Bay Area Gamers Rally Against Electronic Arts’ $55 Billion Acquisition

A coalition protested on Monday outside of video game company Electronic Arts’ Redwood City headquarters, slamming the industry titan for agreeing to a $55 billion acquisition by private financiers.

Members of the Players Alliance, dressed as characters from the video game The Sims, delivered a petition with over 70,000 signatures asking EA to reconsider the deal, in which an investor consortium with ties to the Saudi Arabian government and President Donald Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, will acquire the company.

The group said the deal would result in the aggressive monetization of EA games, layoffs at the company and ultimately, a lower quality product for gamers.

“ With the economic climate, there’s so much pressure on people,” Players Alliance member Otis East said. “You need to be able to decompress somewhere, and if the gaming space is also a place of pressure, where do you go?”

East said EA is already in the practice of installing “loot boxes” in its games, in which players can pay money for the prospect of winning special in-game prizes — a practice East compared to gambling, and which he expected to worsen if the deal went through.

“ A lot of these games are built to appeal to children, so you’re normalizing gambling to a very young demographic,” East said. And that, he added, “Could be a very slippery slope.”

EA declined to comment on Monday’s action.

The company first announced in September 2025 that it agreed to be acquired by the Public Investment Fund of Saudi Arabia, the global technology investment firm Silver Lake, and the investment firm Affinity Partners, which was founded by Kushner in 2021.

At the time, the company said the transaction represented the largest all-cash sponsor take-private investment in history, and that EA would remain headquartered in Redwood City and continue to be led by Wilson.

“Our creative and passionate teams at EA have delivered extraordinary experiences for hundreds of millions of fans, built some of the world’s most iconic IP, and created significant value for our business,” Andrew Wilson, chairman & CEO of Electronic Arts, said in a September 2025 press release.

He called the potential deal “a powerful recognition of their remarkable work,” and added that “Looking ahead, we will continue to push the boundaries of entertainment, sports and technology, unlocking new opportunities.”

As part of the deal, EA is taking on $20 billion of debt financed by JPMorgan Chase Bank, which the Players Alliance argued will pressure the company to cut jobs, replace developers with AI and impose price hikes through more aggressive monetization.

Ever since 1982, when former Apple employee Trip Hawkins founded EA in the Bay Area, Electronic Arts has created some of the most iconic video game franchises, including Madden NFL, Battlefield and The Sims.

For Twitch streamer MivYard, who declined to give her name for safety reasons, games like The Sims have been an important outlet for members of the LGBTQ+ community like herself.

“As a bisexual, there weren’t a lot of games where you could just have anybody romance anybody else,” MivYard said. This game has a really special place in my heart, and the thought of it being taken over by people who might want to censor that aspect is really frightening.”

East said that gaming helped him with depression, and that he worried this deal would set off a domino effect in the gaming industry, where more publicly traded companies will be taken over by private equity firms — and a greater emphasis will be placed on profits as opposed to the quality of the games.

“ I can personally say that gaming has saved my life,” East said. “Being able to play games and connect with people gave me a pathway to speak through what was bothering me, and without that, I don’t know if I would be here.”

EA said the transaction is expected to close this year, subject to regulatory approvals.