Saudi Arabia's takeover of the gaming industry continues apace, but alas, the country's Public Investment Fund appears to be running out of money. At least in the sense that there are reportedly only a few billion left.
According to New York Times (paid access), via GamesIndustry.bizA number of PIF investment projects are experiencing “financial difficulties”, and representatives of the organization allegedly told international investors that they were “unable to allocate” additional funds for the near future. According to the NYT, PIF's total investments are about $1 trillion, much of which lacks public valuation and will therefore be difficult to sell.
The mutual fund, naturally, does not agree with this assessment. PIF spokesman Marwan Bakrali told the newspaper that they still have $60 billion in cash and “similar financial instruments.” I'm interested to see the exact ratio of cash to “similar financial instrument” here. My personal wealth is currently around 30% confused were picking apples, but I'm pretty sure apples are of no interest to student loan debt collectors. This is probably not a useful comparison unless the SPF is investing heavily in the orange trade.
This is the same Public Investment Fund that recently tied hands with Jared Kushner and Silver Lake to launch acquisition of Electronic Arts for $50 billion.Yes. According to the NYT, none of PIF's investments in the video game industry are in trouble, but the aforementioned Saudi-led consortium did buy EA using $20 billion in borrowed money that was supposedly to be repaid coax a windfall (not oranges) from the moaning magic money tree, which is a generative AI. This transaction is expected to close in the first quarter of fiscal 2027.
PIF's investments in video games extend far beyond EA. They have stakes in Nintendo, Capcom, Nexon, Call of Duty and World of Warcraft publishers Activision-Blizzard and GTA 6 Published by Take-Two Interactive. They also have invested a lot of money in esportsalong with regular sports. All of this is apparently part of an attempt to diversify the Kingdom's still oil-dependent economy.
I dislike and fear PIF's control over studios like BioWare, mainly because it is run by mode where journalists, gays and migrant workers are subject to violence, dispossession or murder. But the fact that an increasing share of video game developers are consolidating under the banner of a group that appears to be experiencing financial difficulties does not seem like a good thing either. One of the “problem” projects mentioned in the NYT article is Neom (pictured above), a planned city that forced the eviction of thousands of local residents, some under penalty of execution, and is estimated to have cost $8.8 trillion so far.
