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Surely, they’ll approve a 9/11 flight simulator.
With a bonus level of chopping up journalists in hotel rooms?
To be honest that a great idea for a game and it will be a hit in no time.
Could you explain what you mean?
Mostly Saudi citizens were the perpetrators of 9/11 and there was a lot of suspicion that the government was involved, either through planning or funding.
Ah thanks, I wasn’t aware that the Saudi Government was involved
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jamal khashoggi
PRINCE bonesaw.
I’m going to get downvoted to oblivion, I’m fully aware.
There are many things I don’t know anything about. But I do know a fair bit about this area.
And with great respect to the worriers, this just will not happen.
The investment team that’s bought EA have many other “western” investments they’ve never interfered with, even though they do a great deal of things that the orthodoxy in Saudi Arabia would disagree with. The layers between “what I [claim] to believe” and “make me the most amount of money” are many and includes people from all over the world. If anyone thinks Saudi royalty will sit and make determinations about what games EA will ship they can stop worrying right now. The Saudi monarchy is worrying about two things only: As much money as possible and staying in power.
This is an investments like so many others. It will be ordered to profit-maximise - and if that requires one-upping Doom in gore, and shipping a new edition of Gay Paradise 2000 every 6 months - they will do exactly that.
This is a complete storm in a tea cup.
The Saudi monarchy hates Islam and is shackled by it. Saudi Arabia had been on a “liberalization” plan under MBS, and it’ll be western soon enough.
They’re following UAE’s doorsteps, and they’re even worse. You can now buy alcohol in public in UAE. You need a license (pay money and don’t be Muslim) or be a tourist, but it’s otherwise unrestricted. You can already wear almost nothing and you can literally be a Zionist who calls Muslims snakes and terrorist and you’ll be welcomed on a red carpet.
Saudi wants that, they just don’t have control tight enough over their population to get away with that yet.
So yes, they will not enforce Sharia on EA games, they’re hoping one day they don’t have to do any "moral’ restrictions on content domestically. As long as it brings in money.
Yeah the Saudi elites are hedonists behind closed doors. The monarchy needs to have the blessing from the clergy to stay in power so they need to be pious in public. Like it’s a open secret that the Saudi elite men fuck western prostitutes on the regular on their yachts in international waters.
You did say two contradictory things here. You said they won’t interfere, but also the only thing they care about is staying in power. This isn’t exclusive to them, but they will use it to maintain their power if it’s useful for that. If a game was going to be critical of them, it probably won’t be made. (It probably wouldn’t have been anyway, because the only thing that could come from it, for the former owners, is losing investments.) Yeah, they don’t care about Islam. That’s fair game, but they aren’t.
They aren’t concerned about being owned by Trump’s family too?
They own the Trump’s, not the other way around
EA owns the Trumps?
they will never revive CNC, especially generals which has the GLA.
LOL
Bosses cashed out and left the carcas to rot
The ironic part is it’s the same thing that happened to all the companies EA bought too
That’s how the whole AAA level of the games industry already works: the people at the top greenlight what they want to greenlight.
It’s just adding a new layer to the mix when the people at the top are literally the royal family of an oppressive monarchy with openly fucked human rights practices.
(looks at the current CEO’s of most the big companies.)
I mean, I get where you’re going… but it’s assholes all the way up.
You’re not wrong, but I feel like there are subtle levels to these things.
If I start up a game and a logo comes up for Namco or Square Enix or whatever, most of them don’t make me think, “oh, I remember that time their owners assassinated a journalist, it made the international news, and they fully got away with it anyway.” That’s no longer the case for an EA logo.
I doubt they can make EA any worse.
Ah ye of little faith. Rest assured, it can always get worse, as we will soon learn.
I’ve been worried, especially for the Sims, The Sims has been an LGBT Friendly game series since the beginning. Saudi Arabia is not very LGBT Friendly.
The Sims played a great part in helping me accept myself. it’d be a shame if they strayed from those values.
There’s Paralives now as an alternative
Imagine buying an EA game. Smooth brains only.
I’ve had a personal EA boycott going for over 10 year snow. One of the best decisions I’ve made and I’ve never regretted it once.
The only time I “regretted” it was when I bought KOTOR 1 off steam, then I saw the EA credits and I used the refund policy to say “I bought this against my boycott and I didn’t know EA was involved”.
I got my money back.
Yeah sure buddy What s the average playtime of a Kotor run ?
In order to see the EA logo? Maybe 10 seconds?
Yeah could be. I thought he sas talking about end credit. Anyway that story doesn’t make any sens cause on steam u can hide publisher and if not u see clearly who’s it is before buying. So the whole story my boycott is so important steam refunded me doesn’t make sens either way
Never been a big EA fan. … only titles I’ve played is the first couple need for speeds. Battlefield, dead space and NCAA football. Before it was discontinued I’d buy it almost every year.
I purchased the first year it came back but haven’t purchased one since.
Surprised Pikachu!
If I was an EA employee my biggest fear would be to be cut up into tiny pieces for disagreeing with the boss. Like jamal khashoggi
It is so funny to me that the Saudis would invest into a creative industry that thrives on letting artists make what they think is right and then forbid them from doing that. And also expect that industry to then operate profitably, even though they just removed the basic foundation of that industry.
But there is no talking and arguing with people like that, so we can just get popcorn, watch and enjoy the Schadenfreude.
My take is that the Saudis were incredibly fortunate to be sitting on a resource that has had inelastic demand for decades. So fortunate in fact that they didn’t get good at anything else that wasn’t related to oil.
They’ve known for some time that the oil reserves can’t sustain them forever so they’ve dabbled in investments in various industries with lacklustre results.
Their recent foray into gaming is symbolic of this. An industry that bleeds cash without the creative talent that underpins it. I mean Microsoft is a good example of when ‘business’ intersects with the production of art.
Has EA really made creative games recently though? I’m looking at their recent games list and it’s mostly: Madden, EA Sports, The Sims 4 DLC, NHL, Battlefield, Plants vs Zombies, etc. Sequels and remakes basically. With notable exceptions by subsidiary companies like Split Fiction.
Like, if you’re going to buy any company, the one where you make almost the exact same game every year and everyone still buys it is probably a safe bet.
I kind of hope they make a Sims 5 that has limits on what female characters can aspire to, no LGBT+ relationships, etc, purely for the backlash that would ensue. It’s a big ecosystem that they could really screw up.
Sims 5 DLC: Arranged Marriages & Harems
Sims 5 DLC: Appropriate Attire
Sims 5 DLC: Woman Wishes & Aspirations
With notable exceptions by subsidiary companies like Split Fiction.
Yeah. No they haven’t.
EA is just a big bundle that they were able to buy at all with a huge pile of cash. Going around the globe, chasing studios that do this and that is a ton of work and takes forever and is not really a good strategy.
I think they’re betting on exactly that recurring structure of licensed sports games.
But that still depends on letting artists do some amount of stuff. For example a bunch of sports outfits may clash with strict Islam. Same for Sims.
The last one that comes to mind is dragon age, and it performed terribly.
Assholes like this have zero, ZERO, concept of why creative work is popular. Even “corporate created” work. On an extreme end, as far as they are concerned they could turn The SIMS into “Saudi Life Simulator” and people will still buy it because “Its The SIMS.”
They don’t see the creativity or the why, they just see “popular brand”.
There are plenty of other examples of this out there.
The gay Sims are going to have a really bad time when the public beheading update comes.
