they will never revive CNC, especially generals which has the GLA.
this post was submitted on 21 Aug 2026
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LOL
Surely, they’ll approve a 9/11 flight simulator.
With a bonus level of chopping up journalists in hotel rooms?
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I’m going to get downvoted to oblivion, I’m fully aware.
There are many things I don’t know anything about. But I do know a fair bit about this area.
And with great respect to the worriers, this just will not happen.
The investment team that’s bought EA have many other “western” investments they’ve never interfered with, even though they do a great deal of things that the orthodoxy in Saudi Arabia would disagree with. The layers between “what I [claim] to believe” and “make me the most amount of money” are many and includes people from all over the world. If anyone thinks Saudi royalty will sit and make determinations about what games EA will ship they can stop worrying right now. The Saudi monarchy is worrying about two things only: As much money as possible and staying in power.
This is an investments like so many others. It will be ordered to profit-maximise - and if that requires one-upping Doom in gore, and shipping a new edition of Gay Paradise 2000 every 6 months - they will do exactly that.
This is a complete storm in a tea cup.
The Saudi monarchy hates Islam and is shackled by it. Saudi Arabia had been on a "liberalization" plan under MBS, and it'll be western soon enough.
They're following UAE's doorsteps, and they're even worse. You can now buy alcohol in public in UAE. You need a license (pay money and don't be Muslim) or be a tourist, but it's otherwise unrestricted. You can already wear almost nothing and you can literally be a Zionist who calls Muslims snakes and terrorist and you'll be welcomed on a red carpet.
Saudi wants that, they just don't have control tight enough over their population to get away with that yet.
So yes, they will not enforce Sharia on EA games, they're hoping one day they don't have to do any "moral' restrictions on content domestically. As long as it brings in money.
Yeah the Saudi elites are hedonists behind closed doors. The monarchy needs to have the blessing from the clergy to stay in power so they need to be pious in public. Like it’s a open secret that the Saudi elite men fuck western prostitutes on the regular on their yachts in international waters.
You did say two contradictory things here. You said they won't interfere, but also the only thing they care about is staying in power. This isn't exclusive to them, but they will use it to maintain their power if it's useful for that. If a game was going to be critical of them, it probably won't be made. (It probably wouldn't have been anyway, because the only thing that could come from it, for the former owners, is losing investments.) Yeah, they don't care about Islam. That's fair game, but they aren't.
EA has employees?
They aren't concerned about being owned by Trump's family too?
That's how the whole AAA level of the games industry already works: the people at the top greenlight what they want to greenlight.
It's just adding a new layer to the mix when the people at the top are literally the royal family of an oppressive monarchy with openly fucked human rights practices.
(looks at the current CEO's of most the big companies.)
I mean, I get where you're going.... but it's assholes all the way up.
You're not wrong, but I feel like there are subtle levels to these things.
If I start up a game and a logo comes up for Namco or Square Enix or whatever, most of them don't make me think, "oh, I remember that time their owners assassinated a journalist, it made the international news, and they fully got away with it anyway." That's no longer the case for an EA logo.
I've been worried, especially for the Sims, The Sims has been an LGBT Friendly game series since the beginning. Saudi Arabia is not very LGBT Friendly.
The Sims played a great part in helping me accept myself. it'd be a shame if they strayed from those values.
There’s Paralives now as an alternative
Surprised Pikachu!
I would be surprised if EA can make anything at all after any of its current projects. They need to make more money in profits than they currently make in revenue to survive.
Open market is great, this is what we want - money rules all
Bosses cashed out and left the carcas to rot
The ironic part is it's the same thing that happened to all the companies EA bought too
I doubt they can make EA any worse.
Ah ye of little faith. Rest assured, it can always get worse, as we will soon learn.
The gay Sims are going to have a really bad time when the public beheading update comes.
If I was an EA employee my biggest fear would be to be cut up into tiny pieces for disagreeing with the boss. Like jamal khashoggi
Sounds like an EA problem to me.
Having not playing an EA game in over 2 decades because they are a shitty company with shitty practices that make shitty games, fuck 'em.
Let's hope they get what they deserve.
Projects won't get signed unless they project a 10000% ROI
Remember that they paid 53 bil plus a huge loan that ea itself will have to pay, for something that has a 300 mil yearly profit
Basically ea FC (or what's the name now?) will become a gambling machine to hook some whales
It is so funny to me that the Saudis would invest into a creative industry that thrives on letting artists make what they think is right and then forbid them from doing that. And also expect that industry to then operate profitably, even though they just removed the basic foundation of that industry.
But there is no talking and arguing with people like that, so we can just get popcorn, watch and enjoy the Schadenfreude.
My take is that the Saudis were incredibly fortunate to be sitting on a resource that has had inelastic demand for decades. So fortunate in fact that they didn’t get good at anything else that wasn’t related to oil.
They’ve known for some time that the oil reserves can’t sustain them forever so they’ve dabbled in investments in various industries with lacklustre results.
Their recent foray into gaming is symbolic of this. An industry that bleeds cash without the creative talent that underpins it. I mean Microsoft is a good example of when ‘business’ intersects with the production of art.
Has EA really made creative games recently though? I'm looking at their recent games list and it's mostly: Madden, EA Sports, The Sims 4 DLC, NHL, Battlefield, Plants vs Zombies, etc. Sequels and remakes basically. With notable exceptions by subsidiary companies like Split Fiction.
Like, if you're going to buy any company, the one where you make almost the exact same game every year and everyone still buys it is probably a safe bet.
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What game is it that they've got in mind that is likely to be killed off? If we were talking about the EA of old then sure they would have had a point but the new corporate EA that's been around for the last two decades doesn't have anything that could be considered controversial.
The Sims has gay people in it. Saudi Arabia really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really doesn't like gay people.
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Women being allowed to be in public without a male guardian is controversial in Saudi Arabia, dude. It's not going to take much.
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This will 100% happen. Hell, I couldn’t even leave a critical google review of a nearby middle eastern hotel because of government censorship.
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in other news: water is wet.
but i haven't bought an ea game since battlefield 3. so sounts like a them problem...
Imagine a game like Lara Croft, but the main character wears a Burqua.
She wouldn’t be allowed to be the main character!
You don't have to imagine.
It already happened.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unearthed:_Trail_of_Ibn_Battuta
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But that's a good thing, because it will go down in flames the way most of us have wanted to see for over a decade.
They'll just make a new Call of Duty series where you defend Aramco oil assets from terrorist invaders.
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Just keep re-releasing sport games every year with updated lineups like you've been doing and you'll be fine.
EA is loaded with so much debt I doubt it will even matter. They‘ll be dismantled.
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