A new development in Saudi Arabia’s acquisition of Electronic Arts has emerged, as some current employees of Electronic Arts, as well as the Communication Workers of America Union, have made a public statement regarding the buyout, as well as forming a petition against it.
On October 15th 2025, the Communication Workers of America posted an announcement on their official website, with statements such as :
“EA is not a struggling company. With annual revenues reaching $7.5 billion and $1 billion in profit each year, EA is one of the largest video game developers and publishers in the world. This success has been driven by company workers, the union stated. Yet we, the very people who will be jeopardized as a result of this deal, were not represented at all when this buyout was negotiated or discussed.”
“The future of our studios that are arbitrarily deemed ‘less profitable’ but whose contributions to the video game industry define EA’s reputation. If jobs are lost or studios are closed due to this deal, that would be a choice, not a necessity, made to pad investors’ pockets – not to strengthen the company. Every time private equity or billionaire investors take a studio private, workers lose visibility, transparency, and power.
Decisions that shape our jobs, our art, and our futures are made behind closed doors by executives who have never written a line of code, built worlds, or supported live services. We are calling on regulators and elected officials to scrutinize this deal and ensure that any path forward protects jobs, preserves creative freedom, and keeps decision-making accountable to the workers who make EA successful.”
At the very end of the statement, the CWA launched a petition of “fight to make video games better for workers and players – not billionaires”.
My thoughts
With this petition against the EA buyout, I really fail to see how much of an effect it will have when it comes to changing or cancelling the acquisition deal. Calling on the FTC to watch the deal closely will probably work out as well as the time they tried to mess with Microsoft, as they were in the process of buying out Activision Blizzard. If I were a betting man, I ‘d say it would probably get held up for months in the legal system before eventually getting throw out by the courts, so I would say that it’s probably going to be a waste of time. As with the claims of human rights violations due to Saudi Arabia’s involvement, my feelings on the matter remain the same from what I last reported on this topic, where as long as the company’s focus is on making money and not pushing ideological beliefs, I have no reason to be against the buyout.
Once again: As long as they do not start pushing Islam or MAGA into these games, I and most other consumers will not care who owns Electronic Arts. In fact: As harsh as this may sounds, most consumers will not care about the financial or mental well being of the men and women who work long hours on these games. They only care about how the final product turns out, and if the product isn’t up to the consumer’s standards for any reason, they will simply take their money elsewhere. At the end of the day, game development is a business, and in an industry where dozens of new games are being released daily, investments and private funding can only prop up a game company for so long. It’s the customer that decides whether a game succeeds or fails, and ultimately has the final say in whether game developers and artists get to keep their jobs or not.
Independence
Now, I’m not for or against workers’ unions, as there are noteworthy benefits to being in one (such as having the union sue a company on your behalf if you feel you have been illegally abused), as well as negatives (such as the union fees that cost thousands of dollars just to join). I agree with the workers on expressing their freedom to speak out and protecting their jobs, but one thing I could never understand with these calls to action against corporations is that the workers are always trying to control the corporations that they plainly say are corrupt. To paraphrase a question frequently made by Eric D. July, Creator and Owner of Rippaverse Comics: “Why are the workers constantly trying to sign a deal with a corporation, whom they deem is the Devil?”
Well, if the workers truly believe that they are valuable and their skills are irreplaceable, why not go indie? As mentioned in the CWA petition, the workers claim that the EA acquisition is going to stifle creative freedom. While I understand that starting a game project or small game studio is risky, the workers would have all the creative freedom they could ask for, and if their game ends up being a success, they would gain financial freedom, too. There is certainly no shortage of space available for new players in the independent gaming space, where small teams, and even solo developers, have gone on to make some of the most popular and financially successful games of the past few years. The tools for game development have only gotten easier, crowdfunding like Kickstarter and Indiegogo have been around for years, and the cost of making a game with a single creator or small team would be fractions smaller compared to the millions needed by large corporations. Sure, most indie games lack the bells and whistles that many people would like to see, and again, I understand their are risks from indie game development, but as long as the gameplay is fun, and the visuals are appealing enough, it will succeed.
“Good games will succeed if you give them a little bit of exposure. Bad games will fail, even if you show them to the whole world” -Asmongold
And don’t get me wrong: While I still like seeing big budget games, many corporations are indeed greedy and scummy, as their history of mistreatment of employees and contract workers, especially with Electronic Arts in particular, is far too long to count, and their greed for pushing live service gaming, day one DLC, and microtransactions cannot be ignored. But at some point, the people who breathe life into this industry have to realize that if the big gaming corporations are so far gone that they have to make deals with Saudi Arabia of all countries, then the workers must become the change that they wish to see, rather than trying to keep a sinking ship afloat for the sake of job security. With the current state of the gaming industry in the West, the center is not going to hold for much longer and is bound to collapse in on itself. The workers should start looking into building their lifeboats now, instead of asking a corporation like EA to build some for them.
