Chris James and Nour Khrais welcome everybody to Pocket Gamer Connects Jordan 2022

[Music] thank you good morning good morning ladies gentlemen and distinguished guests and welcome to PT connects Jordan 2022 scared that's good that's just like we practiced um we're running this in association with the King Abdullah fund this is our second PT connects event in the region and it's our fifth of the year and our 36 PGC uh overall so looking at me you can't tell we've been around that long I know but we have been for a while my name is Chris James I'm the CEO of Steel media and in case you don't know me or is this going there go in case you don't know me or the company before we are the the leading games industry media business that's responsible for running these PG connects conferences we also run pocketgamer.biz pocketgamer.com Beyond games.biz blockchain gamer.biz PC

games Insider the top 50 big Indie pitches mobile games Awards basically a lot of stuff um essentially everything we do is about connecting celebrating and supporting the games industry whatever platform you're making games on we are mobile first but we do support other platforms whatever genre of game you make and wherever in the world you are that's what we want to do we want to support the industry and that's what we hope to do for the next two days um we've had around 1400 delegates registered to the event so far um some of whom are still in buses I think but we're here soon um and from over 500 companies and associations and 36 countries present and and most of them will be here for the next two days of lectures networking meetings Etc um Although our Outlook as a company's Global we've been running events literally over the world in different continents since this last year even

um I must confess um to have a genuine soft spot in my heart um for Jordan I've been coming here for six or seven years now since I was first invited in in 2016 to join the Jordan gaming Summit and as I say it's developed a a sizable place in my heart and also a little bit of a place on my stomach uh because uh the food here is uh is very good um so so thank you for that my wife thank you um we've been as I say we've been here for a few years after after supporting events and running Indie pictures and other things we we were fortunate enough um oh back one hold on sorry the slide oh 2097. okay well we were 2019 seems to disappeared but we were um fortunate enough to be invited to run pocketgamer connects Jordan to take the Jordan game in Summit and develop that into Pocket Gamer connects uh Jordan in 2019 uh which was a slide that is not now um and and that was a huge success um

and what we really enjoyed running that event that was back in the center of among uh obviously um after 2019 we were had big plans we were here in February 22 uh 2020 actually looking at new venues uh obviously the world changed literally while we were here so we've been unable to build on that success uh for for the recent years but we are delighted to be back um bigger and better ever this incredible Conference Center uh on the on the on the Dead Sea so if you have a chance to look around this is a fantastic conference census K Abdullah Center um there's some incredible views obviously of the Dead Sea and and some slightly less incredible views uh there we've taken opportunity to uh to explore the local culture and it's it's been it's been incredible yeah I won't I won't leave that on um so why are we here why Mina apart from the incredible food the lovely welcome the opportunity for for a mud and salt water bath why are we here why go to mina

um when I first came in 2016 what I saw was enthusiasm talent and a real hunger um there and in the intervening years that's developed into a genuine genuinely exciting ecosystem so we are here because there's something special going on in this country in this region in the games industry it's no surprise to me at all that the the meaner games Market is the fastest growing Market from revenue perspective according to new zeal's latest report in the world 7.1 billion dollars is a the forecast value for this year that's up over 10 almost 11 year on year but faster than anywhere else oh hang on well there's a few slides missing it's also it's also the fastest growing um region in terms of player base I think there's 488 million uh players this year will be from in the Mina region which is the second biggest uh in

the world and it is also the fastest growing I think it's about eight or nine percent this year so you have a younger more affluent or a younger affluent population here so I don't see any reason why these Trends are not going to continue um and why this region is not going to become more and more significant in the global game Space um so I often asked a question um whether it's the best time to be in in the games industry um it's just really the best time to be in the games industry I I think it is I think it is the industry like The Wider economy which I might touch in a minute is going through a few challenges uh obviously that we've had covered coming out of covid we've got a global sort of recession going on that there are challenges there this disposable income is not going to be as high as for next years but despite that the games Market is one of the few industries that is forecast for considerable growth it is there's never been a better time to be involved um through here different side with okay so

there's a player graph we've got a slightly different order of things I don't know how this has happened but here we are um so this is this is the player base as you're saying before so the the advantages though aren't just the player base and the revenue this this region and Jordan in particular has some incredible uh advantages there's it's the the work that's been put in place by uh the Jordan gaming lab um uh app challenge other initiatives supported by the king absolute fund over the last 10 years has been incredible um and that that work which Noah will probably talk about a little bit when he comes up has has set the foundation for a whole new wave of talent in the industry which is is something very special I think there's very few countries doing on this this level um and of course it's all very well having that Talent it's already having that market but if you don't have local success cases uh Local Heroes it's you know it's very hard to believe you can do it but you do have that now um the companies like Joe worker like Bible games like mazelwood like tamatam

