Saudi Arabia’s PIF Weighs Mega Merger of Electronic Arts with Savvy Games Group to Form Global Gaming Titan
RIYADH / REDWOOD CITY — Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund is exploring a massive corporate consolidation that would merge American video game publisher Electronic Arts with Riyadh based Savvy Games Group, according to reports from financial and gaming media citing people familiar with the internal discussions.
The deliberations follow the completion of PIF’s landmark $55 billion leveraged buyout of Electronic Arts, which officially closed in August through an investor consortium that took the storied publisher private and delisted its shares from Nasdaq. Under the proposed structure, the Public Investment Fund would unite its newly acquired console and PC publishing empire with Savvy Games Group, the primary investment and operating vehicle established under Saudi Vision 2030 to build a dominant global entertainment ecosystem.
Bringing the two entities together would assemble an unprecedented intellectual property and operational portfolio under a singular corporate umbrella. Electronic Arts anchors the PC and console landscape with multi billion dollar sports and narrative franchises such as EA Sports FC, Battlefield, The Sims, Madden NFL, and Apex Legends. Savvy Games Group brings extensive mobile gaming scale through California based publisher Scopely, acquired in 2023 for $4.9 billion, which subsequently absorbed Niantic’s games portfolio for $3.5 billion to secure global titles including Monopoly Go!, Pokémon GO, Monster Hunter Now, and Pikmin Bloom.
Analysts note that a combined group would address Electronic Arts’ historic struggle to establish sustained mobile monetization, allowing the publisher to leverage Scopely’s live operations infrastructure to adapt iconic franchises for mobile audiences worldwide. Furthermore, Savvy holds a dominant position in esports through ESL Faceit Group, offering end to end integration across competitive gaming, streaming, mobile gaming, and AAA studio development.
Sources emphasize that no final decision has been reached by PIF leadership, and discussions remain exploratory. Any formal combination is considered unlikely to proceed until Savvy finalizes its pending $6 billion acquisition of Moonton Technology, the ByteDance owned studio behind Mobile Legends: Bang Bang. A potential transaction of this scale would also face rigorous antitrust and regulatory reviews across international competition authorities, while navigating a recent leadership transition following the departure of Savvy Chief Executive Officer Brian Ward.
