Comedy
Saudi Arabia Is Coming For The Sims
In this episode of ICYMI, hosts Candice Lim and Kate Lindsay discuss the controversial Riyadh Comedy Festival in Saudi Arabia and its implications for comedians. They also delve into the recent acquis...
Saudi Arabia Is Coming For The Sims
Comedy •
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Interactive Transcript
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Hey, I'm Candice Lim.
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And I'm Kate Lindsay.
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And you're listening to ICYMI.
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In case you missed it.
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Slates podcast about internet culture.
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And Kate, why are you seeing you at the Riyadh Comedy Festival?
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You will not be seeing me there, but just know.
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It's not because I'm taking a principled stand.
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It is because clearly they did not offer either of us
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enough money.
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We turned it down.
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Exactly.
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Exactly.
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And here's the deal.
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If you don't know what this is, basically right now,
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as we speak, the Riyadh Comedy Festival,
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it is happening in Saudi Arabia.
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And let's just say Saudi Arabia, not known for their human
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rights.
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In fact, human rights watch.
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They call their human rights record abysmal.
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And that's not good.
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Yeah, yeah.
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Just sort of clarify.
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I know it was worried.
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That means bad.
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Yep.
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Yeah.
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And yet, a number of comedians were seemingly paid high enough
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sums to kind of put that aside.
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Someone who has appeared is Dave Chappelle.
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There's Bill Burr.
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There's Pete Davidson.
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I mean, people in Comedy Circles had been discussing this
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festival for some time.
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But it actually wasn't until actor and comedian Zach
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Woods, who I love just putting it out there in case he's
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listening, he made a TikTok that ended up pushing this whole
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thing mainstream.
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We can listen to a bit of it.
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Guys, it's that special time of year.
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It's the Riyadh Comedy Festival.
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And all of your favorite comedians are performing at the
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pleasure of Turkey, Al Sheikh.
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And he is the head of the entertainment authority over there.
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And he has so many people thrown in prison because they
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treated stuff he didn't like about the soccer team or
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whatever, that there's a wing of a prison nicknamed after him
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where they hang people by their heels from the ceiling.
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Now, there's a lot of drips killed joys and we bezoids who
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are saying, oh, we shouldn't do comedy over there because it's
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a whitewashing of regime that just in June killed a
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journalist and killed Jamal Khashoggi and played a big role
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in 9-11.
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Shut up.
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With the Saturday Night Live theme song.
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I know.
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Kind of great.
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Kind of great.
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Take me on a date.
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Just one.
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Oh my god.
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Yeah.
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But here's the thing.
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Zach Woods basically is saying he is not fucking with this
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comedy festival.
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He's not alone.
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He goes comedians who had been approached but turned it down
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began speaking out like Otsuko Otsuka who posted the email
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she received with censorship stipulations and other
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comedians like Namesh Patel pulled out after initially
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agreeing to perform.
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Although he says he actually made the decision before the
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backlash.
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But comedy is not the only reason that Saudi Arabia has been
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in the news these past few weeks because Saudi Arabia's
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public investment fund is also one of the new co-owners of EA
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games.
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Electronic Arts games.
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They are behind titles like Madden, FIFA, and The Sims.
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After the break, is this the beginning of the end of The Sims?
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Hi, I'm Alex Goldman.
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You may know me as the host of Reply All.
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But I'm done with that.
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I'm doing something else now.
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I've started a new podcast called Hyper Fixed.
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On every episode of Hyper Fixed, listeners write in with
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their problems and I try to solve them.
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Some massive in life altering and some so minuscule
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little ball go your mind.
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No matter the problem, no matter the size, I'm here for you.
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That's Hyper Fixed, the new podcast from Radio Topia.
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Find it wherever you listen to podcasts or at Hyper FixedPod.com.
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Hi, it's Liv Little.
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It's Miranda Sawyer here and we are the hosts of the newest
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culture podcast out there.
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We have notes from the observer.
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As writers, we give and take notes all the time.
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It's part of the fun, especially when it comes to culture.
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But now we're sharing our thoughts on the most interesting
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No headline skimming here.
