EA, Leveraged Buyouts, My Thoughts....

News has broken that Electronic Arts (EA) has agreed to a sale reportedly worth around $55 billion to a consortium led by Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund alongside Affinity Partners and JPMorgan Chase.

That's an extraordinary valuation.

EA is one of gaming's oldest and most recognisable publishers. Whether or not you're a fan of its catalogue, few companies have had the influence EA has had over the last forty years. Its sports franchises alone are enormous businesses.

But the sale itself is what caught my attention.

Much of the reporting quite naturally calls this a "sale", because that's exactly what it is for EA's existing shareholders. They receive cash and walk away.

The part that interests me is what happens afterwards.

From the public reporting, this appears to be structured as a leveraged buyout (LBO). In broad terms, that means the buyers contribute some of the purchase price themselves while borrowing the remainder to complete the acquisition. That's a well-established private equity model and not unusual in itself.

The important distinction is what comes next.

In a typical leveraged buyout, the acquisition debt does not simply disappear once the deal completes. Instead, the debt sits within the acquiring group and is ordinarily serviced from the cash generated by the acquired business. Existing shareholders have been paid. The lenders still expect to be repaid.

The exact financing arrangements for the EA transaction are not public, so I'm not suggesting I know the specific debt structure, repayment schedule or internal financing arrangements. But if this follows the broad mechanics of a conventional LBO, the acquired business ultimately becomes responsible for generating the cash needed to support that financing.

That changes incentives.

The company experiencing the stress of a change of ownership immediately suffers the added stress of serving the debt used to buy it. Framed from the bottom-up perspective of the people inside the organisation, that can seem deeply counterintuitive.

Every dollar spent on salaries, benefits, research, new technology or creative risk has to compete with the financial demands placed upon the business. Sometimes that pressure is manageable. Sometimes it becomes the defining constraint.

That is where my concern begins.

Games are not factories. They're creative projects with uncertain outcomes. One title becomes a phenomenon. Another, built by equally talented people, can miss its audience entirely. Creative industries don't always fit neatly into financial models built around predictable cash flows.

EA has advantages many publishers don't. Its sports portfolio generates recurring revenue that most companies would envy. That may make servicing acquisition financing easier than it would be for many of its competitors.

But outside those flagship franchises, EA's history has been far less predictable. Like every major publisher, it has celebrated huge successes alongside expensive disappointments.

The reason I care about this isn't theoretical.

I've lived through a leveraged buyout in the games industry.

Keywords Studios was acquired by Houting UK Limited, an acquisition vehicle backed by EQT, CPP Investments and Temasek in a classically structured private equity leveraged buyout. What followed, from my perspective as an employee, was increasing organisational consolidation under the long-running "One Keywords" strategy alongside restructuring across parts of the business.

I was one of the people who ultimately lost their job.

From where I stood, there was no appetite to keep experienced engineers available between projects, even if that meant retaining knowledge and being ready for the next opportunity. Instead, the business reduced headcount, with the expectation that people could simply be hired again when demand returned.

I can't say that decision was made solely because of the acquisition financing. What I can say is that, from the inside, it felt like a business becoming increasingly intolerant of anything that wasn't immediately billable or immediately reducing risk.

Losing a spreadsheet line is one thing. Losing your livelihood is something else entirely.

That experience inevitably colours how I read announcements like EA's.

I watched studios lose parts of their individual identity as more functions became centralised. I watched colleagues leave. I watched teams become leaner. Many of those decisions may well have had sound commercial reasons behind them; I cannot say that any individual decision was made because of the acquisition financing. Markets change, projects end, businesses restructure for many reasons.

But I also know what sustained financial pressure feels like from inside an organisation.

When cash becomes precious, hiring slows. Support functions shrink. Management layers are reviewed. Projects are merged or cancelled. Duplicate roles are questioned. None of those decisions are unique to leveraged buyouts, but leverage can make the consequences of under-performance much sharper.

Perhaps EA's future owners will prove my concerns unfounded. I genuinely hope they do.

Because behind every restructuring announcement are thousands of developers, artists, designers, testers, producers and support staff who simply want to make great games.

That's why I don't look at this transaction and see a headline valuation.

I see a business beginning a very different chapter, one where financial engineering and creative ambition will inevitably have to coexist.

