You do not love to see it, but it’s been a big week for Saudi Arabia, the human rights abuse factory that in recent years has taken to cosplaying as a cultural hub. Wielding checks that would probably turn the eyes of any normal person into Looney Tunes dollar signs, the Riyadh Comedy Festival has attracted the likes of Dave Chapelle, Louis CK, and even noted Guy Everybody Thought Wasn’t A Shithead Bill Burr. And of course, a consortium including Saudi Arabia purchased EA for $55 billion. The one thing all these parties have in common? Deep, unabiding cynicism. On the latest Aftermath Hours, we talk about that.
This time around, we discuss the two latest signs that the video game industry is being chopped up and sold for parts: EA’s $55 billion sale and Microsoft’s decision to up Game Pass’ price by 50 percent – the latter of which follows multiple rounds of layoffs and studio closures almost certainly intended to help pay for the company’s own $68.7 billion purchase of Activision Blizzard.
Who benefits from any of this, aside from executives and, now, a government that seeks to sportswash human rights abuses via not just sports themselves, but also some of the biggest video games about those sports? And what, really, is left of these once-unshakable juggernauts even before they really go through the most vicious iteration yet of the profit-ravenous meat grinder?
Then we discuss Baby Steps, a literal walking simulator about masculinity that Chris absolutely adores. Finally, we invent new candy bars, including, unfortunately, Dubai Twix.
You can find this week's episode below and on Spotify, Apple, or wherever else you prefer to listen to podcasts. If you like what you hear, make sure to leave a review so that we can buy EA for $56 billion, get the old Maxis team back together, and forc– er, politely ask them to make The Sims 5.
Here’s an excerpt from our conversation (edited for length and clarity):
Gita: Bill Burr is the person that came the closest to having a reasonable throughline, but even he comes off as wildly racist, so it doesn’t matter.
Nathan: Racist and also incredibly naive in a way that his entire persona does not seem to otherwise betray.
Gita: Exactly. It’s like, man, you’re just dumb. If this is true, you’re just a dumb guy.
Nathan: Yeah, but I don’t buy that. I don’t think he’s dumb. I think the check was so big that he was like “Alright, I’m gonna pretend to be someone else for a little bit.”
Chris: They drove a truck of money to my house. I’m not made of stone.
Nathan: Here are the quotes [from a Guardian article about comedians’ decision to perform in Saudi Arabia]. This shit’s nuts:
“Some comics were transparent about their willingness to ignore their moral convictions in order to play at the festival. ‘So what, they have slaves?’ asked Tim Dillon in a podcast segment that led to his firing from the festival. ‘They’re paying me enough money to look the other way.’ Pete Davidson offered a similar take, acknowledging in a chat with Von that people have asked him why, given his father’s death on 9/11, he would take a paycheck from the Saudi government. He did not address the criticism directly, but he did suggest he was happy to forget 9/11 for the right price: ‘I just know I get the routing, and then I see the number, and I go, I’ll go.’”
Gita: It’s not “never forget” anymore. It’s “conditionally forget.”
Chris: Now how many zeroes are we talking about?
Nathan: This one knocked my brain out of my head:
“[Chris] Distefano, chatting with Halkias, joked that an upside to the kingdom’s repression of women is that his fiancee can’t come with him. Mark Normand, on the other hand, joked he would bring his wife to show her how good she has it in America: ‘I want to be like: You see? You think I’m an asshole? Well, they’ll cut your clit off, bitch.’’”
That’s a thing somebody said! That’s a thing somebody said publicly!
Chris: Don’t do that! Don’t use those words.
Gita: I don’t like that.
Nathan: Absolutely insane. But the Saudi strategy is serving its purpose. I’m not sure it's ever gonna see the light of day because these things are really difficult to source, but I’ve been working with my former Washington Post colleague Mikhail on a piece about how much streamers and now also commentators were paid to be involved with the Esports World Cup, which is the Saudi government’s annual esports event. The numbers I’ve heard are big but not that big.
But the telling thing I heard from one of my conversations with a prominent League of Legends commentator is that this year they felt like one of the final holdouts. Last year, a lot of people in that scene took a principled stand and said “I’m not gonna engage with this. I’m not gonna take the money.” And this year there are just so many fewer that did that. Most of them took the money, and it’s been increasingly normalized in esports, as it has in all these other places. Money plus persistence wears people down.
