Leveraged buyouts like the $55bn take-private of video game maker Electronic Arts have been out of favour for more than a decade, and with good reason. This time round the buyers, who include Silver Lake, the Saudi Arabian Public Investment Fund and Jared Kushner’s Affinity Partners, must think they have found a cheat code.

A frenzy of pre-2008 highly indebted giant acquisitions turned out to be a huge disappointment for Wall Street. Electric utility TXU, until this week the biggest at $45bn, filed for bankruptcy. Firms such as KKR and TPG, who led that deal, had raised enormous sums from pension plans and sovereign wealth funds but ended up with egg on their faces.

A mature gaming company with stagnant revenue might not seem the obvious catalyst for an era of renewed private equity ambition. The Silicon Valley-based EA is known for sports games — notably soccer and American football. In addition, it has The Sims franchise and shooting game Battlefield. It also generates cash: around $2bn a year on more than $7bn of revenue, after spending roughly $4bn on research and development, marketing and overheads.