local businesses that are now significant players in the mobile games space and obviously that's just in Jordan around the region there's many more people like sansopter also here today from and Savvy games from uh from from from Saudi and Dubai and elsewhere the media Market has lots of success cases now so yes it really is the very best time to win the games industry we've got a slide twice but we'll go through uh we'll repeat through that okay so the games industry as a whole we touched on it earlier it's export has to be worth 197 billion uh dollars this year that slightly revised down from a 203 billion dollars so it's been slightly modified on the basis of of some changes but that's that's incredible um what's particularly incredible about this is is the mobile games component of it I've been the mobile games market for 15 years uh 16 years maybe more and when I started just a success in mobile games was making enough money to try and make the next mobile game trying to eke out an existence now the mobile games

industry is over 100 over half the industry it's a hundred billion dollar industry it's incredible I mean I can't even imagine what 100 billion dollars looks like can you imagine 100 billion dollars looks like can you even imagine what that could look like less impressive than you think as it turns out but there you go um moving on um more more importantly than just just the the growth and the numbers is our place as a games industry in The Wider world of media and entertainment games is without any question the number one media entertainment category in the world um there's an interesting data study here done by uh investment company called bitcraft and navic and they put together a few extra bits of piece of data and added to Newsies data and their calculation was that this is like two years ago a year ago that we're actually bigger than the the music film and and TV industry linear TV industry combined that's how significant this industry is um so it's no surprise that huge stars

are wanting to do their concerts in our in our games environments and big platforms from other media like Netflix are launching into this space in a serious way they're investing very heavily those those companies trying to get a foothold in the games industry um and Talking of investment the games m a space has gone absolutely crazy it's it's it is just it's really hard to someone's been in this space for a long time it's it's hard to overplay what's been kind of happening in 2020 in 2021 the the scene absolutely exploded people thought that in people thought that in 2020 33 billion worth of m a uh Investments and and and flotations was a big number 2021 almost trebled that and 2022 in just q1 we already beat that number and now this is the latest data up to Q3 uh by chemical Drake star do very good reports 123 billion dollars of M A Acquisitions and uh flotations has

happened in this space that's just in incredible numbers admittedly a couple of big deals have dominated in that um take two acquiring Zynga for almost 13 billion in Microsoft buying Activision for almost 69 billion dollars are a big part of that but but still there's been many other deals many other things going on that's not the only uh only only sort of game in town so to speak and and notably in this space um a lot of activities happening as well we had uh Joe Walker who were acquired by the still Frank group uh they're out there um so the end of last year went through the start of this year and and obviously we across across the way in in Saudi Arabia um uh The Savvy games group were investing heavily in people like ESL uh in embracer and I've put down a sizable statement of intent to grow bigger so the entire region is is engaged in in this um the advertising space it's not all about making games the advertising Tech space is a huge part of the industry and despite some challenges um talked about idfi earlier some

challenges to the models that industry still forecast to grow um and there's lots of innovation in that space and one of the companies audio mob are doing uh non-intuitive audio advertising you're here you can hear from them and some more things about audio advertising on the growth track and the out the ads insights track later today new platforms it's not all about mobile PC console the most amazing thing about the games industry is awake and embrace new technologies it can it can bring together new technologies um from other spaces or emerging Technologies and try and make it part of their industry make it their own so this again is part of a report from from navic where they they show that the bigger growth was forecast to certainly investment grade forecast to be outside of the traditional platforms um uh in in the likes of kind of in VR in in um uh the metaverse in web 3. um and as you say like like blockchain uh the blockchain space in particular um we've been covering that since 2018 it's fair to say the last few weeks have been

pretty fraught it's not been the best time uh of the last uh in this this year it's been very up and down but still the the Investments going into that space there's still a lot of money to deploy the blockchain game Space might be in a rocky period but it is there's a big future ahead of it and huge all the hugest games companies in the world EA we made come to us 10 cent tilting Point Ubisoft Activision epic they're all looking at this space one way or another this something will come out of this and it will be transformative I think and you can learn more about where we are the blockchain and nfts and all that sort of stuff we've got to track two tracks tomorrow so check that out we also have a website blockchaingamer.biz which is quite useful to stay up to date on what's happening in the blockchain space the metaverse huge topic what is it where is it it's it's you know if if blockchain or VR were quite Hot Topics the idea of combining that and combining everything else in the world with this amazing and uh is amazing universes with a metaverse is a really compelling idea

um and and as you can see look at the potential that the the potential for the metaverse is so incredible it could be absolutely anything you want it to be people are very excited about the potential the reality has been slightly less uh impressive so far it has to be said sorry Mark but uh yeah the meta's first uh first version of the metaverse is not quite as compelling as we might have thought but still this space is very exciting um in a way at the moment it's actually more of a Multiverse than a metaverse there's over 500 companies engaged in trying to build V or a metaverse the noun and huge businesses from across the game Space and Beyond um so we'll be covering a bit about where the metaverse is and the opportunities there and you know how real it is and when it's going to happen in our tracks also I think happening tomorrow Beyond games and mapping the metaverse and we do have another website which covers the metaverse and related things uh called Beyond games.biz so check that out

