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Documents about Jordan
Babil Games and the art of game localisation within the MENA region
Babil Games operates as a mobile gaming publisher specializing in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region, with a primary focus on the strategic localization of international titles.
- Babil Games achieves market success in the MENA region by prioritizing deep cultural adaptation of assets, character designs, and terminology over simple linguistic translation.
- The MENA market, specifically Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and Qatar, demonstrates high average revenue per paying user (ARPPU) and a strong propensity for in-game spending.
- Babil Games treats mobile titles as community-driven social hubs, a strategy that aligns with the regional cultural affinity for gaming to drive monetization.
Superstar Session: The App Challenge Ceremony
The App Challenge ceremony, held during the Pocket Gamer Connects Digital #4 event in November 2020, served as a showcase for emerging game development talent in Jordan.
- The App Challenge, organized by KAFD and Maysalward, trained over 300 students aged 14 to 16 in mobile game development during the November 2020 Pocket Gamer Connects Digital #4 event.
- Despite COVID-19 logistical constraints, 23 teams successfully completed a five-day intensive training program, progressing from zero prior knowledge to functional game development.
- The initiative demonstrated significant gender inclusivity, with women representing approximately 40% of the regional gaming workforce and community.
Superstar Session: Game Development 101 Opening Ceremony
The Game Development 101 session at Pocket Gamer Connects Digital #4, held in November 2020, served as a platform to highlight the decade-long evolution of the Jordanian gaming ecosystem.
- The global gaming industry has reached a valuation of approximately $170 billion, establishing itself as a vital, high-growth economic pillar rather than a trivial pursuit.
- Jordan is positioning itself as a strategic hub for the MENA region by leveraging infrastructure and partnerships with the King Abdullah II Fund for Development (KAFD) to connect local talent with international publishers.
- The App Challenge educational program targets students aged 14 to 16, providing intensive training in tools like Unity to transition youth into professional game development roles.
Fireside Chat: The State of Play in the MENA Market
The Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region represents a rapidly expanding gaming market, currently home to approximately 377 million players.
- The MENA region hosts approximately 377 million players, a market scale comparable to Europe and larger than the United States, driven by high mobile penetration and a young demographic.
- Jordan has established a sustainable game development ecosystem supported by the King Abdullah II Fund for Development (KAFD), which launched the Jordan Gaming Lab in 2011.
- The Jordan Gaming Lab provides infrastructure and training across seven physical locations and a mobile lab, successfully fostering a professionalized and gender-balanced workforce.
Esports in Jordan and the Olympic Movement
The Jordan Olympic Committee (JOC) is actively working to formalize esports within the national sports infrastructure and advocate for its recognition within the broader Olympic movement.
- The Jordan Olympic Committee (JOC) is formalizing a regulatory framework to integrate esports into the national sports infrastructure, aiming to replicate the economic and developmental success achieved by traditional sports like taekwondo.
- The JOC is positioning itself as an umbrella organization to streamline legal processes for event organizers and address the current lack of institutional funding for teams.
- A primary strategic goal is to reverse the trend of Jordanian athletes seeking international success abroad by building local support systems and sustainable career paths within the country.
Start with a Game Jam
Game jams serve as a vital tool for both novice and experienced developers to compress the entire game development lifecycle—from concept and art to testing and publishing—into a condensed timeframe ranging from a few hours to several days.
- Game jams function as a high-efficiency testing ground for validating commercial game concepts and individual skill development within a compressed timeframe.
- To prevent scope creep and ensure project completion, developers should adhere to a 'one mechanic' rule and prioritize simplicity, as seen in successful titles like Thomas Was Alone and Crossy Road.
- Regional initiatives like Game Zanga demonstrate the scale of these events, with the ninth edition engaging over 350 participants across ten countries to produce more than 80 games.
Our story in Games Development
Sakura Games, founded by teenage developers Sham and Jana Al Bdour, focuses on the development of edutainment software designed to integrate interactive learning into school curricula.
