Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund (PIF) is buying the gaming division of developer Niantic, whose titles include mobile game Pokémon Go, for $3.5 billion.
This is the latest purchase for the kingdom, which in the past few years has made significant strides in becoming a global hub for esports and gaming, part of the crown prince’s efforts to move the kingdom away from a reliance on petrodollars.
Pokémon Go sees players walk around in the real world to hunt for creatures which appear on their screen and is one of the highest-grossing mobile games.
The purchase of the game will provide PIF with location data for all 30 million monthly users. Critics have warned that the deal will provide AI mapping data to the kingdom allowing it to create a “large geospatial model”.
Saudi has long been accused of “games-washing” to improve the kingdom’s reputation amidst accusations of human rights violations.
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