A recent report from The Wall Street Journal claims that EA is about to go private and enter a $50 billion deal that includes investors from Saudi Arabia. As we all know, EA acquired Maxis, the studio behind The Sims 4. You know, the game we’re all playing.
The deal has not yet gone through, but an anonymous source claimed the deal could be confirmed as early as next week. This would be a leveraged buyout, an acquisition where the buyer uses borrowed money to finance the purchase. Some of the rumored investors include private equity firm Silver Lake and Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund.
What does this mean for The Sims 4?
We’re not quite sure yet.
However, the gaming community has a few concerns with the acquisition. First, there could be layoffs. Remember when Microsoft acquired Activision-Blizzard and fired almost 2,000 people? This could happen, seeing as EA has been struggling for years. Will it include employees at Maxis?
Second, there could be content changes. The Saudi Arabian Public Investment Fund recently created DLC for Ubisoft’s Assassin’s Creed Mirage. The DLC was free for everyone to download, taking place in the ancient Saudi Arabian city of AIUla.
Saudi Arabia funding the creation of this DLC and then handing it out for free does feel a bit… sus. Like they are hoping to share the story of AIUIa as much as they can. I guess it’s not a crime, but some people may not like this type of “game washing” from a country.
Could The Sims 4 get free DLC next? Without The Sims 5 coming, we’ve been worried about the constant expansions getting a bit overwhelming for players. But if they were free, maybe the community would feel invigorated. However, this free content would likely have elements of Saudi Arabia mixed in there or else why would they fund the free content?
We can’t know anything just yet. For all we know, it means nothing at all. Maybe nothing will change. Maybe the deal won’t even go through.
But it’s definitely something to think about…
