Saudi Arabia's multibillion-dollar investment in gaming
Saudi Arabia's gaming market is on fire.
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The backstory: Saudi Arabia's gaming market is on fire, with around 21 million gamers in the country – more than half the population. And it's not just Saudi Arabia. The gaming industry across the Middle East and North Africa is predicted to reach US$2.79 billion by 2026.
More recently: In 2022, Savvy Games Group, owned by the Saudi Public Investment Fund, rocked the esports industry by spending a whopping US$1.5 billion to acquire tournament organizer ESL and merge it with Faceit. And this year, it has invested US$265 million in Chinese esports company VSPO and a jaw-dropping US$4.9 billion in mobile game maker Scopely. In case you're unfamiliar, esports is a form of professional gaming where players compete in massive tournaments, and fans tune in for live streams.
The development: Saudi Arabia aims to become a big shot in the gaming world, investing a massive 142 billion riyals (US$38 billion) to establish itself as a global esports hub by 2030. In fact, the PIF is already supporting top gaming companies such as Nintendo, Tencent and Activision Blizzard, with its subsidiary, Savvy, leading the charge in building world-class gaming and esports facilities. This move by Saudi Arabia could have a massive impact on the gaming industry and pave the way for a new era of esports dominance in the region.
Key comments:
“We are now more of an esports company than a games company,” said Savvy CEO Brian Ward to Bloomberg in an interview at the Game Developers Conference. “What we’re doing this year is focusing more on game publishing and development.”
“We would like to use those investments to begin to work with these companies and ask how we can work together on publishing in (the Middle East and North Africa), run their esports businesses or develop new IP together,” said CEO Brian Ward.
“It makes total sense for a forward-thinking government to focus at least a certain part of their investment scope on the sector,” said Serkan Toto, CEO of the consulting group Kantan Games Inc. “Saudi Arabia acts with a sense of urgency here and wants to be in as many meaningful deals as possible – ahead of other countries that might jump on the bandwagon later.”
“We are harnessing the untapped potential across the esports and games sector to diversify our economy, drive innovation in the sector and further scale the entertainment and esports competition offerings across the kingdom,” said Saudi Crown Prince and Chairman of Savvy, Mohammed Bin Salman, last year.
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