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Listen to new episodes of We Have Notes every Wednesday,
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wherever you get your podcasts.
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Hey, it's Anna Sale, host of Death, Sex, and Money, the podcast
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from Slate about the things we think about a lot and need to
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talk about more.
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And recently we asked you to tell us stories about your beauty
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interventions, what you've decided to invest time and money in
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to improve your appearance.
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no, no, no, no, no, no, no, we are going to sail in a
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We heard from people who spent thousands on plastic surgery,
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fillers, and skincare routines.
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And from others who decided to reject pressure, like covering
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grades.
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It's kind of like, why do I need to do that?
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I mean, for you, is it for you?
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Or because you're embarrassed to have a friend or a spouse
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with great hair?
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I mean, what is the encouragement from?
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And you told us about feeling caught between viewing appearance
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certain way affects your relationships, career, and self-worth.
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I'd like to think of myself as a person with depth, a person
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who values intelligence and kindness.
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And yet, sometimes, I worry that my appearance in the doors that
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my appearance have opened, those are going to close if I don't
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continue to look this particular way.
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Listen to this episode and more depth sex and money episodes
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wherever you get podcasts.
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Now, when I see why am I, we get to do really fun things
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You know, that thing that every teacher and parent and me
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access wherever you listen.
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And we're back and joining us on the show today is Slate's
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senior business and tech editor.
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It's Tony Ho Tran.
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Hello, Tony.
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Hi, everyone.
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It's so good to be here again.
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It's so good to have you.
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I can't believe it's taken us this long.
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I know.
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I was feeling left out for a very long time.
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It's very weird.
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Yeah.
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So Tony, we have you here today.
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Because the big news, all right, the big news of this week
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is just the fact that electronic arts,
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these are the people who make mad and FIFA rock band, The Sims.
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They are being acquired for $55 billion.
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And the people acquiring them include a Saudi Arabian PIF,
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public investment fund, Silver Lake,
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and Jared Kushner's affinity partners.
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We'll get into why the players are important,
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but we should really talk about the fact that one of EA's games,
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The Sims, has their community up in arms?
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There are worries.
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We want to talk about what if they're justified.
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But let's step back for a second.
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Tony, if you met an alien who came to Earth today
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and they said, hey, what's the Sims?
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How would you describe it to them?
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First off, I would say to the alien
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that you would love the Sims.
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Go back.
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I was gonna say, you can,
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alien aliens have representation in the Sims.
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That's true.
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And you need to see yourself in media aliens.
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And that's right.
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100%.
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The aliens would be able to see themselves in The Sims,
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which is actually part of the draw
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of why people love The Sims so much.
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It is, I would describe it as like a life simulator.
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Of course, that's how you get the term The Sims.
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And it's this big sandbox where you can create
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your own characters, your own families,
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and really shape them and their lives to be however you see fit.
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They can be taking on careers from astronaut
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to even vampires and wizards and stuff like that.
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It's really cool.
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And people like it for a lot of different reasons.
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I personally liked it because it let me build houses.
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I was kind of like an architecture nerd
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as a parents that I went out when I was a kid.
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I was the type who would always join his parents
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whenever they wanted to go to open houses and stuff like that.
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So it was always great being able to build my own house
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and putting my own little family inside of there.
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And you could also do fun things like torture them,
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like putting them into a little swimming pool
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and deleting the ladder so they just swim forever until they die.
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And definitely even Joseph.
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Yes, it is also represented in The Sims.
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But yeah, it's just a big life simulator.
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It's a lot of fun and there's a lot of reasons
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why people love it and are upset
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by the newest developments of what's happening.
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Yeah, I think something to also know about Sims.
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This is actually the 25 year anniversary of it
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first being released.
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So it's been in our lives since like 2000.
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I think another reason why The Sims is really appealing
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is because it's very universal and international.
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They use a made up language.
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It's literally called Simlish.
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Simlish.
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And do you guys remember when they would make pop artists
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step into the booth and record covers of their own songs?
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In Simlish, I must play it Katy Perry recording
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last Friday night in Simlish.
