Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund is reportedly considering combining Electronic Arts with Savvy Games Group, a move that could create one of the industry’s largest gaming businesses under a single owner.
The idea remains under discussion and no final decision has been made. Any restructuring is also unlikely to happen before Savvy completes its planned $6 billion acquisition of Moonton, the ByteDance-owned developer best known for Mobile Legends: Bang Bang.
A merger would bring together two very different gaming portfolios. EA remains strongest in major console and PC franchises, including EA Sports FC, Madden NFL, Battlefield and The Sims. Savvy, meanwhile, has been assembling a substantial mobile gaming operation through acquisitions including Scopely and Niantic’s games business, giving it control of properties including Monopoly Go and Pokémon Go.
That difference in focus helps explain the strategic logic. EA has spent years trying to expand its position in mobile gaming, including its $2.1 billion acquisition of Glu Mobile in 2021, but several mobile projects were later cancelled. Savvy’s acquisitions would immediately give the combined operation considerably more weight in a market where mobile remains one of gaming’s biggest revenue generators.
PIF already has effective control of both companies. The Saudi sovereign wealth fund owns Savvy outright and holds roughly 93% of EA following the $55 billion takeover of the publisher that closed in August. That ownership structure could make a future combination less complicated than a conventional merger between independent companies.
It could also affect how regulators view the transaction. European Union merger rules are primarily concerned with changes in corporate control. If EA and Savvy are already ultimately controlled by PIF, combining them could potentially be treated as an internal restructuring rather than a new concentration requiring another full merger review.
There is an important complication, however. Minority investors Silver Lake and Affinity Partners retain stakes in EA. If their shareholder rights amount to joint control over important decisions such as budgets or strategy, a restructuring could still trigger additional regulatory scrutiny.
The European Commission has already examined PIF’s takeover of EA, clearing the transaction under both competition rules and the EU’s foreign subsidies framework in July.
The possibility of a broader gaming consolidation also arrives during a management transition at Savvy. Chief executive Brian Ward recently departed, with PIF deputy governor Turqi Alnowaiser taking over on an interim basis. Alnowaiser was closely involved with the EA transaction, further strengthening the connection between the two operations.
For PIF, combining EA and Savvy could simplify an increasingly expensive gaming portfolio while giving the group meaningful positions across console, PC and mobile. The bigger question is whether the businesses actually work better together. Owning major franchises under one corporate umbrella creates scale, but the gaming industry has repeatedly shown that expensive consolidation does not automatically produce stronger games, healthier studios or better returns.
