EA reassures employees after acquisition, but analysts are under no illusions: company will sell its smaller brands to pay off debt

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We recently discussed worries about investment funds buying Electronic Arts. This deal will leave the company with $20 billion in debt. To pay this off, they’re planning major cost cuts, and will be using AI to help. Many workers are afraid this could lead to job losses. Releasing an official FAQ is a way to try and ease those fears.

This FAQ was originally created for employees, but it was released publicly when it was submitted as part of documents filed with the stock exchange. One of the questions asked was: “Will private ownership lead to layoffs?” The answer given was:

This deal won’t cause any immediate shifts in your job, team, or how you do your work each day.

I’ve been reading through this, and I think the word “immediate” is really important. It makes me think they *might* be considering layoffs, but not right now. It’s like they’re prepping us for something down the line, but aren’t acting on it immediately.

Will EA sell some franchises and studios?

Game industry analyst Serkan Toto, with Kantan Games, believes that job cuts are highly likely and will occur in the near future. David Cole, from DFC Intelligence, offers a somewhat different perspective. He suggests that EA may choose to sell off some of its smaller game brands and development studios as a way to reduce its debt quickly. He notes that franchises such as SimCity, Dragon Age, Plants vs Zombies, Bejeweled, and Command and Conquer aren’t currently key priorities for the publisher, and that numerous other companies would likely be interested in buying them.

The Ultima series could be one of the IPs that EA might want to sell.

I’ve been thinking about this lately, and it’s really exciting! There’s been some buzz that Larian Studios might be working on a new game in the Ultima series. If that’s true, I can totally see the team behind Baldur’s Gate 3 wanting to actually *own* the series, maybe buying it from EA. That way, they could develop it exactly how they envision it, without any outside interference, which would be amazing!

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2025-10-02 13:32