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[Axios] Saudi Arabia to invest $37 billion in gaming

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FalsettoVibe

FalsettoVibe

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https://www.axios.com/2022/09/29/saudi-arabia-invest-37-billion-gaming

Saudi Arabia's government-funded gaming conglomerate The Savvy Gaming Group will invest $37.8 billion in gaming as part of a controversial effort to expand the kingdom's role in the sector.
Click to expand...

Details: Savvy has earmarked more than $13 billion "for the acquisition and development of a leading game publisher to become a strategic development partner," according to the kingdom's press agency.

  • Another $18 billion is pegged for minority investments.
  • Savvy's efforts are expected to establish 250 game companies and create 39,000 jobs, the press agency noted.
  • The investments are announced by Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.
Click to expand...

Between the lines: Saudi and Savvy officials say this money is meant to diversify the country's economy, part of the country's Vision 2030 plan.

  • But many critics eye the moves skeptically, seeing them as attempted clean-up for the kingdom's record on human rights, including suppression of its citizens and its support for the war in Yemen.
  • The Crown Prince, who has been implicated in the brutal assassination of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, chairs Savvy's board.
  • In March, Ward told Axios he was "not over there on an image makeover project," and said Savvy's goals were real and for the betterment of the gaming sector.
Click to expand...
 
lh032

lh032

I cry about Xbox and hate PlayStation.
hey, at least games would still be multiplatform.
Happy Adam Scott GIF by Sky
 
Bragr

Bragr

Banned
"But many critics eye the moves skeptically, seeing them as attempted clean-up for the kingdom's record on human rights, including suppression of its citizens and its support for the war in Yemen."

Huh? what does this even mean? how does this clean up anything? do they think that people are gonna forget what the country does because they make some games?
 
TheThreadsThatBindUs

TheThreadsThatBindUs

Member
Why?

Is Saudi Arabia a particularly large gaming market? Is it a fast-growing one?

Is the intention here to position SA as a new gaming development hub in order to grow its own domestic gaming market by producing nationally developed games for its respective audience?

I don't really get this.

It almost feels like a case of the Saudi Prince being an avid gamer and is just dicking around with his country's vast oil wealth to fuel his passion project.
 
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//DEVIL//

//DEVIL//

Member
What does Namco Bandai has anything to do with ?

Also I am not really sure how I feel about a government getting involved in a video game business m. I mean I can understand if you buying a stake in a big company like they did before. But buying SNK for example … like what is the point? It’s like you are going to force them to do something they don’t want. They will just leave lol

But it’s also nice to have a rich country backing this up. It’s like the prince is a hardcore gamer and he wouldn’t mind if say king of fighters 16 didn’t sell very well as they can afford lol.
 
Frank Horrigan

Frank Horrigan

Banned
TheThreadsThatBindUs said:
Why?

Is Saudi Arabia a particularly large gaming market? Is it a fast-growing one?

Is the intention here to position SA as a new gaming development hub in order to grow its own domestic gaming market by producing nationally developed games for its respective audience?

I don't really get this.
Click to expand...
It's an investment, nothing more. It's no stranger than a wall street hedge fund capital investment business who couldn't name a single xbox game, investing billions in Microsoft.

Saudi have a lot of investments all over the place. From football clubs to manufacturing businesses.
 
TheThreadsThatBindUs

TheThreadsThatBindUs

Member
Frank Horrigan said:
It's an investment, nothing more. It's no stranger than a wall street hedge fund capital investment business who couldn't name a single xbox game, investing billions in Microsoft.

Saudi have a lot of investments all over the place. From football clubs to manufacturing businesses.
Click to expand...

Not seeing how it's the same as that analogy at all.

Firstly, I'm not sure how you don't realise this, but MS does much more than Xbox.

Secondly, if you read the article, they're buying a whole publisher, plus other devs studios with a view to creating new homegrown studios and games.

This is more than just an investment. It's about getting into a new market to try to become a major player in that market.

Here's to hoping this doesn't lead to state-funded censorship of publisher games, or even worse, a future Saudi-backed console that they force their purchased publisher to make all their games exclusive to.
 
Frank Horrigan

Frank Horrigan

Banned
TheThreadsThatBindUs said:
Not seeing how it's the same as that analogy at all.

Firstly, I'm not sure how you don't realise this, but MS does much more than Xbox.
Click to expand...
My bad I should have said xbox and not ms, but you know what I meant.
TheThreadsThatBindUs said:
Secondly, if you read the article, they're buying a whole publisher, plus other devs studios with a view to creating new homegrown studios and games.

