Log in member
Will we see more pushback against the acquisition of one of gaming's biggest publishers?
"Hi there, welcome back to GRTV News, I'm Alex, as always going through the afternoons, latest and greatest when it comes to gaming, technology, entertainment, whatever you like, and indeed whatever you love, we always have it here for you at GRTV News and in the wider Gamereactor network as a whole. So if you like what you see and you want to see more, be sure to check out Gamereactor wherever you get it from. For more gaming reviews, gaming previews, movie reviews, series reviews, exclusives, interviews, world news, sports news and of course so much more, without further ado though today, we're talking the EA Acquisition again."
"If you're not aware, EA is being acquired, it is going private because it is being acquired by the Saudi Arabian Public Investment Fund, Silver Lake and Affinity Partners. Now that consortium has put in 55 billion dollars, which makes it the largest cash acquisition ever of a business and of course that has drawn the eye of US lawmakers as we imagined that it would. Now this isn't like the Microsoft and Activision Blizzard acquisition where initially lawmakers thought that Xbox was looking to monopolise its own gaming space through having major franchises like Call of Duty and World of Warcraft attached solely to its platforms. Instead, this is more of a national security concern apparently according to a letter sent to the US Secretary of the Treasury, Scott Besant. This letter includes signatures from lawmakers including Elizabeth Warren and Richard Blumenthal who have profound concern about the ongoing deal. We urge you and the committee to apply searching scrutiny to this unprecedented proposed foreign privatisation of a major American technology and entertainment company."
"The letter reads, the proposed transaction poses a number of significant foreign influence and national security risks, beginning with the PIF's reputation as a strategic arm of the Saudi government. Saudi Arabia's desire to buy influence through the acquisition of EA is apparent on the face of the transaction. The investors propose to pay more than 10 billion above EA's trading value for a company whose stock has quote-unquote stagnated for half a decade in an unpredictably volatile industry. Now to say that EA's stock has stagnated, well kind of fair I would say, but with recent successes like Battlefield 6 and EA's continued selling of EA Sports FC26 and things like that, you can imagine why the PIF and why the people who've gone in to buy EA would consider it maybe a bit more valuable than what the stock market would have listed it as and as well a lot of these deals very rarely go for exact figures for what the company is listed for. However if we're looking at this from a purely sort of gaming perspective, I wouldn't expect this to fully prevent the deal from going ahead, it seems like a lot of things have already gone into place."
"I'd imagine as well that because this deal isn't nearly as expensive as the Activision Blizzard deal, although it is massively massively expensive in terms of just the money going into it, it's a gargantuan deal but it's not one that necessarily affects the entirety of the gaming industry so there's not necessarily going to be some pushback from competitors. I wouldn't imagine say for example Ubisoft or other companies would be getting involved in this, other big gaming publishers would be saying well look if SAD is going to suddenly monopolise the industry then I don't think that would happen simply because this is more about an American company going to be privatised by a consortium which does involve the Saudi Arabian Public Investment Fund. Think about that what you will but it's clear that it's not going to be as simple as just signing on the dotted line at least until these letters have been considered and gone through. We will keep you updated of course if anything does change majorly and so you can check out Game Reactor for the full story as well on this EA acquisition as it's gone through and how it might affect the games that you play but yeah otherwise let me know what you think about these US lawmakers and their letter, whether you think it's going to stop the EA acquisition for a little while or whether you think it's just going to be ignored straight away and I will see you tomorrow for some more GRTV news, goodbye."
