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submitted 2 months ago by ampersandrew@lemmy.world to c/games@lemmy.world

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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[-] JakenVeina@midwest.social 23 points 2 months ago

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.

[-] Konraddo@lemmy.world 9 points 2 months ago

Basically Tesla, oof

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[-] FlashMobOfOne@lemmy.world 21 points 2 months ago

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

[-] p03locke@lemmy.dbzer0.com 12 points 2 months ago

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 8 points 2 months ago

Toys R Us anyone?

[-] arudesalad@piefed.ca 2 points 2 months ago

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

[-] RepleteLocum@lemmy.blahaj.zone 3 points 2 months ago

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

[-] thatKamGuy@sh.itjust.works 16 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

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.

[-] mohab@piefed.social 14 points 2 months ago

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 9 points 2 months ago

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

[-] criss_cross@lemmy.world 1 points 2 months ago

What are the odds of getting the golden jet in your ultimate team?

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[-] andros_rex@lemmy.world 2 points 2 months ago

The only part of the religion that matters is the part that lets them treat women as sex slaves anyways.

[-] brucethemoose@lemmy.world 1 points 2 months ago

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

[-] sundray@lemmus.org 2 points 2 months ago

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

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[-] daggermoon@lemmy.world 6 points 2 months ago

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

[-] mic_check_one_two@lemmy.dbzer0.com 5 points 2 months ago

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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[-] Pronell@lemmy.world 5 points 2 months ago

I was already not buying their crap.

Now I can do so gleefully.

[-] Krompus@lemmy.world 1 points 2 months ago

I set EA to Ignore on Steam two years ago. Ubisoft too.

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[-] ChaoticEntropy@feddit.uk 4 points 2 months ago

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.

[-] echodot@feddit.uk 3 points 2 months ago

It saves so much time for him to be buying a failed company. It cuts out all the leg work he has to do.

If a company bought EA it would make sense if they were buying it for the IP. Someone who actually knows how to run a business could probably turn it around, but why is he buying it does he have another game studio that I'm not aware of?

[-] HugeNerd@lemmy.ca 3 points 2 months ago

Wait, can I still play Skate or Die! on my Commodore 64?

[-] MHLoppy@fedia.io 2 points 2 months ago

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

[-] architect@thelemmy.club 2 points 2 months ago

Surely gamers will find it within themselves once in their lives to actually not buy garbage from a country that doesn’t even want them alive. Surely gamers, even though they’ve never been able to find it with themselves before, will somehow figure out how to do the right thing for once in their lives And not fund this shit country.

Surely this is the line in the sand.

Who the fuck am I kidding?

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[-] zewm@lemmy.world 2 points 2 months ago

E A Sports. It’s in the shame!

[-] taiyang@lemmy.world 2 points 2 months ago

I was thinking about this deal and... I guess it makes sense the Saudis want in on the gaming industry. I recall a long while ago an old article about the industry (probably second hand via Polygon) that noted just how much Saudis whale on mobile and loot box games. It was so disproportionate, their nobility was like 2% of a mobile title's revenue... literally just a few big families.

So my thinking is, EA, being the kind of shitty company it is, is actually probably pretty popular among Saudi nobility. That and FIFA, of course


imagine pay to win when you have infinite money.

[-] ceiphas@feddit.org 2 points 2 months ago

They lost the FIFA games...

[-] DacoTaco@lemmy.world 2 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

"Lost".
They lost the fifa name, but fc is basically the same, and it still has all the players and club's in it soooo... Its just a name change sadly

[-] Bluefalcon@discuss.tchncs.de 2 points 2 months ago

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

[-] RampantParanoia2365@lemmy.world 1 points 2 months ago

The idea of playing a new Mass Effect owned by Jared Kushner.

[-] vane@lemmy.world 1 points 2 months ago

Take Two is next.

[-] Kelcho@lemmy.zip 1 points 2 months ago

Truly sad times

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

[-] mrfriki@lemmy.world 1 points 2 months ago

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 1 points 2 months ago

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

[-] SkunkWorkz@lemmy.world 1 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months 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.

[-] EldenLord@lemmy.world 1 points 2 months ago
[-] NikkiDimes@lemmy.world 1 points 2 months ago

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

[-] villainy@lemmy.world 1 points 2 months ago

This is exactly what happened. To the tune of $20 billion.

The EA studio slaughterhouse is about to go into overdrive.

[-] ChaoticEntropy@feddit.uk 1 points 2 months ago

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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[-] hedgehogging_the_bed@lemmy.world 1 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

Could it be that these guys are going to "Where are we going, Papa EA?" them in a few years?

(Can't find a link to the referenced comic on my phone but basically EA is known for buying up smaller studios and then closing them only a few years later after sucking them dry. This led to a comic of them taking little unsuspecting companies into the dark woods to end them.)

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this post was submitted on 29 Sep 2025
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