Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and heir to the throne of Saudi Arabia did not give up the dream of creating Saudi Arabia an important player in the video game industry. Saudi Arabia was the first to buy minority stakes in a number of well-known studios. The second step is to become a major player in the gaming market and create, publish and buy top games. Bin Salman’s strategy is to make his country independent of oil in the future.
In February the fund increased stake in Nintendo to 8.3% of shares and Saudi Arabia became the largest outside shareholder. But the plans are much more ambitious, the crown prince wants to attract partners and other companies to Arabia, create and post great headlines here. This is helped by a $38 billion investment that is also being used by the one built last year. Savvy Games Studios, which employs 45 people. The small studio’s plan is to make a mobile game first and then a console game.
Source: UbisoftDue to poor physical sales, Ubisoft is closing offices in Europe and Canada.
In Saudi Arabia, they understand that building companies from scratch and putting together teams is difficult and time-consuming. That’s why they have about $15 billion ready to acquire some unnamed publisher. They originally wanted Electronic Arts, but it turned out to be too much of a bite. Instead, it has a subsidiary called Savvy Gaming Group. millions of EA and Take-Two shares and hopes publishers will work together through this investment.
But some companies do not lose sight of the disputes over Saudi Arabia, especially in the region. human rightswhich include the criminalization of homosexuality, the restriction of women’s rights and the use of the death penalty. The CIA also accused Crown Prince and de facto ruler Mohammed bin Salman of killing Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi in 2018.
Source :Indian TV
