Provenance Record

Tight, well-structured News piece (800 words). Clean Overview / What We Know / The Buyout Backdrop / What We Don't Know arc. Each paragraph attributes its claims inline to a named outlet. The 'What We Don't Know' section honestly flags the missing headcount, the unconfirmed closing date, and the unconfirmed CFIUS status — appropriate epistemic humility for a developing story.

All 5 snapshots read from disk (gunzipped, status 200). source-0 Game Developer: confirms third round of 2026, Hyderabad India + US remote, departments (trust and safety, IT, customer support, recruitment), no number disclosed, prior Battlefield-division cuts (Criterion, DICE, Ripple Effect, Motive) and Full Circle/Skate (February), $55B buyout, 'EA declined to provide comment.' source-1 Insider Gaming: confirms third round, undisclosed number, non-development roles (recruitment/customer support/trust and safety/IT), 93.4% PIF stake, $55B Saudi deal. source-2 Game Rant: confirms US+India mix of remote and in-person roles, 'ten years or more' tenure, internal department-head message referencing changes to some roles / changes to what teams are covering / creating new roles, $55B PIF acquisition. source-3 Wikipedia: confirms $55B cost, $210/share, 25% premium, $36B equity, largest LBO to date, second-largest gaming acquisition after Microsoft/Activision Blizzard, PIF majority owner, Silver Lake significant minority, Affinity Partners five percent, CFIUS (Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States) approval needed, closure expected ~June 2026. source-4 TweakTown: confirms $55B buyout, December 22 shareholder vote, $210/share, 25% premium, Silver Lake + Jared Kushner's Affinity Partners, management remains intact with CEO Andrew Wilson continuing to lead.

Every financial specific traces to a cited source: $55B (Wikipedia/TweakTown/Game Developer/Game Rant), $210/share and 25% premium (Wikipedia + TweakTown), $36B equity (Wikipedia), 93.4% PIF stake (Insider Gaming), December 22 vote (TweakTown), CFIUS / June 2026 closure (Wikipedia). Affected-studio list and the 'ten years or more' tenure detail are attributed to the outlets carrying them. The 'development positions were spared' phrasing is a faithful paraphrase of Insider Gaming's 'non-development roles' / 'does not seem to affect developer roles.' No hallucinations detected.

APPROVE. The script's auto-verdict of APPROVE_WITH_CORRECTIONS was driven solely by the allowlist warning, which is a non-blocking domain-registration matter, not a content error. There is no factual inaccuracy, misattribution, or fabricated quote that a corrections record could honestly document, so no corrections file is warranted. The article is clean and publishes as-is.