This is more than just an investment. It's about getting into a new market to try to become a major player in that market.

Here's to hoping this doesn't lead to state-funded censorship of publisher games, or even worse, a future Saudi-backed console that they force their purchased publisher to make all their games exclusive to.
Click to expand...
They buy a lot of shit. Most of the time they don't get involved, sometimes they do. I don't think this is a sign of Saudi getting into gaming and more that they've seem growth in a company, in a growing sector and they wish to invest.

That or one of the Princes is bored and wants to own a gaming company to make games, like they did with English Footy a while back
 
Bo_Hazem

Bo_Hazem

Banned
TheThreadsThatBindUs said:
Not seeing how it's the same as that analogy at all.

Firstly, I'm not sure how you don't realise this, but MS does much more than Xbox.

Secondly, if you read the article, they're buying a whole publisher, plus other devs studios with a view to creating new homegrown studios and games.

This is more than just an investment. It's about getting into a new market to try to become a major player in that market.

Here's to hoping this doesn't lead to state-funded censorship of publisher games, or even worse, a future Saudi-backed console that they force their purchased publisher to make all their games exclusive to.
Click to expand...

I think you're right as well. They're trying to expand their economical footprint as well and bring big companies to invest/build their factories in KSA. Maybe they'll try to lure more devs/studios into KSA and inject Saudi Arabia with all its aspects into gaming which usually ends up with those kids growing up and wanting to visit Saudi Arabia one day.

Overall, KSA is changing rapidly and they're extremely smart in doing so as they wanna frogleap into a more sustainable revenue rather than relying on oil & gas with the trend of electric cars and what will come from this oil/gas war which could bring newer methods of power and oil/gas end up for poor countries and dirt-cheap.
 
thicc_girls_are_teh_best

thicc_girls_are_teh_best

Member
Just so everyone remembers: Microsoft enabled this. They're the ones who reinvigorated this trend of buying massive publishers (yes Sony did buy Psygnosis back in the '90s but that was a much smaller publisher in general, and Sony were just entering the market as a platform holder plus Psygnosis helped developed the PS1 devkits in particular), saying they (or certain fans claiming they) were doing it to "protect" the industry from large outsiders buying everything and destabilizing the core of the industry.

Well, Microsoft just ironically manifested the thing they were "worried" about, by doing what they claimed other companies were going to do. It was a pretty clever tactic in a way, but now we're starting to see what a precedent is being set. In the grand scheme of things, the Saudis shouldn't have much more trouble acquiring this publisher than Microsoft is having with ABK. Maybe Apple can sweep in and buy another giant publisher or two. Netflix is probably entertaining the option now, as is Amazon. Maybe Google decides to step in again with a relaunch of Stadia paired with a publisher acquisition, and Tencent not far after. And of course you'll have Sony trying to get their own (other) publisher or two.

Microsoft have effectively given the green light to kick off rampant industry consolidation at the largest scale. This is their doing, don't go forgetting it.
 
TheThreadsThatBindUs

TheThreadsThatBindUs

Member
I just had a thought... ok hear me out, since it's a bit out there.

Maybe.... just maybe, this is really about the predominantly Islamic Saudis being concerned about the more extreme western woke ideology and its encroachment into the gaming medium. Maybe they're doing this to ensure that the games Saudi kids love to play are isolated from the more extreme ideological propaganda that's started to infect gaming.

Maybe they're looking at what is going on in Iran and are scared and don't want strong western ideals influencing the minds of their younger generations. So they buy their way into the market and start producing their own home-grown content to ensure that at least one major entertainment medium is insulated from the western woke activists.

I could definitely see that.
 
lh032

lh032

I cry about Xbox and hate PlayStation.
TheThreadsThatBindUs said:
I just had a thought... ok hear me out, since it's a bit out there.

Maybe.... just maybe, this is really about the predominantly Islamic Saudis being concerned about the more extreme western woke ideology and its encroachment into the gaming medium. Maybe they're doing this to ensure that the games Saudi kids love to play are isolated from the more extreme ideological propaganda that's started to infect gaming.

Maybe they're looking at what is going on in Iran and are scared and don't want strong western ideals influencing the minds of their younger generations. So they buy their way into the market and start producing their own home-grown content to ensure that at least one major entertainment medium is insulated from the western woke activists.

I could definitely see that.
Click to expand...
Jill Valentine in modest wear!!!???
 
