Saudi Arabia's PIF Reportedly Weighs Merging EA With Savvy Games Group Into One Bigger Empire

By CriticalPixel · 2026-09-11

EA got swallowed by Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund eight weeks ago, and the ink is barely dry on that fifty five billion dollar leveraged buyout. Now Bloomberg is reporting that the PIF wants to go bigger, weighing a merger that would fold EA into Savvy Games Group, the fund's other major gaming arm. If it happens, EA Sports FC, Apex Legends, Battlefield 6, and Pokemon Go would all sit under one Saudi owned banner, alongside PIF stakes in Nintendo, Capcom, and Koei Tecmo. This is not a rumor from some anonymous forum poster, it comes from sources close to the deal talking to Bloomberg, and both EA and PIF have already declined to comment, which usually means there is something real behind the silence.

EA Sports FC promotional artwork featuring footballers representing England, Brazil, Germany, Spain and the USA

A Bigger Saudi Gaming Empire

According to GameSpot, sources close to the matter say the merger is meant to create better coordination between PIF's gaming assets, and it would likely wait until Savvy finishes its six billion dollar purchase of Moonton, the Chinese mobile studio behind some of the biggest mobile games on the planet. Savvy already owns Scopely, the developer of Pokemon Go, plus esports company ESL, and it holds partial stakes in Nintendo, Capcom, and Koei Tecmo. Stack that against EA's portfolio, which includes EA Sports FC, Battlefield, Apex Legends, and The Sims, and you get one of the largest gaming conglomerates assembled outside of Tencent. Eurogamer points out that Savvy's own CEO Brian Ward stepped down just last week after leading most of these acquisitions, which makes the timing of this report feel less like coincidence and more like a company clearing the decks for a bigger move.

Under One Roof, With Regulators Watching

A combined EA and Savvy Games Group would need to clear regulators in multiple countries, since the resulting company would control EA Sports FC, Battlefield, Apex Legends, Monopoly Go, and Pokemon Go, plus big equity stakes in Nintendo and Capcom. That is a lot of market share sitting under one Saudi state fund umbrella, and antitrust bodies in the US, UK, and EU have all gotten twitchier about exactly this kind of consolidation in recent years. EA is also still digging out from the debt load its leveraged buyout created, and the company has already talked about chasing seven hundred million dollars in cost savings to keep its bondholders happy. Employees at BioWare and the Sims team have been vocal about worrying that a PIF controlled EA could push back on games built around inclusive storytelling and diverse characters, concerns that predate this merger report but only get louder with every headline about Saudi ownership tightening its grip on the publisher.

Apex Legends character Pathfinder firing his grapple hook in official gameplay artwork

How Fans Are Reacting

Reaction on social media has been more resigned than shocked so far. Posts breaking down the Bloomberg report picked up steady engagement within hours, mostly repeating the same worry, that folding EA FC, Apex Legends, Battlefield, and Pokemon Go into one Saudi owned conglomerate hands an enormous chunk of the industry to a single state investor. There has not been a loud wave of organized backlash yet, and with only a handful of accounts weighing in so far, it is too early to call this a full blown community firestorm. What is consistent across the posts is fatigue, players who watched EA get sold once already this year are not thrilled to see round two of consolidation talk before the ink on round one has even dried.

The CriticalPixel Take

A leveraged buyout that saddles a publisher with billions in debt was always going to end with someone looking for more scale to help cover the payments, and merging with Savvy is the most obvious lever PIF has to pull. The problem is that players do not benefit when EA Sports FC, Battlefield, Apex Legends, and Pokemon Go all answer to the same spreadsheet, because a cost savings target like that seven hundred million dollar figure does not come from nowhere, it comes from layoffs, canceled projects, and studios told to ship faster with less. BioWare and Sims developers raising concerns about creative freedom under a PIF controlled EA is not paranoia, it is a reasonable read of what happens when a sovereign wealth fund starts optimizing a portfolio instead of just owning it. If this merger goes through, do not be surprised if it becomes the case study people point to the next time a publisher gets bought out by a fund with billions to deploy and a spreadsheet full of synergy targets.

Nothing here is finalized yet. EA and PIF both declined to comment when Bloomberg asked, and the merger reportedly will not move until the Moonton deal closes, so there is real time before any of this becomes official. Still, with Savvy's CEO already gone and PIF signaling it wants tighter coordination across its gaming assets, this looks less like idle speculation and more like the next chapter of a story that started the moment EA went private. Anyone with a save file in EA Sports FC, Battlefield 6, or Apex Legends should keep an eye on where this one goes.