Gaming Industry in the Middle East

Gaming Industry in the Middle East



Gaming Industry in the Middle East

Introduction

Gaming industry of the Middle East is one of the fastest growing markets of online gamers worldwide, and the predictive demographics tell the same story for many years to come. Majority of the population in the Arab world is made up of people younger than 25 years of age, with an astounding growth of almost 300 percent in relation to internet usage and technological penetration (see Appendix 1). Moreover, it is expected to rise by almost 150 million more users by the year 2012 according to a report by Sony Gulf FZE (Middle East Company News Wire, 2008, p 1). Due to these promising statistics, small but evolutionary businesses in the video game development industry have been cropping up in the Middle East, some of which are being funded by local investors since the past two years (Shaw, 2010, pp 1-28).

Discussion

The oil rich Gulf countries are seeing this boom due to a variety of reasons, the first being that the youth population in the Arab world, which makes up majority of the 'gamers' in the world, have 'deep pockets' and very few sources of entertainment (Shaw, 2010, pp 1-28). Therefore, the average revenue per user from these countries is higher than that of users from America and Europe, according to Peak Game's co founder Rina Onur, a Turkish based social gaming company which has successfully managed to penetrate the Middle East and North African regions, making it the fourth largest gaming firms in the world today (see Appendix 2). Peak Games also managed to acquire the Saudi Arabian Kammelna early in 2012, an online card game named Baloot which already had a database of a million registered users with a daily traffic of more than fifty thousand users per day (Shaw, 2010, pp 1-28).

Rapid Expansion

However, it is true that many of the video game developers in the Middle East suffer from a lack of funding due to which their marketing and technological techniques are not as advanced in comparison to their competitors from Asian and Western markets (Shaw, 2010, pp 1-28). Although, it seems that the Arab population while certainly being interested in western first person shooter games like Halo, Call of Duty (see Appendix 3 and 4), etc, still prefer games with local characteristics. According to Onur, people still wish to see their own culture and societal values reflected in the games that they are playing, and not just 'blond' prototypes.

Another factor which sets apart Arab games are the themes and elaborate storylines adapted from local folklore and tales, which have not yet started trying to compete with the 'glamour' found in most Western games. This has forced some international gaming giants like the American based EA sports to release Arabic versions of their top selling games like the FIFA soccer franchise this year (see Appendix 5). Moreover, the relatively small gaming industry in the Middle Eastern world is currently working as a 'community,' ...