EA employees worry the company's new Saudi Arabia-led owners will, quietly or loudly, police what content is permitted based on the country's standards.
Multiple anonymous EA staff spoke to Game Developer about uncertainty within the company following EA's $55 billion leveraged buyout, which has seen the company go private under a group of investors. The supermajority belongs to Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund, though Silver Lake and Jared Kushner's Affinity Partners are also in the mix.
"The [crown] prince is not going to get on to a town hall and say 'we are no longer doing these things' but instead projects just won't get signed because they don't align explicitly with what the Saudi government wants or implicitly because [EA will think] 'oh, we're going to try and cater these things [to our owners] because if we pitch something else the government may not like or approve of it,'" says one EA employee.
Saudi Arabia's PIF has been accused of using entertainment and sports investments to launder the country's reputation for human rights violations. In a statement released as the EA deal closed, PIF deputy governor and head of international investments Turqi Alnowaiser bluntly said, "Entertainment and sports are key areas of strategic focus for PIF, and are among the fastest growing and evolving sectors around the world."
Another EA employee adds: "It's certainly hard to feel good about being bought out by a regime that's very much at odds with progressive society, so it is surely detrimental to anyone who finds this buyout morally odious. It's not a good feeling."
One source singled out how Saudi Arabia treats queer people, saying they "feel dirty" working under its ownership. EA games like The Sims have been praised for LGBT representation and cultivated a large queer audience, leaving the fans – and, evidently, creators – of such games especially worried under Saudi leadership.
Per UK-based LGBT charity Human Dignity Trust, "Saudi Arabia criminalises same-sex sexual activity between men and between women. The gender expression of trans people is also criminalised. Sentences include a maximum penalty of death. There is evidence of the law being enforced in recent years, and LGBT people are regularly subjected to discrimination and violence."
In October, not long after the buyout was revealed, EA told employees that "our creative freedom and player-first values will remain intact" even under Saudi ownership.
In January, seemingly seeing the writing on the wall, The Sims leaders at Maxis affirmed their commitment to inclusivity. Studio leaders promised that "creative control, guided by our values of inclusivity, choice, creativity, community, and play, has not changed," and that those values would continue in "the future."
EA's recent internal response to such concerns is called "unsatisfactory" in Game Developer's report, with several employees pointing to "vague reassurances" about the future of the company. "It hasn't done enough to quell a lot of the fears over job security or creative influences with Saudi owners," says one staffer.
A 2025 town hall meeting is singled out – specifically, the moment that one of the directors of EA's lifestyle pillar was allegedly caught saying "little babies" by a hot mic. There was apparently some debate over their meaning, but this comment didn't exactly assuage concerns.
Cost-cutting measures planned in response to the $18 billion debt EA's taken on as part of its leveraged buyout have made mass layoffs at the company look inevitable.