Having lived through one version of that story already, I sincerely hope EA's ends better than mine did.

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References: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cjejyl34345o https://www.ea.com/news/ea-announces-completion-of-acquisition?isLocalized=true https://kotaku.com/helldivers-2-ceo-electronic-arts-acquisition-consolidation-safe-sequels-2000721559

 

XVE - Terrain Systems - Random Noise & Influence Mechanics

Well, politics aside I thought I'd talk about my game engine and some of the new terrain systems I'm working on.

There have been a couple of images and videos on the old YouTube channel with some of the examples, but here's a still for your enjoyment... See the MASSIVE tree remains on the peak it was to place trees (of the correct scale) into a natural pattern I then turned.

I started with the same noise algorithm I'd used for the peak itself, but that tended to give me slices of trees or uncanny looking placements.

Off to CImg I started to play with some noise algorithms and after a while I got an appearance for the groups of trees I liked; at least in 2D.

 

This being me though I went to bed and got distracted with horses and so only just came back to this very late on a Sunday evening, and the first thing I did was NOT the tree placements at all, no I started with the above set of points and wanted to check my "Area of Control" system.

This basically sets up the influence from each island, as you capture them the idea being that you improve them and they become stronger nodes, more loyal maybe, and that gives you bonus points towards your various activities and influence over neighbours... Whom you might conquer.

The trick however was how to set this up by default, so I decided to play a map up into individuals, and create a sort of area influence and then depending on the range you can travel that will build networks of connections to "who you might influence" or be influenced by.

However, that got quite complex quite quickly and my world still needs to be persisted on the server/back end, soooo.....

I got distracted again and made the initial influence a voronoi diagram pattern.

 

Sometimes you just have to let your mind wander, this weekend, the little computer time I had, was definitely just letting my mind wander.

I was quite tired after the latest release at work.... And to be honest, I kind of love Jason Voorhees.

 

 

People of Makerfield

Here I am again, being political, I watched Question Time last night... And I have to say I wasn't impressed with very many of the members of that panel.

The standout moments being the childish faces the Green Candidate pulled when members of the Green Party were quoted back to them.

The Liberal Democrat candidate and Reform candidates coming across as very nervous, or certainly not as confident as the others on the bench.

And then the Labour and Conservative candidates.... Often trying to bounce off one another as if they were jovial colleagues "We've had conversations at length".  To use a very English turn of phrase, they all piss in the same pot.

Really, people of Makerfield, you have an opportunity here to avoid voting for the current "mainstream" parties, those parties whom have hog tied and destroyed our democracy, spent our money and left this country a husk of itself in just a quarter of a century the decline in this country is unfathomable.

You Makerfield, you have the opportunity to simply null and void this party political shenanigans in the Labour party.

You Makerfield, have the opportunity to agree with many of the voices in that audience and indeed the candidates, that politics needs a root & branch reset.

That means simply not voting for the parties whom have proven themselves full of self-serving, lying, traitors.

I'm not telling you who to vote for.  I am however suggesting whom not to vote for.

Australia receives Pertinent UK News

I do try to avoid being too political here on my blog, however seeing this in my YouTube feed.... After I read the UK news this morning.... Has infuriated me:

Why mainstream UK Media, why is this NOT front page news here?  Why is not on UK Sky News, why am I having to see it via Australia!??

It really is enough to make you believe the media is somehow controlled & influenced by the government doesn't it.

Project Blackbird Leaks

I won't be linking the content, however earlier today some video of "Blackbird" leaked, it was syndicated on some news outlets, such as the Metro.

I have to say I have no idea from where the files came and it really quite annoyed me.  On a personal level, no-one I know of has nor ever tried to leak anything about that brilliant project; and as one of the first engineers on the task of bringing it to life it really irks me.

I've blogged about my feelings on the brutal cancellation before.

This video leak however is more annoying, not least because that was very old footage, it might even have been from a very early prototype build, and it clearly wasn't using the fantastic all ray traced renderer nor were the assets all the final ones we had (yes, live ray traced engine on an XBox Series X! Or a 2080 RTX min spec!).

People liked what they saw, but it wasn't mind blowing, Blackbird actually was.  Sure we had a ways to go, but the play loop was ace, the scope of the world was massive, the movement systems were top notch, I'm not saying anything others have not already said and I look at the predicted releases for XBox in 2026/2027 (our release window) and honestly I don't see much coming from their own mews.

