DUBAI: Eighty-one percent of gamers and developers in Saudi Arabia are highly optimistic about the growth of the industry over the coming year, according to a newly released report.
AstroLabs, in partnership with asset management firm IMPACT46 and esports platform PLAYHERA, produced the 2023 Saudi Gaming Market Outlook Report, which provides an overview of the landscape in the Kingdom and features insights from 130 local gamers and developers.
More than 60 percent of Saudi gamers and developers expressed their confidence in government support, with the majority believing that state investment would accelerate growth this year.
Saudi’s $38-billion investment in gaming and the launch of the Saudi Esports Federation were factors that make the Saudi government “the most significant enabler of the sector,” according to the report.
Fostering the growth of gaming in the Kingdom through upskilling presents key opportunities for the Saudi sector. This was crucial considering the ecosystem was still young, with almost 80 percent of game producers having up to five years of experience in the industry, the report stated.
The report highlighted the importance of revenue generation for those in the industry, with only 33 percent of professional gamers saying they generated some form of income from content streaming and tournament winnings.
Similarly, a massive 68 percent of surveyed game developers said they do not make a regular income from their work in the sector.
Still, 51 percent of those surveyed believe that there is a high demand for locally developed mobile games. This is evident in the rise and success of local developers such as UMX Studio and Savvy Games Group, which is fully owned by the Kingdom’s Public Investment Fund.
In terms of gaming habits, the majority of gamers — both professional and casual — in Saudi Arabia are divided between PC and PlayStation while mobile gaming, Nintendo, and Xbox continue to gain popularity.
Role-Playing Games, or RPG, and First-Person Shooter games, or FPS, are among the most popular with Saudi players. Sixty percent of professional gamers chose FPS games as their first preference, followed by RPGs (50 percent), and strategy games (25 percent). Meanwhile casual gamers chose RPGs as their first preference (29 percent), followed by FPS (23 percent), sports (13 percent) and strategy (10 percent).
Multiplayer games were the most popular among professional (50 percent) and casual gamers (48 percent). Professional gamers also played co-op games (33 percent) as well as duel games (17 percent), while casual gamers preferred single-player games (42 percent) and co-op games (10 percent).
The majority of surveyed professional gamers spend a yearly average of up to $500 on gaming, with 25 percent of them spending between $100 and $500 on average each year.
“We aim for this report to serve as a tool for local and global decision-makers who share our excitement about this emerging market,” said Roland Daher, CEO of AstroLabs.
“Saudi Arabia currently boasts one of the fastest-growing gaming sectors in the region, gaining global attraction and playing a pivotal role in the Kingdom’s bold transformation,” he said.
AstroLabs is “excited to be enabling effective investment in the sector through this report and even more excited to be welcoming some of its key stakeholders to the AstroLabs community,” he added.
The full report can be viewed here: https://astrolabs.com/2023-saudi-gaming-report