- Sakura Games, founded by Sham and Jana Al Bdour in Jordan, develops edutainment software using the Unity engine and Autodesk Maya to integrate interactive learning into school curricula.
- The studio targets the underserved MENA market by creating specialized educational tools, such as the award-winning language-learning game Crimson, to address gaps in traditional schooling.
- The founders prioritize pedagogical value over standard gaming tropes by drawing design inspiration from the animation and film industries rather than traditional gaming sectors.
Panel: When does Your Development End (Product vs Service)
The panel discussion at Pocket Gamer Connects Jordan 2019 explores the evolving definition of "done" in game development, specifically contrasting traditional product-based models with the modern Games as a Service (GaaS) paradigm.
- In the Games as a Service (GaaS) model, the traditional concept of a 'finished' game is obsolete, requiring developers to treat development as a series of testable hypotheses rather than a singular product release.
- Studios must establish objective 'done' criteria—such as specific retention rates or revenue targets—before development begins to mitigate emotional bias and avoid the sunk cost fallacy.
- Live-ops considerations, including repeatable content systems and community management, must be integrated into the earliest design stages to ensure infrastructure can scale effectively.
How Babil Scaled Nida Harb 3 to the Top Slots of the Grossing Charts in MENA
Babil Games, a Jordan-based publisher specializing in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region, achieved significant growth and international success for its title Nida Harb 3 by leveraging the resources and collaborative structure of the Stillfront Group.
- Babil Games scaled its operations from a 12–15 person team to 40 employees following its 2016 acquisition by the Stillfront Group.
- The partnership with Good Game Studios provided Babil Games with the advanced marketing intelligence and analytical tools necessary to scale user acquisition for Nida Harb 3.
- Access to Stillfront’s financial backing and data-informed advertising infrastructure enabled Nida Harb 3 to reach top-grossing status and expand into North American and European markets.
Math for Game Programmers: Solving Nintendo's CodinGame Challenge
Reverse-engineering complex encoding functions requires a systematic transition from empirical observation to rigorous mathematical modeling.
- Reverse-engineering obfuscated encoding schemes relies on identifying XOR operations on shifted data segments through iterative hypothesis testing and input analysis.
- Encoding logic in these challenges functions as polynomial multiplication over the Galois Field GF(2), where bitwise AND acts as multiplication and XOR acts as addition.
- Solving these encoding problems requires implementing Berlekamp’s algorithm to perform polynomial factorization, which necessitates tools for derivatives, polynomial division, and greatest common divisor calculations.
GDC Q&A with Blackout Club developers Jordan Thomas and Michael Kelly
The development of the cooperative horror title The Blackout Club represents a strategic pivot toward sustainable, community-driven game design.
- The developers of 'The Blackout Club' leveraged their experience with immersive sims like 'BioShock' and 'Dishonored' to build a cooperative horror game that emphasizes player vulnerability and parkour-based movement over combat.
- To manage the complexity of a four-player multiplayer game, the team utilized a long-term beta testing strategy that began in the summer of 2018, well ahead of their 2019 release, to gather feedback from their newsletter and Discord community.
- The game employs a procedural mission system designed like a deck of cards, where different objectives are shuffled and dealt to players each night to ensure that no two gameplay sessions are identical.
PGC Helsinki 2018 Pecha Kucha sessions: BlockchainGamer.biz editor-at-large Jon Jordan
This presentation provides a retrospective on the evolution of games journalism through the personal career trajectory of a long-term industry observer.
- The 2008 launch of the Apple App Store served as the definitive catalyst for the mobile gaming industry, forcing a shift in focus toward the free-to-play business model.
- Long-term career viability in games journalism requires pivoting alongside technological shifts, moving from traditional print media in the early 2000s to digital business reporting and mobile metrics.
- Professional networking is a high-value asset, as industry relationships formed in the early 2000s remain relevant and functional decades later.