Justin Sullivan/Getty Images News/Getty ImagesVideo games being both an art form and a multi-billion-dollar industry means that economics tends to infringe on their creation. That’s not always a bad thing — a crucial part of the creation of home consoles was the realization that they opened the door for more profits than arcade cabinets ever made — but in the modern day, it’s a Faustian relationship. Grand Theft Auto 6 being the first game to spearhead Sony’s initiative to eliminate physical disks, the Blade video game being potentially canceled due to mass layoffs from Xbox and Microsoft... it increasingly feels like the relationship that movies, as art, have with the studio system.It’s a situation that’s poised to get even worse, thanks to the push for a digital-exclusive landscape (which will allow game publishers to control pricing in perpetuity) and the ever-ballooning costs of consoles themselves. Now, another major development has rocked the gaming industry, and it’s one likely to have massive consequences considering it affects one of the biggest companies in the entire landscape.EA, the company behind the Madden NFL series and countless other games, is about to undergo a dramatic shift. | Electronic ArtsThe BBC recently reported that the $55 billion sale of video game juggernaut Electronic Arts has been finalized, allowing a group of investors, including Jared Kushner and Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund, to take the company private. The deal wasn’t simply a straightforward purchase, but a leveraged buyout, meaning that $20 billion was paid with money borrowed from Saudi Arabia’s PIF. That debt must now be repaid by EA itself, which opens up a new can of worms.It’s hard to overstate just how disastrous this purchase will likely be for EA’s gaming repertoire. Not only does it set the stage for massive layoffs and studio sales, but it pretty much guarantees that the next few years of EA releases will be filled to the brim with aggressive microtransactions as the company works to pay down that debt. EA already gets a lot of flak from gamers, but it’s home to everything from Dragon Age and Dead Space to the Madden series. If the company needs to scrounge up $20 billion, it will likely take fewer risks than it already does and start relying far more on popular franchises and safe sequels. Like any mainstream artistic medium, video games are beholden to whatever direction the dollars are flowing, and EA isn’t going to be the exception.