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[IbizaPocholo]

SNK lead insists Saudi Arabia sale ‘will have no effect on the games we make’ | VGC

Saudi Arabia’s PIF acquired 96% of the Japanese developer, raising issues of human rights abuses…

www.videogameschronicle.com

Regardless, its 96% investment in SNK has led to concern from many fans who do not want to support companies owned by the government, and those worried that future SNK games could see content restricted – particularly related to LGBT issues and women.

“For us, we’re just focussing on making games. We’re not a political company or anything like that, so it doesn’t affect us in any way,” Yasuyuki Oda, the producer and designer behind SNK’s biggest series, insisted when asked by VGC about concern around SNK’s ownership.

SNK lead insists Saudi Arabia sale ‘will have no effect on the games we make’
“It has no – no – effect on our creative output. We have full freedom on what we want to create,” he added when asked specifically if the company could add an LGBT character to its games, as Guilty Gear Strive recently has.

“Yeah, I would say honestly, the results speak for themselves,” Oda added via a translator. “Like, if it were an actual problem, then characters like Shermie probably wouldn’t be in the game.”

Shermie is a female character in The King of Fighters series, who occasionally blows kisses before matches towards her rivals.

“One thing we would say is that our ownership are generally fans of the IP, and they have been forever, so it’s up to us what we want to do as far as creating content goes.”

SNK’s management did not provide additional comment for this story when approached to do so.

 

[GigaBowser]

 

[Futaleufu]

You have to be completely clueless about SNK games if you are asking them to include LGBT characters when they already have done it several times since the 90s.

 

[Cyberpunkd]

People think that companies buy companies to put nice logo on their corporate website?

You have to be completely clueless about SNK games if you are asking them to include LGBT characters when they already have done it several times since the 90s.

It was before social media, so it doesn’t count.

 

[TheDuskwalker]

You have to be completely clueless about SNK games if you are asking them to include LGBT characters when they already have done it several times since the 90s.

It's modern game journalists.

 

[Danny Dudekisser]

Are modern games journalists incapable of writing a normal article about games? This is moronic.

"So... do u hate the gays now?"

"Nah"

Nobody deserves to be paid for writing this kind of shit.

 

[Rykan]

"In unrelated news, we'll be removing MaI from all currently available games in an upcoming update. Please understand."

 

[MAtgS]

SNK: It was always our intention to put Mai in a burka.

 

[ANIMAL1975]

Next SNK games woman lead fighter

 

[clem84]

This isn't difficult to believe. The investors don't want to see their investments go down the drain, so ir's unlikely they would make any drastic decision that could impact the company's success.

 

[I Master l]

As a Saudi i do hope we can influnce SNK to become a bit more conservative, Will help games sell
better in the Middle East/Russia/China and make them more family friendly

 

[archangelmorph]

People think that companies buy companies to put nice logo on their corporate website?

No.

A Saudi Arabian sovereign wealth fund will invest into a foreign company to gain exposure to and directly correlate domestic capital & GDP growth with sector-based growth of an international market.

It’s a macro investment strategy at this level and they really won’t give a shit about what SNK put in their games or how they make them, so long as they keep doing what they’re doing, then the Saudi SWF will benefit from their success as a contribution towards the maintenance and growth of national capital.

They also bought 5% of Nintendo.

Do you think they have a secret mission to put Peach in a Burka?

 

[Cyberpunkd]

They also bought 5% of Nintendo.

They bought 5% of Nintendo but 96% of SNK. One is not like the other.

 

[Kenneth Haight]

As a Saudi i do hope we can influnce SNK to become a bit more conservative, Will help games sell
better in the Middle East/Russia/China and make them more family friendly

Good luck

 

[archangelmorph]

They bought 5% of Nintendo but 96% of SNK. One is not like the other.

As a function of what?

I would ask what was the dollar value of the investment in each? I suspect a similar order of magnitude.

I don’t believe it makes a difference to their overall investment mandate.

They probably did so much of SNK to save it from potentially poor financial performance and I suspect they paid a discount for it too.

At the end of the day both are heritage Japanese gaming brands with rich IP catalogues and both investments would provide sizeable cash injections to supercharge whatever growth strategies the Saudi’s were sold.

 

[OmegaSupreme]

 

[Vaelka]

Something to note I guess, their games are already censored in China and Saudi Arabia.
So nothing would really have to change.

I don't see what the point would be for them to enforce global censorship.

As a Saudi i do hope we can influnce SNK to become a bit more conservative, Will help games sell
better in the Middle East/Russia/China and make them more family friendly

Please tell me you're trolling.
SNK games are not meant to be '' family friendly '', play another game then.
I hate this sanitization of everything it's so annoying...

 

[Lunarorbit]

No.

A Saudi Arabian sovereign wealth fund will invest into a foreign company to gain exposure to and directly correlate domestic capital & GDP growth with sector-based growth of an international market.

It’s a macro investment strategy at this level and they really won’t give a shit about what SNK put in their games or how they make them, so long as they keep doing what they’re doing, then the Saudi SWF will benefit from their success as a contribution towards the maintenance and growth of national capital.

They also bought 5% of Nintendo.

Do you think they have a secret mission to put Peach in a Burka?

With such a controlling stake in snk they can remove as much LGBT content as they want. It's completely different than having a 5% stock in Nintendo.

The Saud index fund is bin salaams treasure chest. Sorry dude, but he can fuck off. I'll never support him or snk now. If they could, yes Peach would be in a burka.

