The $55 billion deal to take Electronic Arts private only closed about five weeks ago, and already Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund is thinking bigger. PIF executives are reportedly weighing a full merger between EA and Savvy Games Group, the fund's gaming investment and publishing arm, in a move that would consolidate some of the most recognizable titles in gaming under one corporate roof.
Madden NFL, EA FC, and Pokemon Go all sitting inside the same entity as Savvy's portfolio. That is the scale of what is being discussed.
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What the PIF actually wants here
The logic behind combining EA and Savvy is straightforward: the PIF currently holds two major gaming assets operating independently, and there is an obvious argument for running them as one. The reported goal is to give Saudi Arabia a single vehicle for making acquisitions, developing games, and building out intellectual property across the industry.
Right now, Savvy and EA exist as separate operations under the same ultimate owner. A merger would change that, though the exact structure, whether EA absorbs Savvy, Savvy absorbs EA, or something new gets built around both, has not been decided. No final decisions have been made at this point.
The Moonton deal has to close first
There is a hard prerequisite before any merger talks can move forward. Savvy is currently in the process of completing a $6 billion acquisition of Moonton, the Chinese mobile gaming company behind Mobile Legends: Bang Bang. That deal needs to land before PIF executives will seriously move on combining EA and Savvy.
Moonton brings significant mobile gaming scale into the picture. If you are building what amounts to a global gaming conglomerate, having one of the most-played mobile MOBAs in Southeast Asia in the portfolio changes the math on what a combined entity could actually look like.
The debt question hanging over EA
Here's the thing that matters most to players right now. The $55 billion buyout that took EA private came loaded with roughly $20 billion in added debt. People familiar with the situation have raised concerns that large-scale layoffs and potential studio closures could follow as the new ownership group looks to service that debt load.
A merger with Savvy does not automatically make that debt problem disappear. What it potentially does is create a larger, more coordinated operation with more IP to monetize, more development pipelines to consolidate, and more leverage in platform negotiations. Whether that helps EA's studios or puts more pressure on them depends entirely on how the combined entity chooses to operate.
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Regulatory hurdles are real
Any merger of this scale would require regulatory approval across multiple jurisdictions. EA operates globally, with major markets in North America, Europe, and Asia. Combining it with a Saudi state-backed entity that is simultaneously acquiring Chinese mobile gaming assets is exactly the kind of deal that attracts antitrust scrutiny.
The PIF's broader gaming strategy has already drawn attention from regulators in various markets, and a full EA-Savvy combination would be a significantly larger and more complex transaction than anything the fund has attempted before.
What this means for EA's games going forward
For the players, the near-term picture is unchanged. EA FC 27 is still on track, Madden is still releasing on its usual cycle, and nothing about a potential merger would affect games already in development. The longer-term question is whether a combined entity prioritizes the kind of game development EA has historically done or shifts resources toward the higher-margin mobile and live-service space that Moonton represents.
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The PIF's ambitions in gaming have been clear for years. This would be the move that turns those ambitions into something genuinely difficult for the rest of the industry to compete with.
