Fragile
April 21, 2026
An article was published on Time Extension today addressing the controversy around the recently-announced Neo Geo+ console, focusing on SNK's complete ownership by the MiSK Foundation as part of Saudi Arabian Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman's push to diversify the country's economy away from oil and make the country attractive to investment from the games industry.
To summarize very briefly, folks are side-eyeing the Neo Geo+ because the Saudi Arabian government, which owns SNK, has an atrocious human rights record, and the Gamer Prince himself is allegedly not above a little extrajudicial killing when it suits him. For all the assurances that they're not leaning on the game companies they are buying, there's stuff like SNK's own Fatal Fury: City of the Wolves featuring questionable guest characters like Cristiano Ronaldo and Salvatore Ganacci.
I'll be upfront: I don't think it's a good article. I appreciate author Damien McFerran's attempt to acknowledge that there *is* a controversy, as well as his willingness to reflect on Time Extension's previous largely-contextless and uncritical coverage of ModRetro products (a company owned and operated by arms dealer and enormous shithead Palmer Luckey), but sorry man, this article is a mess. I think it's painfully both-sides in its structure and unwilling to eke out a critical position of its own.
My beef here isn't with Damo, though. It's with his coworker John Szczepaniak, who is quoted extensively in a way that borders on the article being almost as much his as Damo's.
From the jump, Szczepaniak is sure that he's the smartest guy in the room:
"Boycotting a games system due to its parent company's connections to a disliked regime is simplistic, and imposes a 'tyranny of virtue' on others who wish to enjoy a perfectly legal product"Tyranny of virtue--that's a new one. Are you being tyrannized, John? But you're right--it's perfectly legal to be this tedious. He continues:
"Reading up on real-world history reveals a litany of sins, globally, none of which are ever addressed," he adds. "America, for example, is a nation built on stolen land, made rich through the labour of stolen people. Should we therefore boycott everything created by the USA? Do you realise your mobile phone contains cobalt, which is mined using child labour? Or that Apple's $2 billion acquisition of Israeli firm Q.ai now directly connects every iPhone to the genocide in Gaza? Or that large numbers of US politicians receive funding from AIPAC and thus are complicit in the Gaza genocide? Are you boycotting paying your taxes because of this?"Szczepaniak unloads an avalanche of whataboutisms. You're wrong, he is saying, for having reservations about where your money might be going, for giving a shit, if you haven't already shown your work and single-handedly dismantled western imperialism and extraction capitalism.
Once he comes down from the affected smugness, I think we get a little closer to Szczepaniak's own heart. He concludes:
"My buying the AES+ is not me justifying immoral or unethical behaviour," he says. "But I also realise that denying myself a small amount of joy in an otherwise miserable world is not going to change anything. Everyone needs to make this decision on their own; you have the right to boycott, and the right to buy. If you dislike something, please do not engage with it. And likewise, allow others who choose to engage the freedom to do so."Here's what I glean from this, John. The first half of your conclusion nullifies the second. To you, the world is miserable, unchanging, and unchangeable. To act otherwise is pointless and simplistic. You are unaware, it seems, that Microsoft has been feeling the pressure, both internally and externally, from the BDS campaign targeting its Xbox division, and has pulled back on some of its arrangements with the IOF.
What gets me is the sheer insecurity on display--the fragility. If you are so certain in your moral calculus about your legal right to enjoy the Neo Geo+, your only flicker of mirth in a cold and miserable world, why are you Posting about it? Buy the thing. Live your life. But this need to complain-in-advance about the pushback--pushback you simply would not receive if you did not Post--reeks of insecurity.
You've laid your heart bare, John, so I will do the same. I am a little wary of how quickly western critics single out the Saudi Arabian government when the aforementioned-and-ongoing BDS campaign against Microsoft generates much less discussion in the enthusiast press. I think there is no small amount of hypocrisy there, and probably a bit of racism, too. I also think, on its own, the Saudi Arabian governement moving away from oil is a good thing.
At the same time, the way the Saudi Arabian government are going about that transition is very nakedly an endeavour of reputation laundering. And when you come in here, looking for validation and absolution for your own entertainment purchases and in the same breath telling people they're stupid for having concerns when a whole raft of other companies and governments are out here doing evil shit unchecked, you are not just telling people to make their own decision. You are actively doing that reputation laundering for them.
At least Szczepaniak seems to understand that what Israel is doing in Gaza is genocide. As of this writing, there's a vocal contingent in the comments of the Time Extension article insisting that this is a contentious position to take. I don't wish people like this on any games press website, honestly, but I also think when you greenlight articles this formless, this noncommittal, somehow worse than saying nothing at all, that's how you get ants.