A month after paying $55 billion to acquire Electronic Arts, the Public Investment Fund (PIF) is reportedly already looking further ahead. This sovereign wealth fund, a state fund that invests Saudi Arabia’s public money in companies around the world, is said to be considering an EA Savvy merger between Electronic Arts and Savvy Games Group. The latter is dedicated to video games and esports, video game competitions run like a professional sport. According to a Bloomberg report published on September 10, 2026, citing sources close to the matter, no decision has been made. The EA Savvy merger plan would in any case remain on hold pending another ongoing acquisition, that of the Chinese studio Moonton.
What Bloomberg Reports, and What No One Confirms
Bloomberg’s report, picked up in particular by gHacks, GodIsAGeek and TheSixthAxis, relies on sources who requested anonymity because the discussions remain private. These sources point to PIF executives seeking to better coordinate a growing number of video game assets.
Electronic Arts, Savvy Games Group, and PIF each declined to comment, and no final decision has been made. The EA Savvy deal is unlikely to move forward anyway before Savvy finalizes its acquisition of Moonton, the Chinese studio behind Mobile Legends: Bang Bang, for roughly $6 billion. A deal of this size would also need to pass an antitrust review, the process by which regulators check that a merger does not reduce competition too much.
Savvy Games Group, a Decade of Mobile Gaming Acquisitions
Savvy Games Group has existed since November 2021, created by PIF as its dedicated video game and esports company. The fund gave it a $38 billion investment strategy. Savvy first acquired ESL and FACEIT before merging them into ESL FACEIT Group, one of the biggest esports competition organizers in the world, according to gHacks.
In 2023, Savvy paid $4.9 billion for Scopely, the publisher of Monopoly GO!, Stumble Guys, and Star Trek Fleet Command. Two years later, Scopely paid roughly $3.5 billion to acquire Niantic’s games division. The deal added Pokémon GO, Pikmin Bloom, and Monster Hunter Now to its catalog. Its holdings sit inside subsidiaries rather than under its own name, which makes its real weight hard to measure from the outside.
On the page dedicated to Savvy within PIF’s portfolio, the stated ambition is « achieving leadership status in the games industry by 2030. » That ambition runs mainly through mobile.
Electronic Arts, a Month After Going Under Saudi Ownership
EA’s acquisition closed on August 4, 2026, in Redwood City, California, for roughly $55 billion. The deal was led by a consortium, a group of investors joined together for a single purchase. It brought together PIF, Silver Lake, and Affinity Partners, Jared Kushner’s firm. EA shareholders had approved the sale at a meeting on December 22, 2025, and the European Commission cleared it on July 23, 2026 under EU merger rules, notes GodIsAGeek.
Each share was paid for in cash at $210, a 25% premium over EA’s unaffected closing price of $168.32 on September 25, 2025. Once the sale closed, PIF held roughly 93.4% of the company, Silver Lake 5.5%, and Affinity Partners 1.1%. The company thus became privately held, meaning it left the stock market and now belongs to its shareholders rather than the public.
Andrew Wilson remains EA’s CEO. In the statement announcing the sale’s closing, Turqi Alnowaiser, PIF’s deputy governor and head of international investments, said: « Entertainment and sports are key areas of strategic focus for PIF. » The bill does not stop at the price paid to shareholders. EA also carries the debt from its own buyout, $1.8 billion in annual interest and $700 million in budget cuts.
An EA Savvy Group Would Bring Together Consoles, Mobile, and Esports
Put together, EA’s and Savvy’s portfolios would cover a large chunk of mainstream gaming. gHacks‘s report lists EA’s console- and PC-focused franchises, EA Sports FC, Madden NFL, Battlefield, and The Sims. It adds Savvy’s mobile titles, Pokémon GO and Monopoly GO!. Once the Moonton acquisition is finalized, Mobile Legends: Bang Bang would join them, along with esports competition organizing through ESL FACEIT Group. An EA Savvy group would thus hold a rare position, present across consoles, PC, mobile, and esports all at once.
PIF does not stop at these two companies. In January 2026, the fund had transferred $12 billion worth of publicly traded shares to Savvy, including stakes in Nintendo, Bandai Namco, and Take-Two Interactive. That transfer gave Savvy roughly 10% of Koei Tecmo, NCSoft, Nexon, and Square Enix. Gathering so many franchises under one shareholder revives a question already raised with players over Sony and Xbox’s digital ownership. Who really decides a game’s fate once it changes hands?
None of the three sources consulted link this plan to the debt EA took on to finance its own buyout. The EA Savvy deal could just as easily respond to that financial pressure as be a simple reorganization of PIF’s gaming portfolio. Neither Bloomberg nor the outlets that picked up the story settle the question.
Moonton, Ward’s Departure, and a Timeline That Does Not Exist Yet
On September 1, 2026, Brian Ward stepped down as head of Savvy Games Group, roughly a month after EA’s acquisition closed, reports GodIsAGeek. He had led Savvy since its founding, after stints at EA, Xbox, and Activision Blizzard. He framed his departure as a leadership transition, cites TheSixthAxis. He wrote: « As Savvy embarks on its next period of transformational growth, this is the right time for new leadership for that evolution. » Turqi Alnowaiser, PIF’s deputy governor, is serving as interim head.
In March 2026, Savvy negotiated the acquisition of Moonton, the Chinese publisher of Mobile Legends: Bang Bang, for roughly $6 billion. ByteDance, which had bought the studio for nearly $4 billion in 2021, is scaling back its gaming holdings to invest more in artificial intelligence. That sale has not been finalized yet, and the EA Savvy deal is not expected to move before it is.
Microsoft’s acquisition of Activision Blizzard gives an idea of the possible timeline for a deal like this. Announced in January 2022 for $68.7 billion, it took nearly two years to clear US, UK, and EU regulators. The deal only closed in October 2023, after Microsoft handed Activision’s cloud streaming rights to Ubisoft to satisfy the UK’s competition authority. No date has been set for a decision on EA Savvy.
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