EA will be a very different company under private ownership

This morning's announcement that EA plans to sell itself to a consortium of private equity firms is one of the biggest business stories of the year. The $55 billion deal is the largest leveraged buyout in history and will send ripples through the world of high finance, both within and outside the gaming sector. But even players who have no interest in the business side of the game industry should be paying attention to the news. Analysts who spoke to Ars Technica said that the privately owned version of Electronic Arts will likely be very different from the old public company, in ways that could directly affect the kinds of games the mega-publisher produces. A $20 billion hole to fill One of the biggest differences between a publicly owned EA and a privately owned version is that the latter will be saddled with roughly $20 billion of fresh debt provided by JP MorganChase, which is being used to help finance the leveraged buyout. Wedbush Morgan analyst Michael Pachter estimates the firm will be on the hook for roughly $1 billion a year in service payments on that debt after the deal closes. That's definitely manageable for a company that brought in $5.92 billion in gross profit in the 2025 fiscal year. However, repaying that debt—and maximizing profits for its new owners—could force changes throughout the company. "The reality is that in order to service debt of this magnitude, resources need to be freed up elsewhere," F-Squared analyst Michael Futter told Ars. "That likely means layoffs, studio closures, and [selling] of IP." DFC Intelligence's David Cole added that the new debt could lead to an even more risk-averse version of EA that has "a bigger focus on live services, more focus on annual sports franchises, [and] microtransactions. They are profitable and, most importantly, steady." Credit: BioWare In the end. the Illusive Man doesn't make as much money as Ultimate Team cards. In the end. the Illusive Man doesn't make as much money as Ultimate Team cards. Credit: BioWare Analysts who spoke to Ars agreed that studios that weren't involved in EA's most consistently profitable franchises (generally sports games, Battlefield, and The Sims) were at the most risk of facing layoffs or sell-offs under this new private version of EA. That could spell trouble for EA studios like BioWare (Mass Effect, Dragon Age), Codemasters (F1, Dirt), and even Respawn (Apex Legends, Star Wars Jedi).