Congressman Teams Up With Popular Sims Streamer To Oppose Saudi Purchase Of EA

If all goes according to the plan of several wealthy, powerful parties, 93.4 percent of Electronic Arts will soon be owned by Saudi Arabia. The $55 billion leveraged buyout—which will also see Silver Lake and the Jared Kushner-fronted Affinity Partners take home smaller slices of the pie—remains subject to regulatory scrutiny after the overwhelming majority of shareholders voted in favor late last year. What happens next might feel inevitable, but two unlikely allies, US representative Maxwell Frost and popular The Sims YouTuber Kayla “Lilsimsie” Sims, think there’s still time to slam the brakes.

Last week, Frost and Sims collaborated with an advocacy group called Players Alliance to put on a livestream opposing the EA deal. While playing Stardew Valley together, the two discussed the negative impacts of the pending deal, as well as what regular people can do to gum up the gears of the greed-powered machine. As part of this, they encouraged viewers to sign a “Block The EA Deal” petition addressed to Scott Bessent, the US Secretary of the Treasury, that now sits at over 67,000 signatures.

Why this particular approach, though? Because even though 46 House Democrats have urged the Federal Trade Commission to “conduct a thorough investigation into the labor market consequences of this proposed acquisition,” Frost believes there are more lawmakers in Congress who’d rally behind the cause if they understood the severity of it.

"I would venture to say that there's a lot more members of Congress that are against this,” Frost, among the 46 who signed the FTC letter, told Aftermath. “They either didn't sign the letter [to the FTC] in time or most likely don't even know what's going on. This is something I talked about on the stream: Breaking news, members of Congress don't know everything. It's part of the reason why grassroots organizing is so important, why petitions are so important, or reaching out to offices is so important. A lot of the time, even if you don't realize this, you're educating the member in the office themselves on an issue they might not even know about, and then if they know about it, they might not understand how it impacts their constituents or why it's a big deal."

Partnering with a games-focused content creator in his district whose various channels reach millions, while not something all that many congresspeople have done in the past, made perfect sense to Frost in this instance.

"[Sims] has such a huge platform,” said Frost. “She's already been talking about [the ramifications of the EA buyout], and it was a great opportunity to, for one, educate people, but [also] to actually tell them how they can get involved, how they can make a difference, and then make sure they know that regardless of what happens this time, you're building power for the fights you don't even know about. When players, content creators, and everybody who gives a damn about gaming comes together? We're building power, and it's going to be used even outside of this specific struggle."

For Sims, the current struggle hits very close to home.

"I think The Sims community is particularly outraged by the prospect of the Saudi [Public Investment Fund] potentially being the main owner of EA because the PIF is directly controlled by the Saudi crown, and the crown's anti-LGBT human rights record is very worrisome,” Sims told Aftermath. “[The PIF] could choose to censor or suppress LGBTQ+ expression in the game, and The Sims has long been one of the most inclusive games out there; we want everyone to be able to continue to freely express themselves in it."

“[The PIF] could choose to censor or suppress LGBTQ+ expression in the game, and The Sims has long been one of the most inclusive games out there; we want everyone to be able to continue to freely express themselves in it."

So why play Stardew Valley during the stream instead of The Sims? Mostly, it was a matter of logistics.

"The thing is that [The Sims] is not multiplayer. So we liked the idea of being able to play a game together instead of me playing a game and [Frost] watching or something," said Sims. “We were trying to think about what would be a little more chill for us to be able to talk through and still be able to play and get stuff done, but maybe not be, like, randomly screaming in the middle of it because something chaotic happened.”

The EA deal, structured as a leveraged buyout, would see EA saddled with $20 billion in debt, which would need to be paid off over time. EA has said that shiny new Sword Of Damocles hanging over its head is nothing to worry about, but many—including Sims and Frost—have their doubts.

"There's also a lot of concern, within the [Sims] community, about aggressive monetization strategies to help pay off the massive debt [EA] is taking on,” Sims said. “Things like new microtransactions and increased game cost, which really negatively impacts the player. [There is also] a lot of concern about potential layoffs or replacement of devs with AI, which would be really horrible. I think the games would lose all their soul from that."

"If this deal goes through, people will feel and see the impacts,” said Frost. “Gamers will in the fact that everything they play will cost more. DLC packages will cost more. You'll see any kind of subscription packages people have will cost more as well, because the Saudis are going to incentivize this kind of acquisition to turn [games] into even more of a cash cow and figure out ways that they can fire people and utilize AI and cut corners and charge customers more to pay off over $20 billion in debt."

An aggressive money-making approach now seems even more likely with the Saudi PIF’s seemingly bottomless pockets finally hitting their limit—at least where costly sports expenditures are concerned. As Bloomberg recently reported:

But the Saudi wealth fund’s focus shifted over the last year. Instead of primarily acting as a capital source, it’s increasingly striving to generate financial returns and serve as a catalyst for broader economic investment.

This updated strategy is unfolding against the backdrop of a two-week ceasefire between the US and Iran. The recent war saw Gulf nations absorb the majority of attacks from the Islamic Republic. Saudi Arabia’s crucial energy infrastructure suffered a series of strikes, hampering its oil and gas production and exports, even as crude prices climbed.

