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From: JAB <noway@nochance.com>
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.action
Subject: Re: Predatory Gaming Practices
Date: Sat, 29 Jun 2024 09:49:33 +0100
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On 27/06/2024 16:16, Spalls Hurgenson wrote:
> On Thu, 27 Jun 2024 09:02:09 +0100, JAB <noway@nochance.com> wrote:
> 
>> On 26/06/2024 20:03, Spalls Hurgenson wrote:
>>> Only people with far too little sense and far too much money would
>>> think such a scheme would work. I've no problem with them getting
>>> gouged by mobile gaming companies.
>>
>> Too little sense, splurge a nice chunk of change on an 'infrastructure'
>> project and then make sure a lot of the money goes back to the royal
>> family. If anybody complains, invite them for a chat at an embassy and
>> then kill them, simple.
> 
> There is /some/ logic behind it. Saudi Arabia's income is almost
> entirely based on petroleum exports; you know: oil. However, those
> resources are limited in quantity (it is reported that Saudi Arabia
> reached 'peak oil' production in 2017), and -as the world faces
> increasing climate catastrophe because wastefully burning vast amounts
> petroleum does nothing good for the atmosphere- people are starting to
> buy less of the stuff.
> 
> So Saudia Arabia is /trying/ to leverage their current oil-wealth into
> finding new sources of money. Except, when 90% of your territory is
> near-worthless, unlivable desert that's a really hard transition.
> 
> Projects like "The Line" are an attempt to challenge this. It's
> supposed to be a place of business, a new tech-centric utopia where
> all the world's best new ideas come from, a massive trading hub, and a
> way for Saudia Arabia to push 170km of otherwise useless land into
> some sort of productivity. The drive behind the idea isn't entirely
> stupid; it actually is surprising forward-thinking.
> 
> (that it's also a vanity project that 'proves' that utility of the
> Saudi royal family to an increasingly unhappy populace is bonus)
> 
> The /implementation/ of that idea, however, is completely bat-shit
> stupid and insane. And even Saudi Arabia has finally started to
> realize this, as the original 170km project has been scaled back to
> 2km... and even that is unlikely to be finished.
> 
> 
> On the plus side... I bet it'll make for some awesome video game
> locations in the near future. Whether it's "The Line" as promised, or
> the half-built and abandoned ruins of "The Line" as it really is,
> duking it out with other players in an FPS brawl sounds like a lot of
> fun.
> 
> 
> (I had to bring the topic back to video games somehow ;-)
> 

A problem I can see for Saudi is that as the petrodollars start to dry 
up they will no longer be able to afford to rely on a large foreign 
workforce. It will come as a bit of a shock to many Saudi that they are 
actually expected to be productive in the jobs to get paid for them.

It was one of the things that amazed me when in Saudi. A large number of 
very new, and expensive, pick-and-place machines but yet I never once 
saw them working. You basically had a factory floor where all you would 
see was the odd person wandering about.