I’ll never forgive them for killing the Dungeon Keeper franchise when they bought Bullfrog. That was such a great game. Even today, I still play the original DK which came out in the 90s.

Yea. There have been a few spiritual successors that are pretty good, but none match the raw… villainy? No crazy, hyperstylized parody of itself, just pure calm confidence from the narrator while you play the bad guys in an otherwise normal fantasy setting? It’s always great when a game just goes for it, and DK nailed it.

Try the early '80s. They were the first company to put their developers front and centre with pictures and names.

I played war for the overworld, but it wasn’t the same. Nothing can capture the magic of the actual games. The first one was the best, but dk2 was also decent

They might just sell the IP. I imagine they are mostly interested in the sports franchises.

Why? Literally why would they give a shit? This only makes sense if you assume that they spent billions of dollars to export religious conservativism outside of Saudi Arabia. I dunno if you’ve noticed, but Saudi Arabia has been spending trillions of dollars to present a totally different, modern image to the world. The people spending the money don’t actually give a shit about Allah. They only care what other people will submit to in Allah’s name, and they know that’s not going to fly outside their borders.

I suspect that they’d be more hands off than you may expect (if they chose to keep that IP at all). The sovereign wealth fund is first and foremost interested in growing their investment value. And this has only been further cemented as MBS has continued to stripped wahabists of power to the point that they have almost no state involvement anymore.

Not to mention prominently featuring transgender developers – in the 80s!

Narrated by Tony Jay, the voice of Megabyte! Thurl Ravencroft tier, for sure.

First they came for EA, and I said hey, you want some Ubisoft to go with that?

Again, why.

The next Assassin’s Creed is gonna be wild.

SA has a soon to be deady economy, because OIL doesnt last forever so they buy into whatever to keep thier country alive. SPORTSWASHIng , gamewashing.

soccer, WWE, maybe UFC in the future is where all the money is at.

Just untrue. Saudi has massive deposits of rare earth metals, copper, gold. They’ll be fine.

if that were true, they wouldnt be desperately buying properities, and IP all over the world in the western world to stave off thier decline, clearly they dont see the NAT resources as enough, you should check your sources.

You are presuming they are doing that to stave off economic decline, which is incorrect. They’re doing it for global prestige.

Saudi Arabia is a country with one of the strictest laws in the world. Why shouldn’t anyone be suspicious of what they say or do? Why can’t people have a healthy amount of distrust and skepticism of their actions if, as you said, they’re trying to portray a different image of themselves to the world? Who says the mask can’t come off under the right circumstances, like the shameless right-wing downturn of the US?

The Sims IP has always been one of the most welcoming and famous platforms for non-traditional values that directly contradict their country’s principles. Because I don’t know if you know, but homosexuality in Saudi Arabia is currently punishable by death. It’s fair to imagine that some company-wide policy changes would take place when it’s acquired to align with its own views, which also align with the Trump administration’s crusade to eliminate liberal ideas. I mean, didn’t they recently bribe him with a luxury jet? Don’t you think they could have a broader joint interest at heart?

If franchises like Call of Duty have been targets of military marketing, it doesn’t take much to imagine how a corporation from an authoritarian country like SA would at least attempt to rein in social values in The Sims if given the chance.

I just figured out yesterday that you can ignore publishers on Steam, never again will I have to see an EA game in my recommendations.

Doesn’t matter, other games will replace them. Like InZoi.

Same happened with Rollercoaster Tycoon (Planet Coaster), SimCity (Cities Skylines)