ESL FACEIT Group Teams With Rolling Stone for ‘Rolling Stone Gaming’

ESL FACEIT Group teams with Rolling Stone for Rolling Stone Gaming

Penske Media Corporation-owned publication Rolling Stone has launched a new gaming vertical called Rolling Stone Gaming, with funding from the Saudi Arabian government.

The new offering within the publication will be run by Christopher Cruz, who is currently serving as the executive producer for branded content at Rolling Stone. Before Cruz joined Rolling Stone he produced television for various networks including ABC, PBS, and Food Network.

As for its funding from the Saudi Arabian government, Rolling Stone will work closely with Savvy Games Group-owned ESL FACEIT Group, though in what capacity we do not know because it was not disclosed, as of this writing. In a release, it was noted that ESL FACEIT Group will utilize the platform to promote esports, likely with a lean towards promoting its tournament brands and properties, and likely have a say in the focus on major Saudi events such as the Esports World Cup.

ESL FACEIT Group is owned by Saudi-based gaming and esports company Savvy Games Group, which is a subsidiary of the Public Investment Fund (PIF), the sovereign wealth fund owned and operated by the Saudi Arabian government. Both the PIF and Savvy Games Group are chaired by Saudi Arabian HRH Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman Al Saud (commonly referred to as HRH Crown Prince MBS).

Financial terms of this deal were not disclosed.

The new partnership with the Saudi government is at odds with past Rolling Stone coverage on the Crown Prince; in February 2021 it reported on the killing of Washington Post journalist and United States citizen Jamal Khashoggi in the story headlined, “Saudi Prince Approved Khashoggi Killing, U.S. Intel Report Concludes.”

In a post introducing the new vertical within Rolling Stone, Cruz said the following:

Anyone who plays video games knows that gaming isn’t just informed by pop culture – it is pop culture. From console games to PC to mobile, billions of people play games daily, but its reach expands far beyond just the players. Video game adaptations have finally broken through to mainstream audiences with massive shows like Fallout, The Last of Us, and Knuckles. Conversely, a generation of viewers have come of age in a new-media world, and exclusively get their content from gaming-centric platforms like YouTube and Twitch. Music and gaming have also always flirted, but now have reached a symbiosis where artists aren’t just appearing in games, they’re defining them as their digital presence evolves alongside the insatiable parasocial obsessions of fandom.

That’s important to Rolling Stone, and it’s important to me as our new Senior Gaming Editor. I’ve been gaming for a long time. My first console was a hand-me-down Nintendo Entertainment System with a busted Zapper gun. I was there in the Call of Duty lobbies (and the Counter-Strike 1.6 clan meets before them). I owned a Wii U.

To me, gaming has always been less of an escape and more of a conduit that connects people to worlds and to each other.

And that’s what we’re looking to explore at Rolling Stone, by taking a serious (or deeply unserious) journalistic approach to telling the story of games through the people around them. It’s about community, from the modders keeping beloved games alive after corporations pull the plug to the cosplayers doing themed karaoke after a mobile game meetup.

And this isn’t entirely new, Rolling Stone has been covering games for years. But with the launch of our new section, RS Gaming, we’re committing to meeting the community at its own wavelength to tell stories that matter, even if you don’t consider yourself a gamer.

We’ll, of course, go hands-on to preview and review the latest games with the same level of analysis brought to music and entertainment. We’ll also go behind-the-scenes with developers, big and small, to understand how today’s games are being created for a new generation of players. We’ll be following and breaking down the latest trends across the industry, from content-creator beef to major shake ups in the world and culture of gaming. But most importantly, we’ll be telling “stories from the edge,” which is Rolling Stone-speak for unearthing things and people of surprising interest in unexpected places.

In case you are not familiar with the Penske Media Corporation, it is the company owned by Jay Penske, the son of former race car driver and billionaire Roger Penske. Roger Penske also owns Team Penske, the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, IndyCar, and a number of other racing and automotive businesses including Penske Automotive Group and Penske Truck Leasing. Penske Media Corporation publications include Rolling Stone, Variety, Billboard, the Hollywood Reporter, Artnews, and Art in America, among others.