Saudi Arabia Plans to Spend $13 Billion to Acquire 'Leading Game Publisher' - News
by William D'Angelo , posted on 29 September 2022 / 5,731 Views
Saudi Arabia plans to invest another $37.8 billion in the video games industry, including $13.3 billion to acquire a "leading game publisher," reports state news via VideoGamesChronicle.
The country's Savvy Games Group will invest 70 billion riyals ($18.6 billion) to acquire minority stakes in several "key companies" in the video games industry and 50 billion riyals ($13.3 billion) to acquire a "leading game publisher to become a strategic development partner."
The $13.3 billion would likely rule out the biggest third-party publishers like Electronic Arts, Take-Two Interactive, and Bandai Namco as they have a market cap above $13.3 billion. However, it would not rule out Embracer, Konami, Capcom, Square Enix, Ubisoft, and other publishers.
The Saudi Arabia state news also reports 2 billion riyals ($481 million) will be used for investments in "industry disruptors to grow early-stage games" and eSports companies. Another 20 billion riyals ($4.8 billion) will be invested in "mature industry partners."
"Savvy Games Group is one part of our ambitious strategy aiming to make Saudi Arabia the ultimate global hub for the games and esports sector by 2030," said Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.
"We are harnessing the untapped potential across the esports and games sector to diversify our economy, drive innovation in the sector and further scale the entertainment and esports competition offerings across the Kingdom."
A life-long and avid gamer, William D'Angelo was first introduced to VGChartz in 2007. After years of supporting the site, he was brought on in 2010 as a junior analyst, working his way up to lead analyst in 2012 and taking over the hardware estimates in 2017. He has expanded his involvement in the gaming community by producing content on his own YouTube channel and Twitch channel. You can contact the author on Twitter @TrunksWD.
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This is a f$&@ing joke. Companies being bought by Tencent, with many of their employees being members of the CCP, is really bad and frustrating—and disheartening that so many would sell their souls to the devil out of greed. Saudi Arabia, though, is even more egregious, considering their more direct involvement in inhumane atrocities.
Whichever company they buy, they have zero right to virtue signal for the remainder of their existence, bc just like those bought by Tencent, as well as many game sites and journalists, it will be utter hypocrisy.
If it's a company that is listed in the stock market, their stock is open for anyone to buy. Saudi Arabia can just say they will buy any share for twice or thrice their listed price, and the company itself can do little about it. Still a very worrying sign.
This did cross my mind. Wasn’t sure if both Embracer and Ubi were public companies.
All this consolidation is bad in the first place. Cases like this are even worse. Just have to hope no company takes them up on it.
Hands off Capcom!
I look forward to all the grossly hypocritical gamer frauds who will have ZERO to say about the Saudi Genocide in Yemen that has killed a minimum of 500,000 civilians and is still ongoing, but these same Gamer "journalists" will blast Russia for starting a war in Ukraine.
Discredited hypocrisy on an extreme level.
I don't disagree with you. But, I would point out that mentioning one bad thing but not mentioning another is not the same as condoning the thing that was not mentioned. It seems like it's mostly westerners on this website, so we all know that the war in Ukraine is a much bigger news item in the West than the Yemeni genocide. It's only natural that westerners are going to focus more on the issue that is getting more attention in the West. And, since we're westerners, we're mostly exposed to Western video game media.
So, if it's evidence of hypocrisy, it's not hypocrisy within gaming journalism. It's hypocrisy within Western culture in general.
Don't really expect credibility from jornalists.
This is part of what I was referencing in my post as well. Gaming journalists constantly act like they care deeply for humanity and human rights, but once you start to observe their actions, you realize they only stand up for human rights when it’s convenient and without major repercussions.
I haven’t seen a single major news outlet speak out against China/the CCP or Tencent on account of China’s many human rights violations. Why? Bc it may involve real backlash, financial and otherwise. Yet, the human rights violations in China (and Saudi) are much more severe and urgent—often involving loss of life/genocide—than the things game journalists do stand up for. Virtue only when it’s convenient is not true virtue. Stand up for gay rights in America, where most people already believe in it and the worst consequence is ridicule? Absolutely. Speak out against Saudi Arabia, where being gay (or trans) will get you killed? Nah.
