Saudi-owned SNK’s Fatal Fury: City of the Wolves will, shockingly, take a spot at Saudi-owned Esports World Cup this year

Fatal Fury: City of the Wolves, the next big release from fighting game institution SNK, is making an appearance at the Esports World Cup later this year. This announcement comes before the game has even been released, raising questions as to why the game is taking a spot at an event that has proved enticing for players and competitive organizations alike due to the huge prize pool attached.

The Esports World Cup, for those who don’t know, is a massive esports event funded by the Saudi Arabian government’s Public Investment Fund (PIF), a sovereign wealth fund currently owned by crown prince Mohammed bin Salman. It’s part of a wider attempt by the sovereignty to buy into various sports, and has stated as part of its Vision 2030 to diversify its income from oil, create jobs, attract tourism, and improve its standing in the mind of people around the world.

Esports, a historically unprofitable venture, is a component of that latter goal: to improve international standing. This is called Sportswashing. Given how broke the esports space is at the moment following speculative investors falling foul of underperforming projects and a lack of returning profits, players and esports organizations have proven more than happy to get on board.

So why would the Esports World Cup being a multi-game event, with obvious cause to host the most popular competitive games in order to garner as many viewers as possible, save a space for an unreleased fighting game from a relatively niche IP? Sure, City of the Wolves may look cool, but there are surely other games out there with a bigger audience than even the speculative player base it has?

Well, back in 2020, the MiSK Foundation (an educational and cultural non-profit owned by Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman) bought up 33.3% of SNK shares through a subsidiary: Electronic Gaming Development Company (EGDC). Later, in April 2021, SNK appointed three Saudi Arabian board members to the company, which was swiftly followed by EGDC buying up 96.18% of SNK shares in February 2022. SNK, now based in Osaka, is a company almost entirely owned by the Saudi Crown Prince’s foundation.

But what if you don’t care about all that: it’s just games, dead migrants at the border, assassinations of journalists and the like have nothing to do with video games, right? There’s an obvious conflict of interest here. Fatal Fury: City of the Wolves will probably be a great game, having played it at Evo, I certainly think so, but who knows? Maybe it’ll release with some serious problems, performance, balance, or otherwise? Given the game only releases three months ahead of the Esports World Cup, will the game be given enough time to build a fan base that warrants a place on the EWC stage above other games? The reality is, they don’t care. It’s a chance to market a game owned by the Saudi Arabian state, on a stage that itself is owned by and doing PR for the Saudi Arabian state.

If you do find yourself at least vaguely curious as to why Saudi Arabia would feel the need to spend so much money on PR through video games and all manner of other fun stuff, there are a few good reasons why. Saudi Arabia has been scrutinised quite heavily due to its history of human rights abuses, the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi in 2018, and the mass killing of migrants at the Yemenese border. After the murder of Khashoggi, Saudi shares plummeted by the way. The Esports World Cup, much like Liv Golf and other sportswashing ventures, are an attempt to paint over such events.

As for how the community will react? Players will flock to the game in droves for a chance at a big money payout, given how broke they are due to a dry spell of sponsorships for FGC events. Esports teams, responsible for this dry spell, have recently come to treat fighting game players as cheap cowboys-for-hire. They will pick up these hungry players purely as Esports World Cup fodder, and drop the moment the event ends. Players critical of the Esports World Cup, or those who boycott the event due to their own principles, will likely remain unemployed for this summer season.