Recently, Saudi Arabia made another move towards the game industry and purchased 8.1% of the shares of embracer group at a price of US $1billion. After the completion of the transaction, the country's public investment fund (PIF) will become the second largest holder of shares of embracer group through its subsidiary savvy gaming group.
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PIF is a sovereign wealth fund chaired by crown prince Mohammed bin Salman. It is reported that the fund is the core of his goal to reduce the dependence of Saudi Arabia's economy on oil revenues.
Earlier this year, Prince's PIF bought a 5.01% stake in Nintendo, which caused anxiety among players. Nintendo later said that Nintendo initially learned about the Saudi investment from news reports.
In April this year, the prince purchased 96% of the shares of SNK, a famous Japanese developer, and took over the ownership of legend of hungry wolf, alloy warhead and Boxer.
This year, the fund also invested more than 5% of the shares of kapukong and Nexon, a Korean online game publisher. These investments totaled more than $1billion.