SNK‘s Yasuyuki Oda has moved to quell fan concerns regarding the recent majority sale to Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund, insisting the move will have no affect on the content put into its games.The PIF has invested in a number of video game developers over the past few years, and is a sovereign wealth fund haired by crown prince Mohammed bin Salman. Among its investments including a 5.01% stake in Nintendo, 5% stakes in Capcom and Nexon and billions of stock in the likes of Activision Blizzard, Electronic Arts, Embracer Group and Take-Two.While officials within Saudi Arabia have said that the investments will help to modernise the kingdom, they have been criticised due to the country’s human right abuses. For example, US Intelligence accused the crown prince of ordering the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, and the country has historically clamped down on female activists and homosexuality.Related Content – Sony PS5 Complete Guide – Everything Explained On PlayStation 5 For New UsersDespite assurances from the head of Saudi Arabia’s gaming investment arm that these concerns are “older impressions” of the country, fans are worried that SNK could restrict future content pertaining to LGBT issues and women.Here’s what Oda-san said when asked by VGC about any concerns about its ownership:For us, we’re just focussing on making games. We’re not a political company or anything like that, so it doesn’t affect us in any way. It has no – no – effect on our creative output. We have full freedom on what we want to create.One thing we would say is that our ownership are generally fans of the IP, and they have been forever, so it’s up to us what we want to do as far as creating content goes.
Source link
