EA went private in a Saudi-backed $55 billion deal earlier this week, and pretty much no one with a net worth south of $100 million is happy about it. Least happy of all? The staff of EA's myriad studios, who now have to wonder if their jobs are going under the guillotine to make Mohammed bin Salman and Jared Kushner's pocketbooks a little happier. With EA now on the hook for a $20 billion debt to JP Morgan in the wake of its leveraged buyout, frantic cost-cutting (and, joy of joys, AI) seems inevitable.
Especially worried are the staff at BioWare, which hasn't chalked up an unalloyed win since 2021's Mass Effect Legendary Edition and which hasn't chalked one up with an actually new game since 2014's Dragon Age: Inquisition. In a chat with Insider Gaming, anonymous staff at the RPG developer sound like they're just waiting for the axe to fall.
