To be honest, I don't think all these purchases have actually improved their image beyond useful allies in the current culture war. And it dosen't help that they're buying AAA studios in the midst of the AAA crisis. Modern western dev studios are completely out of touch with the market, much of the old talent has left, and it's very likely the influential players 10 years now will look very different than today.
If you look at the success of chinese studios in contrast, much of this is from the ground up from indie chinese gamers/otakus building they stuff they've been dreaming about. The big chinese studios like Tencent still haven't actually made a good game and they aren't going to be doing so anytime soon. But that means that needs to come from the grassroots, not from giant corporations that are guided by metrics first. If the Saudis had sense, they should establish a VC-like fund to get indie studios started up and a game dev academy to train such talent.
To be honest, I don't think all these purchases have actually improved their image beyond useful allies in the current culture war. And it dosen't help that they're buying AAA studios in the midst of the AAA crisis. Modern western dev studios are completely out of touch with the market, much of the old talent has left, and it's very likely the influential players 10 years now will look very different than today.
If you look at the success of chinese studios in contrast, much of this is from the ground up from indie chinese gamers/otakus building they stuff they've been dreaming about. The big chinese studios like Tencent still haven't actually made a good game and they aren't going to be doing so anytime soon. But that means that needs to come from the grassroots, not from giant corporations that are guided by metrics first. If the Saudis had sense, they should establish a VC-like fund to get indie studios started up and a game dev academy to train such talent.