it's going to be a worse company than before.

Consider that Erik Prince's murder-for-hire company is private. So is Xitter now that Melon bought it.

So it's not that private companies are better, but rather that they have the capacity to be better. And it all depends on the owners.

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[–] flemtone@lemmy.world 11 points 5 days ago

I gave up on EA a long time back, and them not making Alice: Asylum was the final nail in their coffin.

[–] simple@piefed.social 23 points 5 days ago (9 children)

Huh.

So who's betting that EA dissolves over the next few years and they start passing their IPs around to other companies? Not sure how I feel about this because on one hand it could end with EA in the gutter and their dead franchises in the hands of companies that still know how to make games

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[–] SkunkWorkz@lemmy.world 21 points 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago)

Mmmhhh, The FIA president, an Emirati, recently consolidated all power and made himself dictator of the association. Now the Saudis bought EA, the publisher that releases the F1 game. Bet the next thing to happen is a Qatari will buy Formula One, the current owner has already stated that he is willing to sell for the right offer.

[–] kadaverin0@lemmy.dbzer0.com 16 points 5 days ago (1 children)

I haven't bought an EA game since Mass Effect 3. This is just one more reason to never give them my money.

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[–] desmosthenes@lemmy.world 15 points 5 days ago (1 children)

they don’t make good games anymore anyway

[–] Duamerthrax@lemmy.world 12 points 5 days ago (7 children)

They've never made good games. They sometimes allowed one of their devs to make a good game when they weren't looking, but no one is perfect.

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[–] NoodlePoint@lemmy.world 8 points 4 days ago

Sail the high seas.

[–] ghosthacked@lemmy.wtf 6 points 4 days ago (1 children)

For a preview of what happens, look at the embracer buyouts. This is essentially a funeral

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