120°

Saudi Arabia has acquired a $1 Billion stake in Embracer Group

From VGC: "Saudi Arabia has purchased a $1 billion stake in Embracer Group, acquiring 8.1% of the company’s shares.

Following the deal’s completion, the country’s Public Investment Fund (PIF) – through its subsidiary, Savvy Gaming Group – will be the second-largest owner of Embracer Group shares.

PIF is a sovereign wealth fund chaired by crown prince Mohammed bin Salman, and is is reportedly central to his goal of making the Saudi economy less reliant on proceeds from oil."

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videogameschronicle.com
darthv721318d ago (Edited 1318d ago )

Was this the same Saudi that recently bought into SNK as well?

edit: yep https://www.theverge.com/20...

Guy must really be into gaming.

Redgehammer1318d ago

I didn’t think such a religiously stringent country would get involved in video games, or western ones at least.

ApocalypseShadow1318d ago

Which is pretty interesting. But when it comes to money, it seems to make some people forget the values they profess to have. Nudity, or less coverings, violence and death, drugs, bad language, no religious overtones, pursuit of wealth in a games, etc?

"Who cares. How was our quarterly profits?"

Or, maybe there's leadership that's relaxing on those things as it's virtual and not real. Possibility an outlet that can be safely played out as long as it's not brought out in the real world.... Uhh... Yeah right. Who am I kidding. It's about money.

But it does look like lots of money will be infused into gaming one way or the other. Hopefully not laundering. And, getting away from full reliance on oil isn't a bad thing if that's what they're interested in doing.

Redgehammer1318d ago

A well articulated point.

shadowfax331317d ago

the country is not (religiously stringent) as it used to be since MBS the new ruler took over.

60°

Rockstar launches official marketplace for mods

Rockstar has launched an official marketplace for "every server and every player" to buy mods: Cfx Marketplace.

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gamesindustry.biz
Christopher2d ago (Edited 2d ago )

I wonder how much of this isn't just taken work of others who have modded for free.

Edit: Also, great way for R* to take popular ideas and build them into GTAVI based on demand.

fr0sty6h ago

What I see happening here is, R* is going to ban mods in GTA6 UNLESS you buy them from the marketplace and R* then gets a cut of that sale.

ActualWhiteMan9h ago

Ah, perfect timing with them taking down the Bully online fan mod. Greedy a$$ company.

Christopher6h ago

It's okay as long as they get a cut of the money.

fr0sty6h ago

Expect R* to force it on you.

Snookies1226m ago

Yep, right there with you. I'll happily donate to a mod creator if it looks really cool, or if I enjoy it. But expecting payment up front? Nope, not touching it.

IanTH5h ago(Edited 5h ago)

I'm not entirely sure how to read this, as it doesn't seem exactly like an exact parallel to Bethesda's paid mods shenanigans.

Rather than single player stuff, this appears to be aimed solely on Cfx Servers. From what I've gleaned, apparently Rockstar bought the Cfx mod team several years ago, coming a few years after weird contentions led them to ban a few of their members. Ultimately, the question is if they plan to keep this contained to only online/servers.

I have to guess to a degree yes. It'd be pretty hard to "force" paid mods for single player when modding files locally on your own machine, but much easier for servers they'll control. So perhaps this is their soft launch ahead of GTA6 online and they'll clamp down more tightly on non-official servers going forward? Ever since they've become a 1 or 2 property studio, I haven't really cared much for Rockstar stuff, so I'm not entirely up on everything surrounding this. Sounds like it has the potential to be problematic further down the line, but right now fairly easy to ignore...I think lol.

50°

Kotick claims lawsuit objecting to MS-Activision deal was "tied to Embracer's desire to boost sales"

Former CEO describes lawsuit filed by Swedish pension fund as a "collateral attack" on Activision Blizzard.

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gamesindustry.biz
OpenGL1d 2h ago

Yeah, the Microsoft deal has DEFINITELY worked out for everyone.

galgor23h ago

Can this mother fucker just get lost already

PRIMORDUS22h ago

He belongs in here ⚰️, hopefully sooner than later.

MrDead7h ago(Edited 7h ago)

Kotick Made $155 million from MS in the buyout, the little b*tch needs to stop whining. Thanks to this Microslop deal and massive industry consolidation thousands upon thousands of devs and other workers lost their livelihoods. This greedy piggie pervert needs shut up and f-off.

40°

An Update to Our Shared Commitment to Safer Gaming

Discover how Sony Interactive Entertainment, Nintendo, and Microsoft continue to collaborate to improve player safety across our platforms.

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sonyinteractive.com