Saudi Arabia is investing $38 billion into the country’s gaming industry. The investment will be made through Public Investment Fund (PIF).
According to Bloomberg’s report, Savvy Gaming Group, a subsidiary of the Public Investment Fund, is looking to move away from esport ventures and wants to focus on becoming a publisher and developer.
With the investments from PIF, the MENA ecosystem is growing and becoming a rising star in a $138 billion industry. As reported by Nine66, game studios in Saudi Arabia have almost doubled in 2022. In June 2022, Public Investment Fund announced it had purchased $1 billion worth of shares from Embracer Group, representing approximately 8.1% of total shares.
Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman said:
“We are harnessing the untapped potential across the esports and games sector to diversify our economy, drive innovation in the sector and further scale the entertainment and esports competition offerings across the Kingdom.”
Saudi Arabia has bought over 3 billion shares from many companies, such as SNK, Activision Blizzard, Electronic Arts, and Take-Two. PIF aims to profit from these investments with Microsoft’s acquisition of Activision Blizzard, which was approved by the country last year.
In May 2022, Public Investment Fund acquired a 5.01% stake in Nintendo and last month increased its stake to 6.07%. The Public Investment Fund (PIF) is the sovereign wealth fund of Saudi Arabia. It is among the largest sovereign wealth funds in the world, with total estimated assets of $620 billion. It was created in 1971 to invest funds on behalf of the government of Saudi Arabia. Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman has controlled the wealth fund since 2015.
