UPDATE: The deal has been confirmed. PIF, Silver Lake, and Affinity Partners are spending $55 billion to buy EA. The press release is full of the usual business speak about what a great partnership this is and the growth opportunities it presents. The Financial Times has a different angle on the acquisition, suggesting AI will play a huge part.

“The deal is a huge bet that artificial intelligence can significantly cut EA’s operating costs, allowing the equity consortium to manage a large debt load on a company that historically carried limited net debt.AI is already widely used across Silicon Valley to accelerate many kinds of computer programming. In games development, it can be used to replace voice actors and create backdrops and other assets, as well as automating play testing to avoid bugs before release,” reports the FT.

“The investors are betting that AI-based cost cuts will significantly boost EA’s profits in coming years, people involved in the transaction told the Financial Times.”

Original story below…

Your choices for ethical gaming are getting slimmer by the day as it looks like EA is the next big video game firm to be swallowed up by the gigantic Silver Lake Management, which is Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund. Also taking a stake will be Jared Kushner’s Affinity Partners, you may recognise that name as he is Trump’s son-in-law.

News of the takeover surfaced Friday afternoon, causing EA shares to surge 15%, valuing the company at around  $48 billion. Nothing has been finalised as of yet but the deal could be announced as early as next week and would be one of the biggest industry takeovers of the year.

Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund already owns 10% of Electronic Arts and  all of Niantic., It also has stakes in Riot Games, Activision Blizzard, Nintendo, Take Two, Capcom, Embracer, Nexon, and Koei Tecmo. The fund has earmarked $38 billion to be invested in video game companies. 

Electronic Arts had a poor start to the year as sales of their annual football game were lower than expected, but things have bounced back with “better-than-expected contributions” across its portfolio. The general consensus from previews is that their next game, Battlefield 6, is going to be very good and should sell well.

Hands on Battlefield 6 – So, are we back?

Source: Yahoo