Electronic Arts, one of the world’s biggest video game publishers, could be acquired by Amazon as the company seeks a chunk of the gaming pie. Amazon could announce as soon as Friday an offer to acquire the publisher of hit games FIFA (and other official licenced sporting games), Apex Legends, The Sims, and many, many more.
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If this turns out to be true, as rumoured to be announced within the coming weeks, it will great accelerate Amazon’s ambitions to become a major player in the gaming industry. As a result of these rumours, Electronic Arts saw their stock price surge by 16 percent in premarket trading.
This news comes amid what seems to be a massive push in gaming consolidation throughout the world. Just over the last couple of the years we have seen Take-Two Interactive Software Inc. purchase mobile gaming behemoth Zynga for $11 billion, and more recently Microsoft purchasing Activision Blizzard for a whopping $68 billion.
Gaming was one major benefactor of the global pandemic, which saw people spend record amounts of time at home and turned to electronic entertainment. While that boom has been slightly muted in 2022, it is still a massive market and expected to grow further, prompting many businesses to eye the sector to increase revenue and profits.
Interestingly, EA has long been rumoured to be looking for a potential buyer. Amazon, Apple Inc., and the Walt Disney Co. have been mentioned as potential suitors. EA has a suite of live-service titles such as Apex Legends and The Sims that could be appealing to the tech giant, especially after Netflix Inc.’s success with shows such as The Witcher and Arcane, which have been built around big video games. EA has also dominated the sports sphere and regularly releases the most popular soccer and football games.