Kdad

Kdad

Member
TheThreadsThatBindUs said:
Why?

Is Saudi Arabia a particularly large gaming market? Is it a fast-growing one?

Is the intention here to position SA as a new gaming development hub in order to grow its own domestic gaming market by producing nationally developed games for its respective audience?

I don't really get this.

It almost feels like a case of the Saudi Prince being an avid gamer and is just dicking around with his country's vast oil wealth to fuel his passion project.
Click to expand...
Its a diversification of the nation's wealth away from oil...they've been in movies and music for awhile now (and gaming for at least 10 years through their sovereign fund)...
 
GHG

GHG

Member
TheThreadsThatBindUs said:
Why?

Is Saudi Arabia a particularly large gaming market? Is it a fast-growing one?

Is the intention here to position SA as a new gaming development hub in order to grow its own domestic gaming market by producing nationally developed games for its respective audience?

I don't really get this.

It almost feels like a case of the Saudi Prince being an avid gamer and is just dicking around with his country's vast oil wealth to fuel his passion project.
Click to expand...

It's part of their strategy to diversify investments away from oil.

They are in it for the cash and the cash alone in a lot of cases. They have very much been hands off silent investors for a lot of their ventures in recent years.
 
thicc_girls_are_teh_best

thicc_girls_are_teh_best

Member
TheThreadsThatBindUs said:
I just had a thought... ok hear me out, since it's a bit out there.

Maybe.... just maybe, this is really about the predominantly Islamic Saudis being concerned about the more extreme western woke ideology and its encroachment into the gaming medium. Maybe they're doing this to ensure that the games Saudi kids love to play are isolated from the more extreme ideological propaganda that's started to infect gaming.

Maybe they're looking at what is going on in Iran and are scared and don't want strong western ideals influencing the minds of their younger generations. So they buy their way into the market and start producing their own home-grown content to ensure that at least one major entertainment medium is insulated from the western woke activists.

I could definitely see that.
Click to expand...

But they're producing their own home-grown content by buying independent 3P developers and publishers that maybe would've produced other content.

Truth is, "wokism" or not, there are many people in the Saudi government who would always have a problem with Western governments, for a ton of reasons, dating back centuries. It's extremely silly IMHO to pin this on them fighting "woke" stuff, I doubt many people outside of America and parts of Europe honestly give a crap about that. Plus not to mention, there are probably localized political happenings in specific foreign nations that could be interpreted as "woke" in their own way, if that's all it is about.

It's also not like the Saudi government is a bastion for human rights, or the rights of certain ethnic minorities, transgender people etc. There's been some really messed up stuff they've done or held belief-wise to these groups and as someone who would potentially fall into being identified as one of those groups by them, I don't want to suddenly be faced with having people such my myself (on the phenotypical side of things; not that I care about this in terms of any "identity" nor do I think anyone else should, but I recognize the reality is that many people on both sides play by these notions) squeezed out of the gaming space through underhanded tactics reinforced by certain bigoted perspectives that I personally, individually aren't representative of. And this shouldn't be a controversial idea to hold.

But beyond that, and back on topic...if that's the reason you think groups like the Saudis are making these gaming investments, I just have to say that ain't it. Honestly, I don't want ANY government groups investing big money into gaming, it simply cannot end well. It's like how corporations have been pushing to invest bigger money into politics, and look at the clown circus politics have degraded into over the past 10 - 20 years. Entertainment medias SHOULDN'T have governments pumping big money into them because with that, propaganda on behalf of the governments, ALWAYS ends up seeping into the entertainment one way or another.

GHG said:
It's part of their strategy to diversify investments away from oil.

They are in it for the cash and the cash alone in a lot of cases. They have very much been hands off silent investors for a lot of their ventures in recent years.
Click to expand...

The worry is that this can change, at any point, in the near to semi-distant future. In fact, there's a good chance of that happening because when governments are directly pumping money into entertainment, at some point propaganda always rolls along.

Doing some looking into government-assisted propaganda in Hollywood, for example, is pretty eye-opening to say the least. And I'm not talking about the modern propaganda; I'm talking about stuff dating back to the '50s, '60s and '70s.
 
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SlimySnake

SlimySnake

Flashless at the Golden Globes
I hear they cut off the hands of thieves and robbers for stealing, scamming and fraud. Does that mean no microtransactions in Ubisoft games? Gambling is a big no no too. So no loot boxes?

Of course not. MBS is a douchebag. State run entertainment is not entertainment.
 
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