{"id":882,"date":"2023-08-12T14:28:31","date_gmt":"2023-08-12T10:58:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/muslimpress.com\/?p=882"},"modified":"2023-08-12T14:28:31","modified_gmt":"2023-08-12T10:58:31","slug":"saudi-arabia-is-spending-billions-to-become-a-global-gaming-hub-some-fans-dont-want-to-play","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/muslimpress.com\/?p=882","title":{"rendered":"Saudi Arabia is spending billions to become a global gaming hub. Some fans don’t want to play"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Saudi Arabia aims to become the \u201cultimate global hub\u201d of the $180 billion-a-year video game industry<\/h2>\n<\/blockquote>\n
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Saudi Arabia, the new home of some of soccer\u2019s biggest stars and a co-owner of professional golf, is proving to be no less ambitious when it comes to another global pastime \u2013 the $180 billion-a-year video game industry.<\/p>\n

Last September, the Saudi sovereign wealth fund earmarked nearly $40 billion for a new conglomerate aimed at transforming the kingdom into the \u201cultimate global hub\u201d for games and esports by 2030. In February, the Saudi fund became the biggest outside investor in Nintendo, and just this month the kingdom hosted a major gaming tournament with a record $45 million prize pool.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s made Saudi Arabia an increasingly important player in the industry and contributed to its breakneck transformation from an insular kingdom best known for oil and ultraconservative Islam into an emerging sports and entertainment powerhouse.<\/p>\n

\"Saudi<\/p>\n

The move into gaming has sparked the same kind of backlash seen in soccer and golf, where critics accuse the Saudis of \u201csportswashing\u201d human rights abuses, including the 2018 killing of Washington Post columnist\u00a0Jamal Khashoggi, a Saudi dissident.<\/p>\n

With gaming, a kingdom that sentences people to decades in prison over a few tweets is joining a worldwide community dominated by the young and very online.<\/p>\n

<\/div>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s the\u00a0Romans\u00a0and the Colosseum all over again, and you have countries at the top layer using sports as a theater to display their wealth and their power,\u201d said Joost van Dreunen, a professor at New York University who has written a book about the business of video games.<\/p>\n

\"Saudi<\/p>\n

\u201cYou have to ask the question: Who is the architect behind this, and what are the intentions of these architects?\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Saudi Arabia\u2019s 37-year-old Crown Prince\u00a0Mohammed bin Salman, reportedly an avid gamer himself, sees the foray into gaming as part of Vision 2030, his ambitious plan to overhaul the kingdom\u2019s economy, reduce its reliance on oil and provide jobs and entertainment for its youthful population.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u201cWe are harnessing the untapped potential across the esports and games sector to diversify our economy,\u201d he said last September, when he announced the establishment of the Savvy Games Group.<\/p>\n

Owned by Saudi Arabia\u2019s $700 billion Public Investment Fund and led by CEO Brian Ward, an industry veteran, Savvy aims to invest $39 billion in the gaming industry. It hopes to establish 250 local companies and create 39,000 jobs in the next seven years.<\/p>\n

Earlier this month, it completed the $4.9 billion purchase of Scopely, the creator of \u201cMonopoly Go,\u201d \u201cStar Trek Fleet Command\u201d and \u201cMarvel Strike Force.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Saudi<\/p>\n

Gaming is a massive and fast-growing industry. Market research firm Newzoo says an estimated 3.2 billion people play games on PCs, consoles, mobile devices or cloud gaming services, with the industry generating $184.4 billion in revenues in 2022. Gaming brings in more money than the combined earnings of the global box office, music streaming and album sales, and the top five wealthiest sports leagues, according to a 2021 report by the Boston Consulting Group.<\/p>\n

The kingdom is also breaking into the world of esports, competitions pitting the world\u2019s top players against one another in games ranging from battle royales and first-person shooters to \u201cFIFA\u201d soccer and \u201cMadden NFL.\u201d<\/p>\n

To the uninitiated, the prospect of watching other people play video games may seem unappealing, but it\u2019s a huge business with millions of fans, celebrity players and corporate sponsors. A 2021 esports tournament in Singapore drew 5.4 million concurrent viewers.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen you invest in esports you are getting prime advertising opportunities, and of course, you are promoting the brand of your country as a cool, forward-thinking, interesting place to go on holiday,\u201d said Christopher Davidson, a Gulf expert at the European Center for International Affairs, a Brussels-based think tank.<\/p>\n

\u201c(Esports) is far younger and more global than any other sport,\u201d he added. \u201cEnglish soccer is popular everywhere in the West, but not really in an average-sized Chinese city. But these esports are.\u201d<\/p>\n

Last summer, Saudi Arabia hosted Gamers8, a weekslong tournament with a $15 million prize pool. The event returned this month with a prize pool three times as large.<\/p>\n

Saudi Arabia\u2019s wealthy Gulf neighbors are also looking to get in on the action. Dubai, in the United Arab Emirates, hosted a five-day esports festival last month. The Qatar Investment Authority recently purchased a minority stake in Monument Sports & Entertainment, which owns the Washington Wizards and Capitals, as well as esport holdings.<\/p>\n

The growing involvement of autocratic Gulf states has sparked debate within the gaming community.<\/p>\n

Riot Games, the developer of the popular \u201cLeague of Legends,\u201d a multiplayer battle game, and Danish tournament organizer Blast Premier both canceled partnerships with Saudi Arabia in 2020 following an outcry from fans. Blast went on to hold its world finals in Abu Dhabi, the capital of the UAE, where it faced similar criticism.<\/p>\n

The Team Liquid statement acknowledged the financial and ethical trade-offs of accepting sponsorship from such countries.<\/p>\n

\u201cThese events present real opportunities for our players, many of whom may have short careers with few guarantees,\u201d it said. \u201cAn outright boycott might not only end careers, it could end our involvement in some esports entirely.\u201d<\/p>\n

Stanis Elsborg, a senior analyst at Play the Game, an international initiative that aims to promote ethics in sports, and who has written extensively on the intersection of esports and the Gulf’s ambitions, says it\u2019s a dilemma that is likely to recur.<\/p>\n

\u201cMoney talks,\u201d he said. \u201cI think the esports scene will be following the same trajectory as we have seen in other sports, forming significant partnerships with state-owned companies from autocratic states.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Saudi Arabia aims to become the \u201cultimate global hub\u201d of the $180 billion-a-year video game industry Saudi Arabia, the new home of some of soccer\u2019s biggest stars and a co-owner of professional golf, is proving to be no less ambitious when it comes to another global pastime \u2013 the $180 billion-a-year video game industry. Last […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":883,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_bbp_topic_count":0,"_bbp_reply_count":0,"_bbp_total_topic_count":0,"_bbp_total_reply_count":0,"_bbp_voice_count":0,"_bbp_anonymous_reply_count":0,"_bbp_topic_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_reply_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_forum_subforum_count":0},"categories":[370],"tags":[],"video-categories":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/muslimpress.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/882"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/muslimpress.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/muslimpress.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/muslimpress.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/muslimpress.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=882"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/muslimpress.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/882\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":884,"href":"https:\/\/muslimpress.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/882\/revisions\/884"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/muslimpress.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/883"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/muslimpress.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=882"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/muslimpress.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=882"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/muslimpress.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=882"},{"taxonomy":"video-categories","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/muslimpress.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fvideo-categories&post=882"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}