Indeed, with the RAM shortage & it's costs it's pushing hardware options out into the future too, so it's likely Blackbird might have had 6-8 months added content creation before the next XBox hardware was even announced.

And remember this is Zenimax Online, their track record for live service games and regular content creation is right up there, we knew what we were doing (for the most part), we were realistic in dealing with things, we were moving into a massive tech debt and the tooling was all in place to start churning out the worlds and the stories we had to set in that living world.

Honestly, a gem has been buried, never to see the light, but unlike the Arkenstone the theif didn't come to steal from the dragon, instead the thieves stole our sweat & tears, I believe an unrivalled team.

So this leak, take it all with a pinch of salt, the game, the real game, looked so much better, fast paced and beautifully sultry. 

On The Cleveland Bay Breed

Viewers of my YouTube channel will know I have horses, we lunge, ride, trap & carriage drive and generally really enjoy them, keeping them and ourselves entertained.  They are pets and massive parts of our lives.

The eagle eyed of those viewers will have noticed over the last two years we have been training our Cleveland bay, he arrived from the breeders Mr & Mrs Orange at Kenley Cleveland Stud.  His name is Nova.... Or Kenley Supernova, and we had to join the Cleveland Bay Horse Society to own him.

He is that rich bay colour with the striking black socks on each leg and a strong black main and tail, the absolute standard for the Cleveland Bay Breed; accept no less!  He arrived with some of the biscuit fringe colours of a foul and he has been slightly behind on his teeth changing from baby to adult, but otherwise he is a big boy, today measuring at least 16hh3 (hh = hands).

 

Nova's character is a quirkly one, for the most part he is all over humans, he investigates you and things around him... Being very interested and unlike many horses he is mindful, he doesn't just blindly panic but instead thinks about the challenges he encounters.

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Again this is a trait of his breed, to be mindful, steady temptered and is one of the reasons they are so popular in the driving role today; notably for the Royal Family, if you see a bay coloured hosed with the black mane, tail & socks, pulling a carriage for the King, well it'll likely be a Cleveland Bay.

 

When we started training Nova it was literal baby steps, head collar training, leading him around the field, past various bric-a-brac:

 

Since that video was taken I have lost a bunch of weight.... Nova has not, he's grown and grown, his shoulders coming out and strengthening right now in October 2025.  You can see here is withers are just around my shoulder height, today they're up around my ear and he is just such a much bigger animal.

 

Once the head collar training was done we moved onto a bridle, at first with a plastic bit, but quickly he had an upgrade to steel, with a soft articulation in the middle:

 

All of this training was done in house by ourselves, we'd done much of this before with Gerty, but never with such a young horse, still growing, so it has been fascinating to see his mind growing with his skills and size.

 

The next step was to decide how to best approach him into driving.... And long reigns were the best way to move forward, with the help of a local trainer we began introducing him to new equipment:

 

 

Two sessions later and it was my turn to keep this practice up.... As you can see by the state of the grass this was in the burning hot summer of 2025.

So it was I found myself behind him rather than leading him...

 

Which is a very alien thing for a horse to experience commands from literally out of sight as you walk in their rear blind spot, however, the Cleveland Bat genes run strong in him and he was extremely comfortable with this extremely quickly as his quality shone.

 

Graduating to road practive soon after, and I took him out without our trainer just this very morning...

 

All of this is not just about owning a horse, nor just owning a Cleveland Bay, so many people claim their horse is a CB it's hard sometimes to bite ones tongue as a true CB is a very special animal, and you have to have the rare breeds passport, Cleveland Bay Horse Society member ship and all the bloodlines clearly defined to state your horse is a CB.

 

And the bloodlines are very important, Mr & Mrs Orange who bred Nova are massive figures in the breeding programmes, advocates for the breed and the CBHS.  Nova was gelded without saving any semen from him, sometimes I am sad about that, but we could simply not have had a stallion at our yard.

 

So instead of spreading his genes I write this post to spread the true word about the Cleveland Bay, our experience with Nova has been so rich and rewarding and we have decades to come with him.

 

He will drive out pulling a carriage and we hope to ride him too, weight loss programmes and will power willing!