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Let's go.
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There is not a single pitch email that lands in Katy Perry's inbox
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that she says no to.
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She's like, she's like, yeah, sure.
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Yep.
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Yep.
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Yeah.
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Well, first, maybe before we talk about the acquisition,
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I'm also curious, what is everyone's individual relationship
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to The Sims?
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Like, where are we all Sims players and to what extent?
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Yeah.
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So I remember playing The Sims like in 2000 when it came out.
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I remember it was like a really big game
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being like pushed everywhere.
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Like whenever I went to Target, I remember distinctly
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seeing it.
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And I got it for Christmas.
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I think one year.
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And I remember not knowing exactly what it was.
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It seemed like a girls game to me as a young boy.
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But as soon as I started playing with it, I was hooked.
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I must have sunk.
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I wouldn't be surprised if you told me thousands of hours
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into The Sims across all of its different expansion packs
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and sequels.
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And yeah, even to this day, I still occasionally
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poured up The Sims just to get a little bit of cozy gaming in.
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I had The Sims.
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I didn't realize how much of an early fan I was
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because my initial introduction to The Sims was not The Sims.
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It was Sim City, which was just basically like architecture-based
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and like running a town.
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I loved that.
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It was a little bit later that I was allowed to play The Sims.
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And it definitely started because I would go over to Friends
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houses and they would play and I would sit next to them
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and watch.
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And I really wanted it for myself.
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My parents weren't sure because they're there.
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You know, there's I don't I forget like what the ratings are
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for video games, but it was a little bit like, oh, there's
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risk a stuff in this.
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Right.
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But I finally, I finally was allowed.
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And I went nuts to this day as an adult since I got to college.
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Every time I got a new laptop, I would move over my Sims games
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and like I had the pets expansion pack.
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I always got the new, whatever the latest release was.
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I would get all the fun things they would,
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would follow me everywhere.
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And then when I got to college, I was like, I can't have this
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anymore because I will play it too much.
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And I've had to stick with that as an adult.
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I have not touched it once as an adult only because I'm like
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Sims sober.
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I'm like, I know what'll happen.
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I will go on a bender if I get it again because I would spend
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entire summers eating goldfish crackers and playing the Sims.
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Like in my room, my parents would be like, please go outside.
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I was so obsessed.
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And you have your sort of song association with the Sims.
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I will say that Lillie Allen also released a similar song
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when I was there.
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I remember that too.
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That's the real MVP for me.
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Of like, if I hear this sound, I'm activated.
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Is this sound that I want to play?
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And I want to see Tony if you've come across this.
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Challenge everything.
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Challenge everything.
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Yeah, challenge everything.
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I love that sound.
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And I just associated it with firing up not just the Sims,
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but the Harry Potter PC games.
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I also had FIFA for a little bit.
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It takes me back.
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What about you, Candace?
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Yeah, no.
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So my relationship with the Sims, I played it on intended DS
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and the iPad.
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And the iPad is the moment I became an evil landlord.
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Because I kid you not guys.
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When I was in eighth grade, I did this thing
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where I would basically wake up 8 a.m.
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eat breakfast, go to the iPad.
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And I would put my Sims to eight hours of work.
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Okay, I said, when mommy's at school,
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you need to make your rent.
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And I literally would come back.
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And if they were not, if they did not harvest the peppers in time,
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you bet someone was being put in an attic.
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Like what the stairs taken out.
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Okay, you bet.
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You got to be punished, right?
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Right, right.
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I was strict.
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I was strict.
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I was 13.
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And I don't know.
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It was control.
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And in a weird way, I also think Tony,
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like the architecture front,
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there's kind of this Minecraft-iness to it.
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Of like, once you really master the tools of Sims,
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you can really build so many crazy worlds.
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But yeah, I was power hungies.
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Yeah.
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So it's safe to say we all have very, very fond memories
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of the Sims and Candace's case sinister memories.
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But those are still valid and welcome all memories.
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But it feels now that those memories are under threat
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or at the very least going to be tainted,
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thanks to news of an acquisition between EA games
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and a bunch of sinister sounding companies.