This is why so many people are sick of the BS virtue signaling, bc so often it’s blatantly just a show for personal or corporate reputation, or for someone to make themself feel good and righteous.
Yep, like people that fight for civil rights where they already exist calling things like "perceived inequality or prejudice" while pretending the places where those rights are inexistent aren't part of the world.
Where's the Captain?
O captain, my captain
thinking same thing!
I'm sorry you feel that way. I find your reactions to news about China and Saudi Arabia refreshing, and entertaining. And though I don't have the same visceral reaction to these news items as you often do, I think I am mostly in agreement with your position vis-à-vis the governments of those countries.
Said what?
I think it's pretty clear that people here are entertained by you.
Okay. Well, now you know.
Stupid Google if they just waited a little while longer they could have sold them Stadia for 13billion dollars
They already own 8.1% of Embracer, this is likely to buyout the whole company.
Indeed, embracer looks like a easy target.
My money is on on Embracer.
Mine's on EA.
Take your money off EA, a buyout would be worth nearly $40 billion.
They may be making an investment in EA, but they're definitely not buying the whole thing.
All this money being spent and we don't actually have any more games to show for it.
I feel like it'll be ubisoft, not sure why, but I feel it in my bones.
Embracer and Ubisoft seem like the most obvious candidates given their market caps. I think a large Japanese publisher is unlikely for political/cultural reasons.
I agree, but both of those would seem fairly odd. Embracer bc they’ve been buying like crazy, signaling they’re here to stay. Though, maybe it was all about strategy, and they were only buying so many IP to look good for a buyer.
Ubisoft would seem odd bc they just got a big chunk purchased by Tencent.
I guess Embracer would maybe make more sense, but that’s the worse of the two scenarios imo due to the insane amount of IP they own. Either way, this is quite upsetting.
Embracer Group wouldn't be the first company to buy a bunch of companies and than all of a sudden sell itself for a huge profit. Plus the fact Embracer was complaining about sales of it's latest game, leads me to believe they could be the one.
Yeah, I was thinking about that as well RE: poor game sales such as the new Saints Row game.
Kind of wondering if Embracer has been working towards this specific end the whole time since they started buying up all those B- and C-tier IPs.
Yep, not unusual for some boards to use this tactics to double line their own pockets.
Fck tencent china and fck Saudi gaddamn Arabia haha
Yeeeeaaaahhhh, nope. I Don't want this human-rights-violating nation with their sticky, misogynistic fingers in any of my entertainment. I don't like when Chinese companies do it either but at least they have SOME semblance of respect for their people. Some. Not much, but it's just evil to a matter of degrees.
Ouch..
The death of the video game industry as we know it has arrived. Won't be long until there are only like 3 big players who bought up everyone else.
I just feel sorry for these poor devs who where bought by the wim of some royal family that knows nothing of games and are super religiously strict. They will creative kill all theirs IPs.
They should buy epic games then delete the epic games store.
For eSports take EA.
I think Ubisoft is most likely.
It isn't Ubisoft. They just announced that deal with Tencent. Any 13 billion dollar acquisition deal has been in the works for a long time. So, it would have been well underway long before that announcement. Therefore, they like would not have made the announcement if there was another deal in the works..
Errrr, just to let you know. They company I work for was working on buying one company while working on being bought by another company that was already negotiating a merger with yet another one... all almost at the same time (2 years negotiation more or less).
So basically in cascade for the company that my company bought they saw changes in ownership 4 times within 3 years (each of the changes were announces them took like 1 year for approval and consolidation before the next one was announced).
Yes. It's definitely not impossible. It's just unlikely.
On that I do agree, even more since terms of their agreement seems like they don't want to lose control.
Square still has a positive cash flow whereas Embracer doesn't. I think it actually is Embracer second thought, it all makes sense with their recent acquisition spree and negative cash flow
I rather not. Let tencent, embracer and MS buy them before Saudi Prince... well why don't MS buy Saudi Arabia wholesome?
The Saudi Royal Family is one of the few entities out there that could potentially get big enough to outright buy Microsoft. They’re worth $1.4 trillion.
Holy moses.
I think it's Capcom.
No, please no!!!
