EA employees and the Communications Workers of America union have issued a statement against the proposed private acquisition of the company, claiming they were not represented in the negotiations and any jobs lost as a result would “be a choice, not a necessity, made to pad investors’ pockets”.
The acquisition of EA by a group of private investors was announced at the end of September. The deal, for $55bn, includes investment from Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund and Affinity Partners, the company of President Donald Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner.
Following the announcement, there’s been plenty of speculation around the future of EA and its multiple owned studios, split between EA Sports and EA Entertainment. Now, members of the United Videogame Workers union and the CWA have issued a formal response alongside a petition for regulators to scrutinise the deal.
“EA is not a struggling company,” the statement reads. “With annual revenues reaching $7.5 billion and $1 billion in profit each year, EA is one of the largest video game developers and publishers in the world.”
This success has been driven by company workers, the union stated. “Yet we, the very people who will be jeopardised as a result of this deal, were not represented at all when this buyout was negotiated or discussed.”
Citing the number of layoffs across the industry since 2022, workers fear for “the future of our studios that are arbitrarily deemed ‘less profitable’ but whose contributions to the video game industry define EA’s reputation.”
“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 statement reads.
“Every time private equity or billionaire investors take a studio private, workers lose visibility, transparency, and power,” it continues. “Decisions that shape our jobs, our art, and our futures are made behind closed doors by executives who have never written a line of code, built worlds, or supported live services. We are calling on regulators and elected officials to scrutinise 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.”
As such, workers have launched a petition in a “fight to make video games better for workers and players – not billionaires”.
The statement concludes: “The value of video games is in their workers. As a unified voice, we, the members of the industry-wide video game workers’ union UVW-CWA, are standing together and refusing to let corporate greed decide the future of our industry.”
Eurogamer contacted the Federal Trade Commission following news of the proposed acquisition of EA, but it refused to comment “on pending mergers or acquisitions”.
A report from The Financial Times suggested the deal won’t face much opposition. As one source said: “What regulator is going to say no to the president’s son-in-law?”
Eurogamer also spoke with the Human Rights Watch on the controversial acquisition. “We have found that the public investment fund has contributed to, and is responsible for, human rights abuses,” said researcher Joey Shea on the involvement of Saudi Arabia’s government. “This is a trillion dollars in Saudi state wealth that should be invested to realise the economic and social rights of Saudi citizens. We’ve found it’s been invested in vanity mega projects inside and outside of the country.
“We see this as a deliberate attempt to distract from the country’s human rights abuses […] MBS himself wields enormous power over what is effectively public funds, and he wields this power in a highly arbitrary and personalised manner, rather than the benefit of the Saudi people more broadly. Effectively, Saudi Arabia’s vast fossil fuel-derived state wealth is controlled by one person, which isn’t good for human rights, or business either.”
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