 

[Vaelka]

With such a controlling stake in snk they can remove as much LGBT content as they want. It's completely different than having a 5% stock in Nintendo.

The Saud index fund is bin salaams treasure chest. Sorry dude, but he can fuck off. I'll never support him or snk now. If they could, yes Peach would be in a burka.

Tbh I think there would be a very real possibility that the devs would simply leave.
I don't think they're the type of devs that would deal with that.

I think the Saudis have more to lose than to gain with starting to mess with what they do.
Like I mentioned the games are already censored in their region, why would they want to screw around with profits and brand loyalty abroad and upset the devs?

 

[PhaseJump]

Hey SNK, release a new Neo Geo platform.

It won't make any sense, but it will be cool.

 

[Fattious Floyd]

Next SNK games woman lead fighter

 

[lukilladog]

As long as they don't piss off the prince they shall remain in one piece.

 

[hemo memo]

As a Saudi i do hope we can influnce SNK to become a bit more conservative, Will help games sell
better in the Middle East/Russia/China and make them more family friendly

As a Saudi I would just allow them to do whatever they want unless it is woke then I don’t want it in any way shape or form.

 

[Trilobit]

They also bought 5% of Nintendo.

Do you think they have a secret mission to put Peach in a Burka?

Look at me! I'm ʂմրεɾ ომɾἶօ now!

 

[Orbital2060]

The Saudi state and five other countries have requested Netflix to clean up their content recently.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-62811522

If only developers/publishers could just have the balls to tell these guys to fuck off.

 

[ZoukGalaxy]

Are modern games journalists incapable of writing a normal article about games? This is moronic.

"So... do u hate the gays now?"

"Nah"

Nobody deserves to be paid for writing this kind of shit.

Does real games journalists exist ?

 

[Baki]

No.

A Saudi Arabian sovereign wealth fund will invest into a foreign company to gain exposure to and directly correlate domestic capital & GDP growth with sector-based growth of an international market.

It’s a macro investment strategy at this level and they really won’t give a shit about what SNK put in their games or how they make them, so long as they keep doing what they’re doing, then the Saudi SWF will benefit from their success as a contribution towards the maintenance and growth of national capital.

They also bought 5% of Nintendo.

Do you think they have a secret mission to put Peach in a Burka?

Exactly

 

[Labolas]

TBF KOF 15 has some of the most fanservice characters in their games.

Edit: Why would you ask if they're going to add trans characters? What a weird ass question to ask.

 

[CosmicComet]

Lol @ being concerned about Twitter issues in SNK games.

SNK and SNK fans were only concerned about the censorship of the female characters under Saudi ownership and the latest game under said ownership has shown that is NOT happening.

I'm happy with this.

 

[Torrent of Pork]

 

[archangelmorph]

The Saudi state and five other countries have requested Netflix to clean up their content recently.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-62811522

If only developers/publishers could just have the balls to tell these guys to fuck off.

I mean it’s a values vs money question.

You want access to Saudi state customer subs?
You want to screen content within their region domestically?

Then you play by their rules while you do it.

Every state has their own red lines, let’s not pretend otherwise.

Netflix are well within their rights to tell them to fuck off and lose access to that market. But if they want to make money then they distribute content that’s suitable.

It’s pretty straight forward and unsurprising.

 

[Miles708]

Nobody doubts SNK's good faith, but it's simply not their call anymore.

 

[consoul]

Metal Slug 2 & X were set in Saudi Arabia.

(I got permabanned from elsewhere just for pointing that out.)

I wonder if SNK would make another Metal Slug with Saudi bad guys now?

 

[SumJester]

In the case of Metal Slug you will never know.
Since the main antagonists are Morden and his rebel troops, they will be always the focus.
Will be harder to find out if there were other types of enemies thrown under the rug.

 

[HoodWinked]

SNK is probably fine for now. Saudis are basically buying up everything in their sovereign fund of half a trillion dollars. They're doing this to diversify out of oil. They have so much wealth from oil that they can't spend this money fast enough. So it's unlikely that they even have the time to micro manage to that degree let alone something so insignificantly small in the grand scheme of things.

 

[cireza]

SNK is probably fine for now. Saudis are basically buying up everything in their sovereign fund of half a trillion dollars. They're doing this to diversify out of oil. They have so much wealth from oil that they can't spend this money fast enough. So it's unlikely that they even have the time to micro manage to that degree let alone something so insignificantly small in the grand scheme of things.

True.

Optimizing the way they evacuate poop from their huge ass building in the middle of the desert is a much greater concern for them.

 

[Shut0wen]

Dont really get all the hate pif gets when it comes to funding companys, that have so much money and fund so much that they have no time to make decisions on what they fund though i do find it incredibly weird that they fund SNK

 

[nush]

i do find it incredibly weird that they fund SNK

Those are the kids that grew up playing Neo Geo AES because their dads could actually afford to buy them the games.

 

[Futaleufu]

Metal Slug 2 & X were set in Saudi Arabia.

(I got permabanned from elsewhere just for pointing that out.)

I wonder if SNK would make another Metal Slug with Saudi bad guys now?

Even japanese soldiers are enemies in Metal Slug.

 

[Hosam6xavi]

Even if we do have a effect everyone else should be quiet .. it's Saudi Arabia own company and can do whatever the fuck the owner wants

If American or EU company bought it there will be no drama

I blame the west state own Media propaganda