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I'll just leave it at that.
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This is going to go into effect in 2027.
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Tony, what is this?
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What is happening?
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Yeah.
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So this is a sale effectively of EA games
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that this group of investors that includes
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the Saudi public investment fund, the PIF,
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and the private equity firm, Affinity Partners,
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which is owned by Jared Kushner,
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the son-in-law of the current president
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of the United States, Donald Trump.
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And so Verlick as well.
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And it means that EA games is no longer
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going to be a publicly traded company.
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They're going to be privately owned,
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which is going to have a lot of different effects.
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They don't have to answer to shareholders anymore
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or investors or anything like that.
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Instead, they get to have, I would say,
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a little bit more, say in their business decisions.
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And also, their investors are going
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to have a lot more say as well, or their current owners,
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which include, like I said, the Saudi public investment fund
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and Jared Kushner's private equity firm.
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I think what strikes me about this moment
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is that there are two other huge acquisitions
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that have kind of caught my eye.
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I wonder if you have thoughts on them too, Tony.
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The first one just being the TikTok deal,
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which in September, Trump did approve a deal
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that would allow Larry Ellison from Oracle, Silverlake,
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the same one involved in the EA deal,
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and the Abu Dhabi-based Investment Fund, MGX,
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to acquire TikTok from bite dance.
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One thing is that I find it very ironic
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that the US, both under Biden and Trump,
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has spent years trying to tear TikTok away
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from a China-based owner,
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and now they're like, toad's cool
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with Abu Dhabi getting involved,
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even though they have just some human rights
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violating allegations.
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Okay.
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And then the other deal that I've been thinking about
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is Skydance and the Paramount merger, David Ellison,
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the son of Larry is involved in that.
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And so between that and electronic arts,
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do you feel like this EA acquisition
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is a little different from those?
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Is there something you're kind of seeing
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or reacting too strongly about this one in particular?
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I think it's certainly a continuation of a,
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I would say like a troubling trend of,
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I would say right-wing interests,
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making a move towards these big media companies
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and controlling the media that we consume
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and that is very popular here in the United States
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and throughout the world in a very, very big way.
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And I don't think it's a big coincidence.
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I think that this is a very intentional effort
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by the powers that Bay in order to perhaps even,
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to control or perhaps even limit the type of content
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that people are going to be exposed to.
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And it's very scary and it's gonna affect everything
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from our video games and the movies we watch
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to the social media that we consume
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as we scroll through TikTok at the end of every night
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or is that just me?
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I don't think it's just me.
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So when it comes to these new owners
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and what we can expect from them,
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I mean Jared Kushner is Jared Kushner,
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but Saudi Arabia, Saudi Arabia as a country
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does not have a good track record
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when it comes to human rights.
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I mean, just two issues I can think of up the top of my head.
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There was the murder of journalist Jamal Kishogi,
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but also they severely criminalized the LGBTQ plus community.
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And that is a huge threat to a game like The Sims
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because free expression is kind of the essence
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of what makes The Sims special.
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Tony Slay actually just published a piece on this.
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It's titled, I'm a trans gamer,
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EA sailed a Saudi Arabia and Jared Kushner
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terrifies me.
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They write The Sims helped me
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and countless other career players see ourselves
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and new owners could erase that legacy.
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Tell us a bit about that piece.
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Absolutely, that is from a trans journalist name Laura Kate Dale.
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And she went into essentially giving a little bit
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of context and history about why The Sims itself
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is such an important game for millions of queer gamers.
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It's helped people within the LGBT community
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not only realize that they were gay themselves
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or queer themselves, but also help them come out of the closet
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and be more accepting about who they are.
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Because you know, I realize the Sims is a video game
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that like you said Kate is truly accepting
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of many different body types.
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In The Sims 4 you can go in and you can choose to be
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masculine presenting, but still you can choose specifically
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this person to get pregnant or this person goes
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to the bathroom sitting down and stuff like that.
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And you can truly mix and match and mold your Sims
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to look and act however you want them to look and act.
