Do you seriously think they did this in an effort to win some sort of Islamic cultural victory over the degenerate west?

Not even remotely. Nobody brought this up except you in your first comment. I guess my question is why do YOU think that WE think that the UAE bought EA to implement sharia law?? Where did you hear that from?

And yes, I get the “diversification” angle. That makes sense. But wouldn’t that mean they would have to… keep making games? And based on the past censorship needed to sell games in the UAE wouldn’t it stand to reason they would want that same level of censorship in games they make themselves? They aren’t doing it to “secretly prime people to accept sharia law” but simply because not censoring the games would be against their beliefs?

That’s more the vibe I was getting from people commenting about it.