 

He has been an absolute powerhouse of mental development, horse wise he is very clever.

 

And so I bring my post to a close with this post from Mrs Orange:

 

 

On the Topic of "Smart Pointers" and the Factory Create Pattern

This is a topic I have visited a few times over the years:

2016, 2016 on SDL2, 2019, 2023 on control block, and I visited it professionally on the now cancelled AAA MMO Game Engine with Zenimax Online; the specific pattern within which came from my original 2016 post, just with a few tweaks and expansions over the years.

Its just one of those things which comes up time and again in the C++ space, much like my crusade against return early in performance code... cough.

And it came up again just this week, where given a coding test I immediately did not like seeing raw pointers being used, so quickly refactored it to use a factory create pattern, except I was in a rush and didn't have the luxury of a whole game engine backing me up.

So denuded of even my own post I quickly used a different approach, so use a hidden (private) member struct in the constructor.  The constructor remains public so std::make_shared or std::make_unique can access them without hinderance from the static create factory member function, but that a regular user can not use a flat "operator new" as they can not access the private struct.... Sounds complex, but it's really not, and you will even find this exact pattern on CPP Reference sites across the web, let us quickly output an example (and I'll assume you've taken a look at my prior post from 2016 above for the actual "shared pointer friendship" I would prefer).

struct Thing

{

private:

   struct HiddenInternal {};    // Just an empty struct

public:
    using Ptr = std::shared_ptr<Thing>;

    static Ptr Create()
    {
        return std::make_shared<Thing>(HiddenInternal{});
    }

    explicit Thing([[maybe_unused]] HiddenInternal internal)

   {

   }   

};

And so with this code we can only get a Ptr instance here from the static Create call.

Now I've set the scene, what am I asking myself?  I'm asking what is the compile time and what is the runtime effect of these two patterns?

Compiletime my suspicions are that the shared_pointer friendship stuff in my original post is more weight to carry, there's a macro in my more complex implementations, so that's pre-processor overhead, there's expansion of the code at compile time.

But there's also this HiddenInternal in this new, simpler, implementation based solve; I believe there will even be compiler ellision of the HiddenInternal as its empty and does nothing; I just need to observe and understand this topic better.

Lets start with Compiler Explorer and my first confirmative discovery, just as I suspected, the compiler is very smart smart and it will easily see a trivial class such as mine above, or one with a single member, and fold it away to nothing in compiler ellision.

And this is a great thing!  It proves at zero runtime overhead whilst we have code fully communicative of the intent, self documenting code is a wonderful thing, and this is an interesting and eye catching pattern in the code.... Such that I believe even a new set of eyes meeting it would appreciate there is something special intended and they would take care to use the class properly, avoiding memory leaks for us along the way.

Good code health is as important as the final result, I especially take pride in code which can run a long duration.  I've always worked on long lived project timelines.

So HiddenInternal can result in no overhead when the class is trivial, what about when the class is complex?

The first thing I notice is that the factory creation function itself generates no code, yet we benefit from its intent at compile time and in the usage.  There is of course the control block creation for the shared pointer in this instance and I hold that in my mind, but the cost to pay back in intent of the code far outweighs the control block.

The constructor itself is interesting.... 

Removing the HiddenInternal gives no difference, so the compile has still removed the empty class, but enforces it's use in the code... This is a total win-win... The cost at compile time, one compile time ellision in one translation unit which is neglegable.

The runtime overhead zero.

What about the preprocessor and friendship.... The friend keyword itself is zero cost, the wrapping of it in a macro is therefore arguably a different conversation to have.  Resolving a friendship however is not so cost effective, the friend keyword adds a symbol, typically with a cost of O(1).

The look up from any other resolve is therefore either going to be O(1) or O(log N) where N is the number of other appearances of the name, this look up is going to be the compile time cost.  In practical terms this is going to be a very small duration, perhaps even below measurable in the pantheon that is a build across multiple cores.

A friendship link itself however costs nothing in code generation time, so we do not hold up the compile per se, we do however add a cost in the symbol table build.

Once something is in the symbol table it will result in complexity when refactoring code, potentially more rebuilds if the friendships, or classes within change.

In conclusion, if I have the option to set up a friendship to the underlying control block (see 2016) I would, but equally to keep the local complexity low I would also consider the Hidden private member class as a "trick".