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And that's beautiful because that's the way
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people are and say if you live in a place
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that is conservative and maybe doesn't let you live
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out the way that you feel like you are inside the person
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that you really are having a video game like The Sims is not
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only, you know, it's not only important,
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it can be completely life affirming.
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It can save your life.
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And you know, I don't think that's an exaggeration to say.
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That's why these video games like The Sims
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are just so important to people.
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And why when they take a look at a country like Saudi Arabia
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all of a sudden having ownership stakes within a company
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like EA, Saudi Arabia, which criminalizes being a homosexual
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and homosexual behavior, which has a well-documented history
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of human rights abuses against the LGBTQ plus population.
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I think people are just right to be concerned.
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And you know, that's on top of the fact that Jared Kushner's
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investment firm is involved too.
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Jared Kushner, who is the son-in-law of a president,
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who I think people have rightfully afraid
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of their rights being taken away
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under his administration as well.
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I mean, like, and so seeing this property,
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which is beloved and something that has changed their lives
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and they have devoted so many countless hours
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who just like may, falling into the hands of people
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who paint them, who might want to race their existence.
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I think they have every right to be concerned.
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When we come back, we'll talk about what might happen
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to EA Games under this new deal
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and why The Sims is a game worth protecting in the first place.
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Hey, it's Mary Harris.
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Hosted or slates daily news podcast, What Next?
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I'm talking with Amicus Co-host Mark Joseph Stern
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about the Supreme Court's new term,
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which technically starts this week.
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The thing about this year, though,
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is that Mark feels like he already knows
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who's gonna win in court, Donald Trump,
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which leaves him with a whole other question.
spk_0
Can he call these justices judges?
spk_0
The law is changing every day, it seems,
spk_0
and the Supreme Court is often changing the law
spk_0
without explaining itself.
spk_0
So it's, again, hard to conceptualize that as law,
spk_0
hard to describe it accurately or fairly as judging.
spk_0
It looks a lot more like a super legislature
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just passing a bunch of statutes
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that it thinks are best for the country
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and doing so without ever receiving a single vote
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from the American people.
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Check out What Next, wherever you listen.
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On billboards, Hot 100,
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America's flagship pop chart.
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There are number ones, and then there are number one debuts.
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Join me, Chris Malanthe, for a look
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at the Chart Calculus, Superfan Interventions,
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and Fluke conditions that turn a brand new single
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into an instant success without any guarantee of longevity.
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When it comes to hits, it's not where you start,
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it's where you finish.
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Find Hip-Hit Parade, wherever you get your podcasts.
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And the next.
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Canis, you brought up the TikTok acquisition
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that's also troubling people for similar reasons,
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and there is this thread between the Sims and TikTok,
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which is this idea of self-discovery.
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And the fear in both of those situations
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is that that free space to explore who you are,
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is going to be limited when it was available
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originally an escape. You know, it's, there are so many first-person pieces out there of people who
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processed or learned things about themselves that apply to their legitimate real life through
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the Sims. And so I just want to read some headlines. The Sims made me realize I'm ready for more
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in life. And this is on wired. And it's about being ready to become a parent. Like they realize
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they're playing the Sims. Or there's in GQUK how the Sims helped me understand my ADHD. Or in the
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gamer, people are really just more complex Sims. So I treated myself like one to try cheering
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myself up. Which is like sometimes I have done that. I'll be like, oh my energy bar is low. Or my
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hunger bar is low. It helps you think about your basic needs. So there is like there are perfectly
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legitimate and powerful reasons to support having the Sims. But I want to do a shout out to
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a just as important even if less mentioned element. Which is that the Sims is fucking weird. You can do
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so much stuff on it. And one thing I've been doing is just marking down some of the most ridiculous
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scenarios that come up because of just the the natural bizarreness and open worldness of the Sims.
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That the most ridiculous sort of combinations of characters and circumstances can come together
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to create for instance. Here's one of someone coming to the Reddit to say that their
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they've been told by the Sims that their Sims soulmate is a dolphin. The dolphin is named doll. Okay.
