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EA's Wilson shoots down acquisition rumours

EA's Wilson shoots down acquisition rumours

The CEO of Electronic Arts Andrew Wilson has spoken out on the rumours that the company was in acquisition talks.

During the company's call with shareholders, the chief exec was asked about these reports and replied saying that EA is in an "incredible position" as an independent entity. This comes ahead of Microsoft closing its acquisition of Activision Blizzard, leaving Electronic Arts as the biggest independent publisher in video games.

"First, I'm sure you don't expect me to comment on rumors and speculation from some small red media outlets, but be that as it may," Wilson said. "I would tell you, I think we are in an incredible position. We're soon to be the largest stand-alone independent developer and publisher of interactive entertainment in the world.

"I think we have the most incredible teams in our industry and the plan, as Laura spoke to earlier. We're attracting more and more incredible creative talent. We have a community that's $600 million strong that is growing and certainly, we're well on our way to aspirations of being able to engage a billion people in play across the planet.

"I think we're growing across platforms. We're growing across business models, and we're growing across geographies. And in a world where gaming is becoming more important to the lives of Gen Z and Gen Alpha, who will be the leading generation in terms of consumption, entertainment for the future, I don't think we could be in a stronger position as a stand-alone company.

"Our objective always and my objective as CEO of this company is always to take care of our people, our players, and our shareholders. And should there ever be a way for us to do that differently the way we're doing it today, I, of course, have to be open to that. But I would tell you today, we feel very, very confident and excited for our future."

Reports that EA was in acquisition talks with the likes of Disney, Apple, NBCUniversal and Amazon broke in May of this year.


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PCGamesInsider Contributing Editor

Alex Calvin is a freelance journalist who writes about the business of games. He started out at UK trade paper MCV in 2013 and left as deputy editor over three years later. In June 2017, he joined Steel Media as the editor for new site PCGamesInsider.biz. In October 2019 he left this full-time position at the company but still contributes to the site on a daily basis. He has also written for GamesIndustry.biz, VGC, Games London, The Observer/Guardian and Esquire UK.