The acquisition of Electronic Arts (EA) for $55 billion by the consortium comprising Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund, Silver Lake, and Affinity Partners is one of the biggest news stories this week. The deal came with $20 billion in debt financing directly hanging over EA.
In a recent video, ex-BioWare producer Mark Darrah, who left the studio in 2022, talked about how EA could turn to its portfolio of dormant studios and IPs to cover the debt. Whatever the case may be, it is not looking good for BioWare employees.
“EA has a huge repository of dormant IPs that are just sitting there,” Darrah said in the interview. “It seems unlikely that the new resulting structure is going to be eager to suddenly revive a bunch of those IPs. One option might be to sell the whole lot of them for $100 million if you could get it, because $100 million can come off the debt.”
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One studio that is at high risk of being sold is BioWare. The employees echoed the uncertainty about the studio’s future in a recent publication. Earlier this year, the studio’s headcount was cut by 50%. Other ways EA could raise money to cover the debt are through higher prices and aggressive monetization.
Another reason why Darrah believes BioWare might be sold is because of the LGBTQ theme they explore in their games, as found in Mass Effect and Dragon Age. This theme doesn’t seem to align with the new owners, especially Saudi Arabia’s PIF.
“The groups working on the Marvel games and, of course, BioWare are, I think, going to be in a different position,” Darrah said.
“It’s hard to imagine that you have BioWare pivot from having very progressive messaging to having the reverse, because it’s what the government wants. It’s hard to imagine that the public perception of a game that comes out of BioWare, even if you do that, isn’t apocalyptically bad.”
The EA acquisition deal is not expected to be completed until Q1 2027. Everyone will be watching closely to see the first move the new owners will make, which will help predict the direction the company will go.