Esports finally another huge uh Trend or it's been around a little bit longer but that's a big Trend and especially here in this region I know it's very Dynamic world I know it's very kind of popular both in terms of the the events and and the The Wider The Wider activity around it and we're going to be talking about Esports again tomorrow with uh with saying Esports in the Esports Academy track and there's loads more we've got uh 12 exactly 13 tracks I think so we missed one graphic of that over over two days uh this is an old slide obviously for Helsinki but yes we've got two two or three brand new tracks and every day we've got kind of two uh two sessions you start in the morning usually from sort of ten through to about lunch time and then there's a break and there's another thing with two track rooms we've actually tweaked things a little bit so we're gonna do track room one in here and traction two into the other in in the other uh Hall today and see where we have numbers we've had more people coming than we expected so we've had to change things slightly um although it's best to see it live we will be recording all the content and so you'll be able to see some of that

during meets within the meet to match meeting system within the next 24 hours or in a couple of weeks it'll be in our Video Vault area we'd be able to browse through if you've missed anything um and you there's a there's a live schedule you can go and check for the latest uh the latest content what's on when and also there's some information about the speakers and the panels in that so if you go to PG connects.com Jordan or overseas schedule that's all there and that is integrating to meet to match so talking quick about me to match again these numbers are out of date because the numbers go up all the time but it's more than that now but the meat to match networking system is open now if you're here to make do business rather than just learn then please engage with that even if you're not please just do at least open it once and just check no one's trying to connect with you just so it's just good manners to to to at least tell people you're not interested to meet this this week so check into that you should have an email about that in your inbox obviously there's an expo which I know some of you've been in go and explore that talk to our to our incredible sponsors you might meet someone who can completely change your your life your business life I heard a great story

yesterday which I won't tell a detail about about someone in the industry now who who got their opportunity through working in a in a shop in a hamley's shop and then they kind of turned into now a senior person in the games industry just through meeting someone at a chance meeting so make sure to network and meet as many people as you can uh we have Fringe events going on uh we have we'll come to the app challenge uh results shortly then we have the big Indie pitch this afternoon and then the publisher developer speed match if you don't know about that that is check the website go to reception get details but if you're a developer or publisher wants to pitch your wares we've got a couple of uh events to do that and we also have our uh our our networking reception this evening from either five or five thirty depending on which igv but that's just outside um if you need any help we've got help Center our website there's also the reception please don't go to reception when they're madly busy like right just now but um but they will be there to help you if you've got any issues there's the Wi-Fi details in case you're

not already on it it's PG connects is the network name and just pocketgamer all lower case you can connect on that and if you want to tweet and share your views um on Elon musk's new amazing social media network uh if well it's still there you might as well make use of it before it disappears so uh hashtag PGC Jordan are at PG connects um um yes obviously um I want to talking of tweeting and sharing things I need to say uh some quick thank yous before we get into the app challenge um these events don't come together without a lot of work and a lot of help um this whole thing wouldn't happen at all without the kick Abdullah fund for development they've been nothing but an incredible partner ever since I first came to the region it's absolute privileged for us to work with them so thank you so much for your support and for making these things happen we hope to be working with you for many many years to come but incredible stuff that you're doing um when you say a big thank you to our Diamond sponsors Joe worker and Babel

games game local success stories go out there and say hi to them whoa there you go to our Platinum pump says Tamara Sam as well and sound soft also there are no applause that's fine no you can you can applaud um and then our goal sponsor someone go through a game changer uh and silver spawn some local Clubhouse units and all our track sponsors including Zayn digital turbine audio mob um so thank you to all those thank you to our Media Partners uh for help promoting this thank you to our over 80 incredible speakers for giving their time and sharing uh their insights you'll you'll see some of them more uh and thank you to the steel media team um uh who basically do all the work and do their best to make me look good and and not fall over so still media Wherever You Are [Applause] that's enough that's enough I've had enough that's enough that's enough for them um I one final thing I need to say is that steel media these days is part of a wider games group we're owned by a company called Enthusiast gaming which is a massive um NASDAQ listed uh gaming

business we have that has over 50 sites 700 plus YouTube and Tick Tock channels 11 Esports franchises they reach every 300 million Gamers uh a month globally and at 51 million in the UK in the US I think they're kind of the third biggest gaming Network just behind Roblox and twitch or something like that so it's a pretty big deal overall and we're a small part of that that kind of business so yeah massive some scale things there um and and finally my final plug before we go on is if you've thank you for coming actually give yourselves a round of applause thank you for coming out [Applause] it's great and I I really I I look out there and I just I wish you could be there every morning wake up and just just that round of applause I'm having a breakfast so if we could arrange that I'd be brilliant but no it's it's generally inspiring for me to be here and feel that in some way we're helping you guys connect and helping hopefully support your careers I know out there there's going to be the future the future Tama time is the future Joe

