MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
Gamers, you probably already know the classic video game series “Fatal Fury.” It’s filled with super-powered martial arts fighters.
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MARTIN: Now these video game warriors are teaming up with an odd cast of real-world characters, including a celebrity athlete and a Swedish DJ. But there’s a controversy about this new release, and it goes a lot deeper than whether the game is cool to play. NPR’s Lindsay Totty has the backstory.
LINDSAY TOTTY, BYLINE: It’s been over 25 years since the last “Fatal Fury” game was released. So fans were excited when a new title, “Fatal Fury: City Of The Wolves,” was revealed. But last month, the Japanese video game developer SNK announced a brand-new character.
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UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #1: He’s an icon. A legend. And now a fighter.
TOTTY: That new fighter is the global soccer star Cristiano Ronaldo. What’s a real-life soccer player doing in a martial arts fighting game? Kicking flaming soccer balls into people’s faces, of course.
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UNIDENTIFIED COMMENTATOR: He shoots. He scores.
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UNIDENTIFIED COMMENTATOR: K.O. Ronaldo wins.
TOTTY: Not long after, another celebrity guest fighter, Salvatore Ganacci, was announced. He’s a Bosnian-Swedish DJ known for his viral videos. He’s bringing beatdowns as well as beats.
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SALVATORE GANACCI: (Singing) I’m from Bosnia. Take me to America.
TOTTY: Michael Townsend talks about fighting games on his YouTube channel, Rooflemonger. He says Ronaldo, with his more than 600 million followers on Instagram, is bringing in potential new fans.
MICHAEL TOWNSEND: I have already seen many people who would otherwise have not had any interest in the game say because their favorite player’s in the game, they’re going to buy the game.
TOTTY: To understand how this collaboration even happened, we have to get into the business side of things. Over the past few years, shares of the game’s developer, SNK, have been bought up by a nonprofit called the MiSK Foundation – also known as the Mohammad bin Salman Foundation, as in the crown prince of Saudi Arabia. Cristiano Ronaldo plays for a Saudi soccer team owned by the Saudi royal family. And Salvatore Ganacci, the DJ, has performed at Saudi sporting events. And so the wheels of synergy began to turn. Kristin Diwan is a senior resident scholar with the Arab Gulf States Institute. She says it’s all part of an investment strategy by the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.
KRISTIN DIWAN: There’s a big push towards sports and entertainment, and to these more creative fields.
TOTTY: Almost a decade ago, Saudi Arabia started a massive project called Saudi Vision 2030. The country is planning cities and real estate developments with bright new entertainment districts to attract tourists, such as Qiddiya City.
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UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #2: Qiddiya City, leveraging the power of play…
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UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #2: …Where entertainment, sports and culture converge.
TOTTY: Diwan says all this is a way for Saudi Arabia to diversify its economy so that it’s not so reliant on oil. Part of that, Diwan says, requires changing Saudi Arabia’s image.
DIWAN: They really need people to move to the kingdom. They need to attract the biggest talent. You can’t do that if people still have the old image of Saudi Arabia, which was, to be fair, a very closed society.
TOTTY: But changing Saudi Arabia’s image will be a challenge. The kingdom has been denounced by multiple international organizations for its human rights record. In 2021, the CIA determined that Mohammad bin Salman ordered the assassination of journalist Jamal Khashoggi. And inside the kingdom, same-sex relationships are punishable by the death penalty. I talked to a fighting game fan who blogs under the name Tanner J. at his website, Them’s Fighting Words. He says that the Qiddiya Investment Company has been paying top dollar for sponsorship deals at gaming events in the U.S., and he’s been critical of the organizations that take that money.
TANNER J: The amount of LGBT people that have made up parts of the fighting game community, have been innovators, have been large personalities, is such that I believe you could almost use the word betrayal to partner up very closely with this project.
TOTTY: And, Tanner J. says, If the hope is that Cristiano Ronaldo can help improve Saudi Arabia’s image, that plan may backfire. Ronaldo has faced allegations of rape. He has denied the accusations. No formal charges have been filed. But while Tanner J. criticizes Saudi Vision 2030, he’s not calling for a boycott of the new “Fatal Fury” game.
TANNER J: I don’t believe necessarily a consumption of the product itself is an endorsement of the Saudi Arabian project, in the same way that, say, I don’t believe putting oil in your car is an endorsement of Saudi Aramco, which is their big oil production company.
TOTTY: And Michael Townsend says he’ll continue to cover “Fatal Fury” on his YouTube channel.
TOWNSEND: The games are still the games to me. Maybe the people at the top are different, but I’m still here for the games I loved growing up, you know?
TOTTY: We reached out to SNK, the MiSK Foundation and representatives for Cristiano Ronaldo, and have not heard back.
Lindsay Totty, NPR News.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC) Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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