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Then then there's one. And I'm going to put all these pictures on the Instagram. All these posts
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because they're so funny. Someone 10 months ago this person comes with a plea that random horses
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are spawning throughout the game. And this is what it looks like. Oh my god. And when I say random
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horses it's so many horses. It's so many horses. And and they don't know why it's happening. They
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can't get them to move. And I guess they get some advice. But my favorite thing is they follow the
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advice. And they realize they have a new problem after following this advice. Because I guess there's
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some mod or whatever that happened. Which is now the horses have been replaced by bikes. And
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there's so many. Oh my god. Oh, it's so skit. It's like a horror movie. It's an age 24 movie.
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So many bikes. And the thing is they can't delete the bikes. And they found out that the only
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way to get rid of the bikes was getting on and driving on individually to their own home and
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deleting it there. Oh my god. Of course. The bike isn't going to drive itself. It's not a
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horse. That's makes sense. This is this is how city bikes feel when I don't know. Drops
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one off because he thinks he can do it every once. And the person who's the victim of his like
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another bike. Right. It's not good. It's that the whole thread is so funny. It's like it's
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tons of people are commenting on it. It's like the first comment. The one that's most upvoted is
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I'm fucking crying laughing at this, especially because I had to go back in your profile to see
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what the horse issue was. Oh my god. It just feels like a monkey's paw curling of like you don't
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want a ton of horses. All right. There need bikes now. And so that's just this is a small
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sampling. I've read other anecdotes of like they're having a wedding for their two sams. And by
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the end of the wedding, the groom is making out with the father-in-law. It's so good. It's
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I know. It's a random firing of just different events based on circumstances that you set up.
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And it's so funny and beautiful. And again, so much of that, I don't know what the Saudi Arabia's
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rules are for husbands making out with their father-in-law. But I can't imagine it celebrated over
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there. And what is right. One of the sims of things like that can't happen. But one thing I wonder
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maybe Tony, if you could shed some light on is when when it comes to like what could this look like?
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Like will husbands making out with fathers-in-law be banned? Has Saudi Arabia ever acquired a US
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company before like have we is there anything we compare this to to see outplayed out? Yeah,
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we can look at like the past behavior by like by an entity like the Saudi public investment fund.
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What this kind of reveals is that what they're really doing here isn't like oh they're going to
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most likely knock on wood. What they're doing here isn't like they're going to go in and change
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the sims and all of a sudden you know, rights for women is going to be cut and you won't be able
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to marry somebody of another of the same gender. What this really is is just reputation laundering.
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They're they're buying an entity like EA and they're saying like oh look we're doing these other
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things and you know you can see this in like they're having the Riyadh comedy festival right now
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that I know is like caught stirring a lot of controversy. There was the issue with the the
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live golf tournament they're buying their own tennis tournaments now and things like that.
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So this is just a growing trend within the Saudi government itself just to make its own
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reputation look better. And so I wouldn't be I wouldn't be you know so overly confident that
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they're going to be changing all these things about our beloved video games. That being said
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there has been instances in the past of like the you know some reports of the Saudi government
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having some influences over video games that they they have you know had investments in
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or or or have supported in some way I know that they have had some influence over assassins
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create video games before in the past because of it's been set in the Middle East and things like that.
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So you know there are some instances that we can point to but you know whether or not it's going
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to be this wholesale change that we're going to see to a video game like the Sims unfortunately
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we're just going to have to wait and see. But I think that that still doesn't you know downplay
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the real very very real fears that these gamers have about the way that these beloved properties
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that people have devoted so much of their lives to and you know have such a stake in how they're
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going to be treated in the hands of people who you know don't like them or don't like their identity
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or don't don't agree with their lifestyle or whatever else. There's obviously been a lot of
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focus on the Saudi Arabia of it all but I think something we should consider that when it comes
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to cracking down on LGBTQ rights or women's rights that call is already coming from inside the house.
