Sacred Symbols+, Episode 172: Saudi Arabia Has Entered the Chat (Patreon)

A few weeks ago, I (Colin) conducted what ended up being a mega-popular episode of Sacred Symbols+ with an expert on China. Why was that relevant to this audience? Well, China is spending a whole lot of money on gaming, and we should at least know what we're getting into. A smaller national player has also entered the arena, though: Saudi Arabia. With one of the world's largest sovereign wealth funds, the Saudi government -- a totalitarian, dynastic Islamist monarchy -- owns pieces of Take Two, EA, Activision-Blizzard, and others, including a full 5% of Capcom and Nacon. And then there's the Saudi government-run non-profit, Misk, which owns a majority of SNK, as well as other tech entities. Now, Saudi money isn't just any money, and Saudi Arabia isn't just any country. It's a mega-rich petrostate, run under Sharia Law, where women don't have anywhere near the same rights as men, where being gay or transgender can get you thrown in prison, and where beheadings are regularly conducted, in public, for all to see. We say it on the show all the time: It's impossible to live an economically moral life. That's true with Saudi Arabia, too. But we should at least have our eyes wide open as to what we're getting into, and to do that, I've invited Dr. Robert C. Mogielnicki, Senior Resident Scholar at The Arab Gulf States Institute in Washington DC, to explain all we need to know about this new, heavily-weighted cash flowing into our space.