Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund is weighing a merger between Electronic Arts and Savvy Games Group, Bloomberg reported, citing people familiar with the private discussions. Combining the two PIF-owned companies would fold Madden NFL, EA Sports FC and Battlefield together with Pokémon GO and Monopoly GO under one Saudi-controlled gaming giant, though PIF executives have made no final decision.
Bloomberg first reported the talks on September 10, 2026, saying PIF executives are discussing the combination internally as a way to get “better coordination between its assets.” EA, Savvy Games Group and PIF all declined to comment when Bloomberg asked.
A Second Megadeal Six Weeks After the First
The timing is what makes this report land hard. A PIF-led consortium that also included Silver Lake Partners and Jared Kushner’s Affinity Partners closed a $55 billion take-private acquisition of Electronic Arts on August 4, 2026 — at the time, the largest leveraged buyout in history. Just over a month later, according to Kotaku’s write-up of the Bloomberg report, PIF is already discussing folding that same company into Savvy Games Group, the Riyadh-based holding company that runs the rest of the kingdom’s gaming and esports investments.
That sequencing matters for a simple reason: EA has been an independently traded public company for essentially its entire existence up to this year. In the space of six weeks it would go from public company, to wholly PIF-controlled private company, to one division inside an even larger PIF gaming conglomerate — without ever operating as a standalone private company for more than about five weeks.
The Deal Timeline
| Date | Event | Value |
|---|---|---|
| Aug 4, 2026 | PIF-led consortium closes take-private buyout of Electronic Arts | $55 billion |
| Sept 10, 2026 | Bloomberg reports PIF is weighing merging EA into Savvy Games Group | Not disclosed |
| Pending | Savvy Games Group’s acquisition of Moonton (Mobile Legends: Bang Bang developer) | $6 billion |
Bloomberg’s sourcing says a merger is unlikely to happen before Savvy finishes absorbing Moonton, the Chinese studio behind Mobile Legends: Bang Bang. That pending deal gives a rough floor for timing: nothing formal is expected until Moonton closes, and no final decision on a merger has been made at all.
What a Combined EA-Savvy Would Actually Control
The list of franchises under one roof is the part likely to get the most attention from players rather than investors. EA brings Madden NFL, EA Sports FC, The Sims, Battlefield, Apex Legends and an Iron Man game currently in development. Savvy’s contribution runs through Scopely, the mobile publisher it fully owns, which publishes Monopoly GO and, as of 2025, Pokémon GO after acquiring it from Niantic. Add Moonton’s Mobile Legends: Bang Bang once that deal closes, and a single Saudi-owned entity would sit across console, PC, mobile and esports simultaneously.
For players, the practical effect of a merger would mostly be invisible day to day — EA Sports FC and Pokémon GO would still ship updates on their own schedules. The bigger shift is structural: cross-promotion, shared back-office and live-ops infrastructure, and a single ownership group setting priorities across genres that used to answer to entirely different public shareholders and boards.
The Regulatory Question Nobody Has Answered Yet
Any formal merger would need to clear antitrust review in multiple jurisdictions, and outlets covering the report — including PC Gamer and God Is A Geek — have already drawn the comparison to the scrutiny Microsoft’s acquisition of Activision Blizzard faced, a deal that took roughly two years and multiple regulator interventions to close. A combination on this scale, folding a top-five console/PC publisher into one of mobile gaming’s largest holding companies, would be a novel case for regulators: it is not a straightforward horizontal merger of competitors so much as a consolidation of common ownership across genres that rarely competed head-to-head before.
None of that scrutiny has actually started, because there is no deal to review yet. What is confirmed is only that PIF executives are discussing the idea internally — not that a term sheet, timeline or regulatory filing exists.
The Cost-Cutting Question Is Separate — and Less Certain
A second thread running through some of this week’s coverage is employee unease inside EA about what deeper Savvy integration might mean for jobs and studios. That concern is tangled up with a separate, already-reported figure: EA reportedly told debt investors around the time its buyout closed that it plans roughly $700 million in annual cost cuts to help service the debt taken on in the $55 billion deal. That cost-cutting plan predates the Savvy merger discussion and is not confirmed by Bloomberg’s reporting on the merger talks themselves — it is being cited by some outlets as context for why employees are nervous, not as a new figure tied to a merger that has not been decided. Treat the two as related but separate claims until a publisher or PIF source confirms a connection.
What Happens Next
There is no confirmed timeline. The near-term marker to watch is the close of Savvy’s $6 billion Moonton acquisition, which Bloomberg’s sourcing says has to happen before a merger can move forward. Beyond that, EA, Savvy and PIF have all declined to comment, and no filing or public statement has confirmed that a deal is even being formally negotiated rather than discussed internally. We’ll update this story as PIF, EA or Savvy make anything official.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is Electronic Arts actually merging with Savvy Games Group?
Not yet, and possibly not at all. Bloomberg reported on September 10, 2026 that PIF executives are weighing the idea internally, but PIF, EA and Savvy all declined to comment and no final decision has been made.
Who owns Electronic Arts now?
A PIF-led consortium that also includes Silver Lake Partners and Jared Kushner’s Affinity Partners closed a $55 billion take-private acquisition of EA on August 4, 2026.
What is Savvy Games Group?
Savvy Games Group is a Riyadh-based holding company, majority-owned by Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund, that oversees the kingdom’s gaming and esports investments. It owns Scopely, the mobile publisher behind Pokémon GO and Monopoly GO.
Why would PIF wait to merge EA and Savvy?
According to Bloomberg’s sourcing, a merger is unlikely before Savvy completes its pending $6 billion acquisition of Moonton, the Chinese studio that makes Mobile Legends: Bang Bang.
Would an EA-Savvy merger face antitrust review?
Any formal merger of this size would likely face regulatory review in multiple markets. Industry commentators have compared the potential scrutiny to what Microsoft’s Activision Blizzard acquisition faced, though no merger has been proposed yet and no regulator has weighed in.
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