In 2017, Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman launched the vision 2030, which is declining every day, and the priorities of this vision is the creation of the dreamy fictional city of Neom for worldly dreamers.
The construction of this city would cost 500 billion dollars, over an area of 170 KM square, located on the coast of the Red Sea, after King Salman seized the islands of Tiran and Sanafir from the coup leader president in Egypt, Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi, in exchange for 4 billion dollars on an area of 1000 kilometres.
Neither investors not Saudi public opinion understood the meaning of NEOM and speculation about decoding this new name varied but they all agreed on an interpretation that the minds of the project owners had, that Neom is a term that combines the Latin term (new) and the Arabic term (future) to mean the city of the future.
However, after relentlessly searching for the meaning of the word, its implications and origins, we found that it was inspired by the PlayStation games; where there is a website specialized in selling Xbox and PlayStation games, where NEOM is a fictional idea that aims to create and build new cities with new ideas different to the reality of people.
According to the website’s definition of the game, NEOM is a modern city-building game characterized by simultaneous crafting and laying of tiles inspired by games such as 7 Wonders, Carcassonne and Sim City, where players compete to build the most impressive city using a tree made of 17 different commodities (from three Various levels) each can be unlocked, allowing increasingly powerful tiles to be placed as the game progresses, and the tiles also feature ways to connect without rotating them, which means that players are always planning their city with an eye on the future. At the start of each game player crafts corner stones – strong and unique tiles.
This game has been developed for seven years, and because the game was officially approved on the Internet in 2018, the producing company was promoting for it during the development period, which means that the game has been developed since 2011.
It is worth noting that many reports have discussed the Crown Prince spending most of his time playing Xbox and PlayStation games, some of which said he has game addiction, and other reports that he spends huge amounts of money on buying games, buying their updates, and supporting them financially.
Since the launch of the Neom city project, specialized investment reports have emphasized that the city is a fantasy and it won’t benefit the Saudi citizen, but rather is just a dream that the Crown Prince seeks to achieve, regardless of the costs.
more: A failed attempt to deceive the world: How did NEOM’s lies sink the desert sands?
