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Last year, EA announced that it planned to become a privately owned company, with the Saudi Arabia PIF and Silver Lake leading a 'Consortium' of investors in a massive $55 billion buyout. The buyout has already passed the approval of the company's shareholders, with the next and final step being getting the approval of global regulators, including the US Federal Trade Commission (FTC). As that process is ongoing, we don't know yet whether the FTC will choose to fight the acquisition or let it pass, but as many as 46 members of the US Congress don't want the deal to go through without the FTC "thoroughly" looking it over.

In an open letter to the FTC chair, Andrew Ferguson, signed by 46 House Democrats led by the Labor Caucus co-chairs, Steven Horsford, Debbie Dingell, Mark Pocan, and Donald Norcross, the representatives express their "serious concerns" with the deal, and want it to be "thoroughly reviewed" as it comes under the FTC's purview.

"We are writing to express serious concerns regarding the proposed acquisition of Electronic Arts (EA) by the Public Investment Fund (PIF), the sovereign wealth fund of Saudi Arabia, and private equity firms
Silver Lake and Affinity Partners," the letter begins. "We are committed to preserving fair, competitive labor markets and safeguarding American jobs, and given the impact of this acquisition on workers, labor market concentration, and the long-term competitiveness of the U.S. video game industry, we urge you to thoroughly review this transaction."

The letter goes on to cite the recent instability of the video game industry, which has suffered tens of thousands of job losses in recent years, EA's contributions to those layoffs, and the massive disconnect between EA's executive leadership and its median worker, highlighted by EA's chief executive officer, Andrew Wilson, taking home 260 times more compared to the median EA worker.

It noted concerns over the fact that the buyout comes with EA taking on $20 billion in debt, which it says "creates strong incentives for the acquiring firms to pursue further cost-cutting measures, including layoffs, offshoring, restructuring, or studio closures." The letter also expresses competition-based concerns, saying that the scale of the "cross-ownership" involved, were the deal to go through, "presents risks of self-preferencing and anticompetitive coordination across these sports, sports-related talent, and sports related video game business lines. This could, consequently, restrict worker mobility and reduce bargaining power for employees throughout the industry."

The last major point the letter makes is one indicating that this merger, should it be approved, could violate some of the FTC's own antitrust laws regarding mergers that harm workers, suppress wages, and enable dominant firms to reduce labor demands. It then closes by saying,

"We respectfully urge the Commission to conduct a thorough investigation into the labor market consequences of this proposed acquisition, including EA’s existing wage-setting power, the likelihood of post-transaction layoffs, the degree of labor-market concentration in relevant geographic and occupational markets, and the role of cross-ownership in shaping labor outcomes. Workers deserve a fair, competitive marketplace where their skills are valued."

These 46 House Democrats are not the first to share these kinds of concerns over the buyout. The $20 billion in debt is something several other industry figures have already pointed to as a problem, and that's even before getting into the creative concerns, even as EA claims it will "maintain creative control" after the buyout.

The Sims developer Maxis made a similar claim earlier this month, saying its values will remain "unchanged" after the acquisition, a claim that players are struggling to believe. There's already precedent for the Saudi Arabia PIF allegedly impacting creative decisions in Fatal Fury, which itself is realistically a small matter in the grand scheme of things, since it can be boiled down to the Saudi Arabia PIF allegedly using its influence to put a sports icon it has financial ties to in this new video game it owns. Not the worst thing in the world.

But if the group were to have used its influence for a small, ultimately trivial matter like that, it's understandable that The Sims players would have concerns that core elements to the long-running life sim, like being able to act out whatever lifestyle you want, including ones that are considered criminal offences in Saudi Arabia, would change.

And while we've not yet seen reports of Maxis employees voicing their concerns, anonymously or not, employees at EA's BioWare have already done so. There's simply no getting around the fact that this deal has a lot of people, inside and outside of EA, seriously concerned.

Of course, these concerns could be all for naught, and the deal could go through, and all of the bad things people fear will happen won't actually happen. We won't know until the deal officially closes, and we won't see that happen until the FTC and other global regulators weigh in on the deal.

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