Before the conflict began, officials in Riyadh had already started implementing difficult spending decisions. They ordered widespread reviews of ambitious national projects, signaling a pivot toward sectors more likely to attract foreign investment. Officials are looking for partners to help build World Cup stadiums, rather than handing millions to sports stars.

Frost sees potential for sports-related monopolistic knock-on effects that ripple out even further than the games industry: "Now [Saudi Arabia is] hoping to own EA Sports, and they own agencies that represent athletes themselves. A lot of the time, the gaming industry has to go into licensing deals with the agencies that represent the athletes, and so if you have a major stake in both of those companies, it gives you an unfair advantage. It really puts the athlete at a disadvantage, too—and everyone who works for the athlete. ... We should all be really worried any time any kind of industry is consolidated like this."

In pretty much every way that counts, monopolistic corporate power is at an all-time high right now, and the EA deal serves as a perfect illustration of the shameless cynicism that underpins it. That in mind, can the deal truly be stopped, or is it a runaway train that’s already left the station?

"Our hope is that [the deal gets blocked],” said Frost. “Of course, it doesn't look good, but we're going to get in every fight that we need to get into on behalf of people and to fight corporate greed and corporate monopolies. ... I wouldn't count us out just yet. There's been many times throughout the history of this nation where people have been able to rise up and push the FTC, push the Department of Commerce, to either stop something or at least put a hold on it to further study the impacts on working people. Whether we're able to achieve them suing to end this or delay it, both of those are wins."

"I wouldn't count us out just yet."

Frost believes that politicians who’ve chosen to go against the grain and support working-class causes have to get creative. In the past, Frost has been interviewed by current Democratic party boogeyman Hasan Piker, and he encourages his fellow members of Congress to stop pearl clutching and start using every available tool at their disposal.

"I believe in talking to everybody. Obviously, you're going to have lines. I don't think, at least for me personally, [Piker] has crossed any of the lines I have,” said Frost. "That whole conversation, part of me wants to call it stupid, but the organizer in me knows it's really important to validate where people are coming from. I know there's people who are offended by things that [Piker] said. I don't want to completely dismiss that, but at the same time, just because you're going on someone's stream doesn't mean you agree with everything they've said. Where's that energy when people go on Fox News?"

Sims also sees the upsides of politicians taking risks on influencers. As others like journalist/content creator turned politician Kat Abughazaleh have observed, livestreaming, especially, is a more off-the-cuff format than we’re used to seeing politicians employ, and perceived authenticity can help win over new supporters.

"I think that we're witnessing a changing landscape of all of this,” said Sims. “I think that this kind of thing is probably going to start happening a lot more often, even beyond just livestreaming. I feel like you see politicians trying to get in contact with influencers in general for videos on TikTok or to try to tap into more of the internet. Livestreaming is an especially interesting tool for that because of the fact that it's live and because it's so much more casual."

Frost believes that in this day and age, politicians need to be willing to go everywhere and talk to anyone—but only if they’re able to be authentic about it, because people can tell.

"Not everyone's going to toe the party line, but I'm of the opinion that a lot of times the people who are going to be watching those types of streams are exactly the type of voters and people that our party needs to be communicating with, because the fact of the matter is, especially young people, they hate both parties,” he said. "I think people should only do gaming and streaming if they really want to do it. … I can 100 percent tell when someone's doing a podcast or interview because we lost the last election, and everyone thinks it's because we didn't go on enough podcasts. I know that's why you're doing it and not because you're excited to be there. That really shines through."

The cons of forcing it, Frost believes, far outweigh the pros.

"Like, as you see, I'm not blitzing the manosphere stuff, and obviously I'm not running for President, so maybe that's why,” he said. “I think people should just not try to completely change their persona based on an election result, because the fact of the matter is, you might think you're meeting the moment now, but in politics and in life, the moment changes pretty rapidly. And so in a few years, you might have completely changed who you are to fit some kind of mold you thought you would have to fit to talk to young people or young men or whatever, but in two years, you might look around, and the whole world might have changed. You changed yourself, and now no one believes you."

"I think people should just not try to completely change their persona based on an election result, because the fact of the matter is, you might think you're meeting the moment now, but in politics and in life, the moment changes pretty rapidly."

As for what’s next in the fight against the EA deal, nothing’s set in stone. Frost has some ideas, though.

"I have a big EA building in my district,” he said. “[During the stream] we talked about [how] maybe we can do something in front of it. It's not decided if we're going to do that or not. We're [going to] think about if it makes sense."

Beyond that, it’s just a matter of ensuring that more people can make their voices heard.

"I've started talking with a few other members [of Congress] about them uplifting the petition and talking about it as well,” said Frost. “So we're still developing the next steps, but I think the biggest thing right now is just encouraging people to reach out to their [congress] members, so we can get more people talking about it—more eyes on it. We're also figuring out a way that we can make it easy for people to reach out to the FTC and give a comment on this, which a lot of times can throw up red flags to the FTC."