DUBAI: Problem-solving, communication and strategic thinking are among the skills that the Kingdom’s Gen Z has learned from gaming, according to a new study conducted by YouTube and Censuswide.
Total views for gaming-related content surpassed 2 trillion in 2022, and accounted for more than 500 million logged-in daily active viewers and over 120 billion hours of watch time on the platform as of December 2022, according to YouTube.
Abdulrahman Al Hazmi, strategic partnerships manager at YouTube, told Arab News: “We’re proud of the community that gamers have built on YouTube and how gaming creators express themselves using different formats to help Gen Z improve skills that Censuswide’s research found are important to landing their first job.”
The survey builds on Saudi Arabia’s efforts to become a global hub for gaming. There are approximately 21 million gamers in the country, according to analysts at Niko Partners — or about 58 percent of the population, reported Bloomberg.
The Kingdom last year announced that Savvy Games Group, owned by Saudi’s Public Investment Fund, would invest SR142 billion ($37.8 billion) in initiatives aimed at making the country a global hub for gaming.
Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman said in a statement: “Savvy Games Group is one part of our ambitious strategy aiming to make Saudi Arabia the ultimate global hub for the games and esports (electronic sports) sector by 2030.”
Experts have found gaming to be an effective way of learning. The book “Graduate Skills and Game-Based Learning,” by senior lecturer and program director at the University of Glasgow Matthew Barr, examines the efficacy of game-based learning to develop students’ skills while debunking myths about the negative effects of video games.
YouTube’s study revealed that a massive 87 percent of recruiters are more likely to hire someone who is a gamer, but less than half (38 percent) said they would mention their hobbies on their CV.
Still, 63 percent of Saudi youth agreed that gaming had given them the confidence to tackle problems in their professional life, while 70 percent said they were more confident communicators due to interaction with fellow gamers on various platforms.
“In a way, it's not surprising that players have made this connection between the games they play and their future careers,” said Barr.
“My own work in the area has shown that playing video games may help develop important employability skills, such as communication, resourcefulness, and adaptability.”
Good communication was also considered a valuable skill by 38 percent of recruiters when hiring someone for an entry-level role, along with problem-solving (43 percent) and staying calm under pressure (38 percent).
“YouTube helped me gain more self-confidence and (helped me) to learn new skills, all while building and engaging with a regional and global community of people who love gaming,” oCMz, a gaming creator who has over 6.4 million YouTube subscribers, told Arab News.
OCMz — along with BanderitaX, oPiilz Saleh, ShongxBong, and Meshael MR — is among the top gaming creators in Saudi Arabia with over 33.5 million subscribers combined and more than 9.5 billion public views on YouTube.
