The European Union is set to grant approval to Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund for its acquisition of Electronic Arts, according to a report from Reuters. That clearance would knock out one of the final regulatory hurdles standing between the trillion-dollar fund and outright ownership of one of the world’s largest publishers.
The deal itself has been public since September 2025, when PIF announced it alongside Affinity Partners and Silver Lake. It values a 93.4% stake in EA at $55 billion, a figure that places it among the largest transactions the video games industry has ever recorded. EA shareholders gave their approval in December 2025, so the corporate side of the equation was already settled. What remained was the regulators, and the EU is the big one.
What is the EA deal with PIF?
The EA deal is a $55 billion acquisition led by Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund, with Affinity Partners and Silver Lake as partners. The consortium is buying a 93.4% stake in the company behind EA Sports FC, Battlefield, Apex Legends, and The Sims. It is a take-private buyout on a scale the sector has rarely, if ever, seen.
For a fund that has spent years buying its way into gaming, EA is the marquee purchase. The publisher’s football franchise alone gives PIF a foothold in one of the most valuable interactive properties on the planet, and it is a franchise Saudi Arabia already has considerable interest in. Once the EU signs off, there is very little left in the way.
Did Saudi Arabia buy EA before this?
Saudi Arabia has been buying up pieces of the games industry for the better part of a decade, and EA is the culmination rather than the opening move. In April 2022, the kingdom’s Electronic Gaming Development Company took a 96% stake in Japanese developer SNK. In September 2025, Saudi-owned firm Qiddiya acquired RTS, the co-owner of the Evolution Championship Series, the biggest fighting-game tournament in the world. And in March 2026, EGDC picked up a 5% stake in Capcom.
The pattern is deliberate: sovereign capital moving steadily from developers to esports to major publishers. The EA deal, though, is a different weight class entirely, and it may mark the point where the spending slows. PIF was reportedly running low on cash for further investments after agreeing the acquisition, which suggests a $55 billion cheque leaves even a trillion-dollar fund with less room to manoeuvre.
Why the EU sign-off matters
The EU’s approval is the checkpoint that turns an agreed deal into a closed one, which is why this report carries weight. Regulators in Europe have grown more assertive about scrutinising large cross-border acquisitions, and a Gulf-backed buyout of a company this size was never going to sail through on reputation alone.
For readers in the region, the significance is less about anything that changes at the checkout and more about what the deal signals. Gulf sovereign wealth is now shaping the ownership of globally popular gaming IP, and the EU’s willingness to clear it sets a reference point for the next large acquisition that follows. This is separate from the platform-level shifts publishers and console makers are already navigating, from studio upheaval to Sony’s move away from physical discs — the ownership of the biggest names in the business is changing too, and it is moving towards Riyadh.
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