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I'm thinking of something like Project 2025 one of its stated aims is broadening the definition of
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pornography and as they do that it tends to include trans issues queer issues and so I wouldn't
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be surprised if the way we've seen tech companies like Google and Facebook and TikTok comply in
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advance when it comes to Trump's stated aims. I think even before Saudi Arabia gets involved we
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could see video game companies doing the same. Yeah I completely agree. I think that people are
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rightfully worried mostly like online because of like Jared Kushner in his involvement too. Like sure
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Kushner is not a part of Trump administration right now but he was and his proximity to the president
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and the president who just this week was exoling the virtues of Project 2025 and bragging about
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like getting more involved in it. I think is right is just that is fair grounds to be very very
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concerned. I mean sure like like I said like it's not like he's taking direct marching orders from
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Trump but he's going to be he's going to be a lot of familiar to the policies that Donald Trump puts
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forward most likely. Yeah and I think the reason why this acquisition feels so pressing is because
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to me I really realize that like EA is the symptoms of video games they have touched like every
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facet of American culture they have found a way into so many homes whether it's maddened with sports
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plants versus zombies Harry Potter games shut it to UK rock band and music and I think the
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even though the CEO of EA Andrew Wilson he said look nothing's going to change about the company
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culture our values and our commitments the players and fans are going to remain unchanged obviously
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players you know users on the subreddit they're not that dumb and instead they are skeptical
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and they're worried about a lot of things from gutting EA to AI being more involved. Do you
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think that their concerns are justified overblown is it possible that this growing trend should
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or should not concern folks what do you think? I think that the concerns are totally justified.
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It's definitely a situation unfortunately like we just don't know what they're going to be doing
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with it and so until it happens you know like people are just kind of having to just be afraid
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and just sort of be just silently concerned about what or not so silently if you're like online
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about what they're going to do to to to a video game like you love. But yeah I'll say I wouldn't
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be surprised if like say 10 years down the road if we start seeing video games start to have a little
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bit more of a conservative bent that would that would be weird that'd be frightening and that would
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be a grim reality but I wouldn't be overly surprised. I really hope not until then I'm going to
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try to keep as many of the physical copies of the Sims 2 that my parents undoubtedly still have
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on CD like on an old PC somewhere but yeah it's just a wait and see moment right now.
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Yeah I would say the biggest sort of obviously the the we can only speculate about culturally how
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the games might change but I think the clearest issue is actually financial which is that because of
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this acquisition the EA is now 20 billion dollars in debt and is going to need to cut costs.
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I mean I know people speculating if this means the possibility of a Sims 5 is now on hold or that
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maybe things like AI will be used like they're going to almost surely have job cuts and how are
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those job cuts you know it's like the evil overlords changing the content and the Sims is one thing
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but the real like sort of more realistic issue is that there will likely be less people and less
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resources available for this game and it could suffer in kind of different ways that we weren't
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even expecting. Right and even if it doesn't suffer you're kind of putting gamers who you know who
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might disagree with the Saudi government or Jared Kushner in a really bad situation where it's like
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am I going to be forced to support people who who might otherwise like want me gone like what do
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you do then and this all of a sudden you have this to make this crazy decision like oh the
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something I really really like something that really brings me joy and every day is actually
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causing material harm to people who share the same identity as me you know somebody who's gay
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in Saudi Arabia so it's tough it is just like an impossible choice that a decision like this is
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putting millions of people in so. Yeah I think that's why the Sims in particular being possibly
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affected is almost more heartbreaking than hearing about TikTok and Skydance in Paramount because
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I think something I've been learning from this year is just that like nothing is safe like why are all
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my hobbies I turn to just not say for at the threat of kind of being owned by someone who doesn't
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want me to exist. Right. And I think the thing about the Sims is you know we always ask the question
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of like what's your first internet memory but underneath that is like what is your first digital
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memory is it possible that you had an experience with a computer that didn't involve a connection
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necessarily but there but there was still a very fundamental thing that it taught you about like
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the internet and digital spaces and I really put the Sims in that category because you know it's
