{"id":77709,"date":"2026-05-08T11:58:00","date_gmt":"2026-05-08T15:58:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/vgvote.com\/?p=77709"},"modified":"2026-05-08T13:36:38","modified_gmt":"2026-05-08T17:36:38","slug":"cosplaying-gamers-will-raid-ea-hq-to-protest-saudi-arabias-55-billion-buyout","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vgvote.com\/?p=77709","title":{"rendered":"Cosplaying Gamers Will Raid EA HQ To Protest Saudi Arabia&#8217;s $55 Billion Buyout"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>In the wake of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.gamespot.com\/articles\/ea-nearing-50-billion-deal-with-saudi-arabia-and-other-investors-to-go-private-report\/1100-6535057\/\">Saudi Arabia&#8217;s leveraged buyout of Electronic Arts for $55 billion<\/a>, gamers upset by the takeover are planning to protest the publisher&#8217;s Redwood, California, headquarters on May 11 in cosplay.<\/p>\n<p>A movement known as <a href=\"https:\/\/playersalliancehq.org\/\">the Players Alliance HQ<\/a> has announced its intent to &#8220;raid&#8221; EA&#8217;s headquarters on May 11 at 11 AM PT \/ 2 PM ET. The goal is to denounce Saudi Arabia&#8217;s Public Investment Fund (PIF) buyout of the publisher, with cosplaying gamers planning to unravel a 50-foot scroll of over 70,000 petition signatures on the Madden football field at the center of the campus. There appears to be a whole performance involved in the protest as well, with gamers dressing in suits and top hats portraying the &#8220;corporate villains&#8221; behind the deal. Further, a giant health bar prop will slowly deplete as supporters digitally engage with the protest, and a loot-box demonstration will reveal a range of prizes like mass layoffs, studio closures, and aggressive monetization.<\/p>\n<p>According to the press release, Players Alliance HQ fears that, should the $55 billion deal go through (which would saddle EA with $20 billion in debt), the company could face pressure to cut jobs, replace employees with AI, and institute<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In the wake of Saudi Arabia&#8217;s leveraged buyout of Electronic Arts for $55 billion, gamers upset by the takeover are planning to protest the publisher&#8217;s Redwood, California, headquarters on May 11 in cosplay. A movement known as the Players Alliance HQ has announced its intent to &#8220;raid&#8221; EA&#8217;s headquarters on May 11 at 11 AM&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":161,"featured_media":77711,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[56],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-77709","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-external","brand-gamespot"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vgvote.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/77709"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vgvote.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vgvote.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vgvote.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/161"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vgvote.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=77709"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/vgvote.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/77709\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":77712,"href":"https:\/\/vgvote.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/77709\/revisions\/77712"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vgvote.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/77711"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vgvote.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=77709"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vgvote.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=77709"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vgvote.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=77709"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}