What Will Saudi Arabia’s Video Game Acquisition Mean for ‘The Sims’?

A famously queer video game now belongs to Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund, and fans are worried

Promotional image for The Sims 4 featuring gay and trans characters in Pride gear

Electronic Arts (EA), one of the world’s biggest video game developers, has agreed to a deal to sell their company for an astronomical $55 billion dollars to a “consortium” comprising Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund (PIF), the private equity firm Silver Lake, and Jared Kushner’s Affinity Partners.

• PIF has hundreds of billions in assets from the oil industry and is controlled by Saudi Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the de facto leader of a government that has been accused of human rights violations, especially against women, Jewish people, LGBTQ Saudis.
• Silver Lake is part of a joint venture involved in a deal (with Oracle) to take over the US oversight of TikTok.
• Affinity Partners is an investment management company owned by Donald Trump’s son-in-law that primarily works with Israeli companies; its sources of funding are overwhelmingly from the Saudi government.

The partnering of these players to buy EA left many gamers reeling after the acquisition was announced on September 29, with many concerned about the fate of The Sims, a core EA franchise known for…