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one of those games that you could like pop out into a CD and put into a computer and you don't
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need an internet connection and you can use it and really build these full worlds and a part of me
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is like wow like even the stuff offline is being threatened to so at this rate like what where how
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yeah what where and how Tony do we cope with something like this are there alternatives do we just
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make our own Sims what do we do yeah right the maker I think we have Sims at home and Sims at home
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is just literally real life right yeah live as good of a life as you possibly can which is like I
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you know incidentally also a lesson I feel like I learned from the Sims which is just like yeah
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make sure I shower like make sure I eat enough make sure I'm working out that kind of stuff
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no but um you know this kind of like underscores the importance of how important like like like
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physical media is and just being able to own the copy of the thing that you bought you know
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you know it's like with ebooks like you don't actually own the book unless you can hold the book
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right right through the pages and everything amazon owns it like it's in it's in like the Kindle
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Cloud or whatever the heck else and same thing with like the movies you buy or you think you buy
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like online same thing with the video games unless you own a physical copy of it or or it's sort
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of the hard drive somewhere for you and you don't actually own it like and the powers that be like an
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EA games or or or or an amazon they can take it away at any moment and once they take it away
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it just disappears we've seen it with like HBO and Warner Brothers getting rid of like
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cartoon network properties and taking it off their platforms as well like we just can't access
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those movies and those tv shows anymore because somebody in an office somewhere in Los Angeles
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decided that it wasn't making enough money for them so it wasn't worth it to to to keep providing it
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the people so wherever you can and I know it's not possible like in every instance wherever you can
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you know get the physical media version of it make sure you have it if you want to keep on enjoying it
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and you know at the end of the day though like if we want like these corporations to act better
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we can only vote with our wallets like we ultimately we have to stop supporting them if we want
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them to understand that we won't abide by this behavior we the players won't what they want and we
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we need to be able to you know vote with our wallets yeah that was something we were I was looking
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at the subreddit to see where people doing anything about this like hot what solutions have they come
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up with and they were likening what was happening here to the Disney Hulu boycott and so some people
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are saying they're gonna boycott all future releases one other thing that came up that I'd
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not heard about is perhaps this upcoming Sims like DUP called Paralives and it's like an independent
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company now this is giving me flashbacks to like oh this is the next Twitter no this is the next
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Twitter and then like they all flop but it looks like it's called Paralives a life simulation game
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coming out in early access on December 8 2025 and it really just is this is we have Sims at home
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to me like looking at it it is just the Sims but a different animation and likely the initial
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rollout will not have any of the the Sims has had like you know we're saying 25 years to build
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on itself and anything that comes out no matter how well intended is not going to be able to compare
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and so it would take people really deciding to stick to their guns just switch to this game but
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I'm sure Paralives was like oh this bumping when they heard this news they were like this is this
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great for us so there are some solutions ahead but I think for the most part people are rather than
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boycotting they're just like doing what you said Tony they're holding tighter to what they love
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and just hoping it doesn't get taken away yeah like what else can you do in a situation like this
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especially when you're facing you know a 55 billion dollar investment like that it's crazy but you
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know baby Paralives is gonna be the out that people are looking for and that's something they can
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they can hold on to next okay that's the show we want to thank Slate's Tony Ho Tran for speaking
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with us you can find a link to Laura Kate Dale's piece on the Sims in the show notes and if you
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want to know more about the EA Games deal be sure to check out what next TVD where they will go
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through the ins and outs of the acquisition and if you like this episode make sure to rate and
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review us on Apple or Spotify and you can follow us on Instagram at icymi underscore pod to see
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all of those sim memes including a million horses that turn into bikes icymi is produced by Vic
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Whitley Berry Kate Lindsay and me Candace Lim these Rosario is our senior supervising producer
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Mia Low Bell is Slate's executive producer podcast and Hillary Fry is Slate's editor-in-chief
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c1 mine or singing smile in simlish
Topics Covered
Riyadh Comedy Festival
Saudi Arabia human rights
comedians controversy
Dave Chappelle
Zach Woods TikTok
Electronic Arts acquisition
The Sims community
public investment fund
comedy and censorship
human rights watch
comedy festival backlash
Saudi Arabia news
comedy industry
EA games
Katy Perry Simlish