The Magoo’s of media

That is the setting and as I saw an article pass by, I also saw the setting on how it affects my idea. You see, the conversation starts with ‘What Saudi Arabia’s role in the Electronic Arts buyout tells us about image, power and ‘game-washing’’ (at https://theconversation.com/what-saudi-arabias-role-in-the-electronic-arts-buyout-tells-us-about-image-power-and-game-washing-266359), you see, as I see it the ‘critics’ are always looking at tomorrows and at yesterdays news and as such they give us “The global video game industry is worth more than the film and music industries combined. But why would these buyers specifically want to buy EA, an entity that has won The Worst Company in America award twice?” And as I see it, they deserved that ‘title’ but there is an offset to all that. In my setting I saw that the world had enjoyed the Atari 800, Commodore 64, Atari ST and Commodore Amiga and in that timeframe 1985-1999 over 10,000 games were produced and when you take to top 10% you end up with 1000 games. I wrote about that a few years ago and now consider how many of that top 10% is Electronic Arts? A whole heap and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia owns it all now. There is a reason that they paid $55,000,000,000 and they get the winning numbers. Now consider how many of them can be transferred with upgraded graphics and sounds to a new streaming system like Tencent (Amazon seemingly didn’t want to play) and they are about to set that system in over 50 million houses (in past one) and that is one of the three pillars dealt with. The others have no IP protection and can be altered to a minimum setting to be valid IP. That is what the conversation is seemingly not considering. And they are painting it with “Video game publisher Electronic Arts (EA), one of the biggest video game companies in the world behind games such as The Sims and Battlefield, has been sold to a consortium of buyers for US$55 billion (about A$83 billion). It is potentially the largest-ever buyout funded by private equity firms. Not AI, nor mining or banking, but video games.” And that is the ballpark, it isn’t about AI where everyone is acing to proclaim that they have the winning combination (I reckon only to disappoint their ‘customers’) but the three pronged  solution that is out to give the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia the winning setting is about to align the Islamic world in a new world never seen before and everyone is looking around for what should have been on their visors. And I warned them even before I wrote ‘The second confirmation’ which I did on November 5th 2023 (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2023/11/05/the-second-confirmation/) I said so at least a dozen times that Google and Amazon were that much asleep leaving billions on the floor (no one cares about Microsoft) and now the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is getting that setting done. Alas, I might not get anything (I tried to sell the idea to the Kingdom Holdings), but my small giggle is to show Amazon and Google how they deserted billions in revenue, so any ‘sales person’ who tells me that I am seeing it wrong, I get to show them, how they openly left billions on the floor and someone will pick it up at some point and it seems that this moment is now. 

So whilst we are given “The consortium will purchase all of the publicly traded company’s shares, making it private. But while the consortium and EA’s shareholders will likely be celebrating – each share was valued at US$210, representing a 25% premium – it’s not all good news.

PIF acquiring EA raises concerns about possible “game-washing”, and less than ideal future business practices.” By The Conversation we see a different part. It isn’t game-washing. It is a proper developed gaming option that the world left behind because it isn’t AI. So when AI gets the umpteenth class action on how AI wasn’t and as those engineers were seemingly held to account, Saudi Arabia has another setting of making up to 15-20 billion a years and that is what others left on the floor (it is only about 6 billion in phase one). So whilst those people come with complain and cry about the setting of micro transactions. The setting of “Micro transactions are small amounts of money paid to access, or potentially access, in-game items or currency. Over time, they can add up to a lot of money, and have even been linked to the creation of problem gambling behaviors. Unsurprisingly, they are not popular among players.” They could have just ben cast aside and added as freeware. It is all revenue of the kingdom and greed is frowned upon in Islamic nations. As such they can be cast aside and just for reference. There were hundreds of thousands of fans looking forward to a revamped Dungeon Keeper and cast aside when micro transactions were introduced. Now this setting (without micro transactions) could be released gaining that solutions hundred of thousands of fans. And that is merely one example of many. 

So whilst the Conversation and others are on the ‘laundry’ list, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is simply setting a new platform for over 800,000,000 customers and set a new setting towards the Islamic world, optionally slicing the options for Facebook and others (like Google) to gain advertisement revenue, because when you get access to 20% of the planetary population, you can hand them what they want to do, not what your advertisers want you to do. You see, in Saudi Arabia “The CITC in conjunction with the General Authority for Media Regulation (GAMR), requires advertisers to submit campaigns and media to this regulatory body for approval before broadcasting, digital or offline display. In order to avoid rejected campaigns, marketers must be familiar with the key Islamic guidelines governing advertising content, including religious restrictions on alcohol, pork, gender portrayal, modesty, and symbols.” And that gets American and European advertisers into problems and that is how they are shut out. There is another body managing this, but I forgot the details. What happens is that there is a place where the setting is islamic and I had the additional setting of what I call ‘Tomes of information’ and through that Saudi Arabia gets visibility through and from Pakistan, Bangladesh, Egypt and Indonesia. Setting the advertisement losses close to a billion viewers. That is what Saudi Arabia now gained. 

As as I see it, it is not about image, power or ‘game-washing’. It is a business decision that gets to unite the islamic world in more ways then one and alas, I seemingly am missing out, but I get to hold it over the heads of Amazon and Google for nearly all time. What a lovely feeling. 

Have a great day this Saturday (Vancouver is joining us in 30 minutes) and consider what running in a rat-race is not giving you. I merely looked in a different direction and saw billions. What can you see when you put your mind to it (and optionally clean your glasses)?