EA’s $55 Billion Deal and Unity’s Potential Sale
Earlier this year, Electronic Arts was acquired by a consortium that includes Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund (PIF) and the investment firms Silver Lake and Affinity Partners, in a deal worth $55 billion. According to Reuters, the PIF and Silver Lake are now focusing on Unity Software, the company behind the multiplatform game engine.
Silver Lake is already a major shareholder, holding about 8% of Unity since investing roughly $400 million in 2017. As Reuters notes, Egon Durban sits on Unity’s board, a role that typically requires him to recuse himself from discussions about a potential sale.
The talks have so far valued Unity at around $25 billion. The company’s latest earnings beat expectations, showing higher profits. Unity has moved past the controversy over its runtime‑fee policy, which sparked developer backlash, and it now benefits from growth in its AI‑powered Vector advertising platform, helping it post its first GAAP‑based quarterly profit since its 2020 IPO. Runtime Fee scandal.
The first consequence of EA’s acquisition was a wave of layoffs and a $18 billion debt load. It seems unlikely that many Unity employees are hoping for the deal to close, yet the industry appears intent on accelerating toward a consolidation crisis in which a few consortiums control everything and jobs become scarce.
