Earlier today Games Done Quick, the charity speed-running organisation whose Summer Games Done Quick event was this year raising money for Doctors Without Borders, sent out a press release saying SGDQ had raised $2,408,701 for the international group. Not long after they made another announcement, saying the organization was 'excited' to be working on a sponsored speedrunning showcase with SNK, a company that is now owned by (as this Kotaku story is headlined) 'one of the worst people in the world', Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.
The post about the SNK sponsorship instantly sparked widespread criticism. With good reason! The Saudi sports and culture-washing program fucking sucks, for reasons ranging from concerns over monopoly ownership to humans right violations and murdering people, but was especially troubling in this regard since Doctors Without Borders have had to repeatedly work to provide support to people killed and wounded in Saudi airstrikes, including a 2015 missile strike on a Doctors Without Borders hospital.
Nathan Grayson
That criticism, coming both in the comment sections of social media posts and through emails made directly to GDQ organisers, resulted in a fast about-face; less than three hours after originally announcing the deal, GDQ issued a statement saying that the deal was off, and pulled the plug on the sponsored stream while it was being broadcast:
We have canceled our sponsored stream with SNK.
We have heard the concerns from our community regarding this partnership, specifically the company’s majority ownership by Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund, and the human rights concerns tied to the Saudi government.
We will not accept the funds from this sponsorship or continue to work with this sponsor again.
GDQ is committed to supporting human rights and inclusivity, and we recognize that this partnership conflicted with those values.
We failed to conduct the level of review our community should expect from us and that was an oversight we deeply regret and take full responsibility for.
We especially want to apologize to the runners and our host on this stream, who had nothing to do with this decision and whose runs were disrupted as a result. This isn't a reflection on them and we are grateful for their understanding.
Going forward, we will review and strengthen our process for evaluating future sponsors and partners, including closer examination of companies’ ownership, to make sure they're aligned with our values.
Which, fine, that's the right thing to do. Sometimes people make mistakes, and owning up to them is an important part of making up for that. But Saudi's ownership of SNK is hardly a secret, nor is their continued acquisition of other live gaming events like EVO, so fans are still understandably questioning the processes that led to the deal being signed off on in the first place.
We’ve reached out to GDQ organisers for comment on the sponsorship, and will update if we hear back.
Nathan Grayson
