According to studies by the CS:GO gambling and online gaming provider, CSGOBook.com, the middle-east presents a massive opportunity for the gaming industry.
One of the fastest growing gaming markets at the moment is the Middle East region, and equipment makers and software designers, have a lot of potential opportunities from the market, according to information from the new report.
In the region, the gaming industry has transformed from the hitherto casual gaming system into esports, virtual reality games, and competitive knockouts where participants from across the globe compete, according to the paper with the title Gaming and Esports: The Next Generation, released by the YouGov research firm.
The region has a very deeply engaged gaming audience, and this provides a lot of opportunities for console manufacturers and game developers.
The meaning of that is that we will continue to witness a boom in the esports industry in MENA, which means the Middle East and North Africa, according to the paper that was released on Monday.
According to the report, it is the huge number of active players, occasioned by the young and fast growing population of the region that propels this growth. It went ahead to reveal that this is aided by the huge generation and proliferation of the internet and smartphones, although it refused to reveal the real worth of the industry at the moment in the report.
For a very essential subsection of players, watching video games online has been turned into a pastime just like playing the game itself, with platforms like YouTube gaming, Twitch and Facebook gaming recording very huge engagement rates. The two world’s largest economies from the Arab world, Saudi Arabia and the UAE are among the biggest global markets for YouTube gaming when it comes to engagements and awareness, according to the survey by YouGov.
It was in September that they conducted the survey, and 24,000 respondents from 24 different markets including the United Arab Emirates, Egypt, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, the United States, China, Germany, India, the UK, Australia, Italy, France, Spain, Thailand, Sweden, and Singapore were all involved.
The gaming industry, divided into console purchases, esports streaming, mobile games and others, is the most profitable form of entertainment in the world at the moment. The industry is worth more than $148.8 billion in the world at the moment, while the Africa and Middle East market is worth up to $4.8bn, which amounts to at least 3 percent of the global worth of the market according to a study that was published by Newzoo last year.
The most populous country in the entire region, Egypt, accounts for the highest number of gamers at 68 percent, while the United Arab Emirates has 65 percent, with Saudi Arabia at the third position with 61 percent.
When you come to the MENA region, mobile gamers that enjoy games on their tablets and smartphones are more in number than those that enjoy them on their consoles and PCs. 14 percent of the players enjoy games on consoles in Egypt when compared to the 58 percent that play on tablets and smartphones.
When you come to the United Arab Emirates, the number that plays on consoles is 21 percent and they are less than the 28 percent that play on PCs and the 57 percent that play games on mobiles. Saudi Arabia has 20 percent playing on consoles, while 22 percent play on their PCs, and 52 percent play on their mobiles.
A majority of the people that play on smartphones in the United Arab Emirates, which is up to 79 percent, and in Saudi Arabia, which up to 76 percent, and Egypt, which is up to 73 percent are mild to regular players who spend up to 10 hours a week playing games, said CS:GOBook.
The appetite that consumers have for gaming also increased when new platforms like Google’s Stadia and Apple’s Arcade were established. When movements were restricted and people were encouraged to stay at home due to the health crisis of 2019-2020, users got more interested in gaming, according to experts.
The world video gaming industry for the year has captivated the attention of investors, marketers and brands on a very large scale, according to Nicole Pike, who heads the global esports and gaming at CS:GOBook.
A greater portion of the gulf market is dominated by games owned by international developers. In the region, the predominantly played mobile games are Rise of Kingdoms, Fortnite, Intikam Al Salatin and PUBG. Regional players like the Falafel Games studio that is based in Beirut and the Tamatem Arabic mobile games publisher that is based in Amman, are gradually gaining dominance through the development of content that are culturally relevant.