Monday, September 29th 2025
EA's New Owner Plans AI Pivot 'To Significantly Cut Operating Costs'— Report
After last week's leak of an EA buyout, an official agreement was announced that would see the game studio be bought out by PIF, Silver Lake, and Affinity Partners for a whopping $55 bn, with the current CEO, Andrew Wilson, remaining in his post for the time being. The deal is slated to go into effect in Q1 FY2027, pending shareholder and regulatory approvals. A subsequent report by The Financial Times, however, has provided slightly more details about the future of EA under its new ownership.
According to the new report, investors are banking on using AI to cut EA's operating costs and "manage a large debt load," indicating that we may see a drastic shift to the inclusion of AI in games, where it may replace developers and actors, although it is so far unclear exactly how EA and its new owners plan to leverage AI in the company's projects. This news comes mere months after the United Videogame Workers Union was founded, partially in response to the rise of artificial intelligence in gaming and mass layoffs that have plagued the gaming industry of late.
Source:
The Financial Times
According to the new report, investors are banking on using AI to cut EA's operating costs and "manage a large debt load," indicating that we may see a drastic shift to the inclusion of AI in games, where it may replace developers and actors, although it is so far unclear exactly how EA and its new owners plan to leverage AI in the company's projects. This news comes mere months after the United Videogame Workers Union was founded, partially in response to the rise of artificial intelligence in gaming and mass layoffs that have plagued the gaming industry of late.
39 Comments on EA's New Owner Plans AI Pivot 'To Significantly Cut Operating Costs'— Report
It'll be interesting. The Saudis are driven by money over all else so maybe we'll see them cater to fan demand for once?Exactly. They've already closed so many good studios and released so much garbage.....outside of throwing crypto/NFTs into everything I dont see how much worse it could get.This annoys me on a cellular level.
Already there are warning signs of poor job prospects for computer science majors.
Anyhow EA will end up laying off huge numbers of employees and they will all be competing for an increasingly smaller number of job openings in the videogame industry.
It's pretty much guaranteed that EA will suck more a year from now. So will their games, and so will the rest of the (Western) videogame industry. It's really a downward spiral with the occasional bright light but those are becoming fewer and farther between.
One thing that A.I. excels at is devaluing art. But today's younger consumers don't seem to mind so much about that.
finance.yahoo.com/quote/EA/key-statistics/
The company is profitable. And the market seems to believe in the company. The short is 4.33% of the float. They are making less money now than they did a year but it's not like they are anywhere near their last legs.
Their stock jumped from $170 to $200 on the news of going private.
Anyhow, thanks for the laughs. :p