Saudi Arabia's acquisition of Electronic Arts faces pushback from game developers, petition calls on FTC to 'scrutinize this deal closely'

The $55 billion acquisition of Electronic Arts by Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund and private equity firms is facing more pushback, as the United Videogame Workers-CWA union has put out a statement calling on regulators and lawmakers to "ensure that any path forward protects jobs, preserves creative freedom, and keeps decision-making accountable to the workers who make EA successful."

"EA is not a struggling company. With annual revenues reaching $7.5 billion and $1 billion in profit each year, EA is one of the largest videogame developers and publishers in the world," the union said.

"EA’s success has been entirely driven by tens of thousands of EA workers whose creativity, skill, and innovation made EA worth buying in the first place. Yet we, the very people who will be jeopardized as a result of this deal, were not represented at all when this buyout was negotiated or discussed.

Noting that EA had to take on nearly $20 billion in debt to finance the deal—PC Gamer's Lincoln Carpenter has a detailed explainer of the "leveraged buyout," if you want to know why so many people are deeply worried about how this is going to work out—the union expressed particular concern about the fate of EA studios "arbitrarily deemed 'less profitable'" in the wake of the deal. That concern is particularly pronounced given the tens of thousands of layoffs that have already occurred across the industry over the past few years, even at companies who seem to be doing quite well.

BioWare is one name that's come up repeatedly as a studio at serious risk of closure as a result of the EA acquisition. It's been a decade since the storied RPG developer last produced a bonafide hit, but possibly an even greater threat to BioWare's future is its progressive narrative leaning. As former BioWare lead writer Trick Weekes put it, "gay stuff" may not be especially welcome at a studio owned by Saudi Arabia, a country that still criminalizes same-sex relationships. Some employees are already working on the assumption that the studio's days are numbered.

"If jobs are lost or studios are closed due to this deal, that would be a choice, not a necessity, made to pad investors’ pockets—not to strengthen the company," the union said.

"We are calling on regulators and elected officials to scrutinize this deal and ensure that any path forward protects jobs, preserves creative freedom, and keeps decision-making accountable to the workers who make EA successful."

The United Videogame Workers' call for scrutiny comes a day after a similar demand was made by US senators Richard Blumenthal and Elizabeth Warren, who expressed "profound concern" about the potential national security risks posed by the deal. As we noted in that story, however, the likelihood of regulatory action seems slim: The new head of the FTC has previously signalled that he intends to take a less aggressive approach to mergers than his predecessor, Lina Khan, and with Jared Kushner helping pull the deal together, as the senators noted in their letter, "What regulator is going to say no to the president's son-in-law?"

The union acknowledged in its statement that "regulators and elected officials alone will not save the videogame industry," and called on workers to continue organizing "to ensure that the people who make video games have a say in how they’re run."

Still, an effort must be made: As noted by Eurogamer, the United Videogame Workers union has also launched a petition calling for regulators to "scrutinize this deal closely," which will be presented to the US Federal Trade Commission.