Episode 598: Saudi Arabia Bought EA — And Gamers Are Mad About a Camera

On Tuesday, Electronic Arts stops being a public company. Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund, Silver Lake and Jared Kushner's Affinity Partners are closing a $55 billion all-cash buyout — the largest leveraged buyout of a public company in history — and PIF walks away with 93.4% of Madden, FIFA, Apex, The Sims, Battlefield and BioWare.

So we spent half the episode on what that actually means: what going private does to a publisher, the $20 billion in debt that lands on EA itself, whether sports betting is the obvious way to service it, and what happens to queer characters in BioWare games under this ownership. Plus the question nobody answers honestly — is boycotting Madden a real position, or does it just feel good?

Then the other half. Tarkov's first post-launch wipe and the Kord Breach seasons drop August 3, so we get into the state of the game right before it resets. Overwatch Champions Series is live in Paris, and the jetpack cat strat does not translate to Silver. And Baldur's Gate 3's new true third-person camera mod set the internet on fire — someone told modders to be nuked off the face of the earth over an optional camera angle in a single-player game.

Jake wants a normal third-person view in everything. Raz is a Larian hipster who was there before BG3. WARDOGS Alpha hits Friday.

0:00 - Intro

0:50 - Pop Quiz: Name That Tarkov AI

2:41 - Patreon Free Trials & August Hangouts

6:37 - WARDOGS Alpha Drops August 7

8:43 - Escape From Tarkov: Back In It

10:50 - Raz Gets Mogged All Wipe Long

16:36 - Jake's Week in Tarkov

22:49 - Tarkov Is the Dark Souls of FPS