Electronic Arts, the Redwood City-based video game publisher, will be acquired and taken private in a transaction valued at $55 billion, according to a report from ABC7 San Francisco.

The deal removes one of the largest publicly traded game companies in the United States from the stock market. EA, known for franchises including EA Sports FC, Madden NFL, The Sims and Battlefield, has operated as a public company for decades, and the buyout ends that chapter.

A $55 billion price tag makes this one of the largest acquisitions ever recorded in the video game industry, and one of the largest take-private transactions in the technology and entertainment sector more broadly. The scale of the financing involved puts the deal in the same weight class as the industry-defining consolidations of recent years.

For EA's studios and development teams, the immediate operational question is continuity. The company's development pipeline, its licensing relationships with sports leagues, and its live-service monetization model across franchises like EA Sports FC and Apex Legends all now sit under new private ownership. Take-private deals of this size typically come with a stated strategy — cost restructuring, a shift in portfolio focus, or a longer investment horizon free from quarterly earnings pressure — and studios will be watching for those specifics as the transaction details are formalized.

For the broader market, the deal is a signal. Private capital continues to view large-scale game publishing as an attractive asset class, even at multibillion-dollar valuations, and EA's exit from public markets reduces the number of major pure-play game publishers available to public investors. Competitors, analysts and studio leadership across the industry will be reading the transaction terms closely for what they imply about how private buyers value game IP, live-service revenue and development headcount in the current market.

The report did not specify the acquiring party, the expected timeline to closing, or whether the deal includes a shareholder vote. Those details will determine the practical pace of change: regulatory review, financing conditions and board approval all stand between announcement and completion in transactions of this magnitude.

Shareholder and regulatory responses in the coming weeks are the next concrete signal to watch.