Walkers the future everything the games industry is here it's with you guys so I'm very excited you're here um but yeah we were doing more events later on so we have a a sort of sea level direct level event in Riyadh um so it's a smaller event it's not quite the same as it's more of a couple day get together at the end of November we have put gaming connects London in which is our Flagship event it's what we've started at all that's in January if any of you get to come over there we can facilitate you getting over the let us know we'd love to have you um in our home country won't be as sunny as this you won't get like a mud bath or anything but you might get muddy I don't know but um but that's cool and then we have our full event series throughout the year we've got Seattle Helsinki Toronto and hopefully back here again in uh in November next year um so there's our events so that is it for for my introduction now I want to kind of progress with the the next segment we're a little bit late but don't worry it's fine we're all curled we're going to progress now with the um some initiatives some local issue of the the app Challenge and some awards and to to get that started I'd like to welcome

to the stage um the CEO of maze award and the person I like to think of the hardest working man in the meaner games industry nor crazy Come On Noah thank you thank you Chris and welcome BGC connect again to Jordan I don't want to talk about ages I've been in this industry for the past 20 years probably 13 14 years I know this man and the support pocket gamers are doing for the community so thank you Chris thank you your excellencies esteem gets speakers who travel all from all around the world and the oxygen that we see the present the future shababna thank you very much PD I want to take you back and I will switch between Arabic and English through my my talk my team and the team they

will expect me to go through the flow that we discussed yesterday but I'm a game developer so forget about it so that's not me so basically 2011 in this same place we started the first Jordan gaming Summit imagine in a country like Jordan in 2011 we managed to gather I was young at that time we managed to gather around 300 350 people here in the same place I can see a lot of faces a lot of people and the developers today they are successful game studios or they successfully managed to get themselves into the game industry so congratulations we wanted we wanted to take the Jordan gaming Summit from a Jordanian kind of event and we shifted to call it the Mina gaming Summit and this is the time we

invited Chris and his team to come and explore with us what is happening here we we have huge crowd we have passion coming in and in and in and that time with PG connect we decided we wanted to go through a global event and today we are on the international map of events and thank you Chris and the team for putting Jordan into the international map for gaming this this was part of a plan Canada in 2011 we had an opportunity to gather ourself as a gaming cluster we were a few companies 3-4 gaming company we had this opportunity to sit and form something called the Jordan gaming task force and we wanted to be to grow Jordan and we wanted fund we wanted support

so we had the King Abdullah the second front who basically took us under their umbrella gave us all the freedom to work on a plan that we managed to discuss with his majesty King Abdullah II and the 21st of May 2011. a few months before the gaming Summit and we thought ourselves we have this sharp Vision to the Future about what we will be doing and His Majesty gave us 10 times what we were thinking about so the King Abdullah second fund asked us to run the app challenge that we will talk about today ask us to build the capacity of Jordanian and we'll see the achievement that happened in the back few years we have a grant that we will announce the second round today we have a gaming lab that is

holding more than 10 000 members all across Jordan we have a yearly event that is today enjoyed by we are maybe Masha Allah today we are around 700 plus people so this is the achievement we are proud today to announce and then his majesty said this is not enough and for us it was not enough so we want to have something more powerful sustained so this is why we launched the Jordan gaming lab all across Jordan today we have six cities seven gaming Labs we have a a bus that tours all around Jordan we have an online portal that today offers a free materials in Arabic recorded by the team not only for Jordanian game developers it's open for all across the region unique content in addition we have more than 10 000

member we have thousands and thousands of hours of training with young nine years old up to graduates that today we can see part of our successful companies and here I want to congratulate all the successful teams whether jawaka tamata Myster mad hocks all the teams that are working hard today to put unique eyepiece unique products on the App Store yeah Bravo so today this kind of effort in 2000 if you remember his Royal Highness Prince Hussain he came in 2018 and had the opportunity as a community we had the opportunity to discuss our our

you know dreams what we need and one of the things the community asked for is a support a grant unfortunately covet came we delayed this Grant and in 2021 we launched the first round of the grant three successful games I don't know if they are with us today I I hope is among judeen they I can see one three successful ND developers today they managed to accelerate their product through the Grant and today hakun mobster this is something you and women today with us to to witness as as a as a as a body I'm happy to announce the second round and we have something that we work on day and day to have more I always make a joke the first gaming Summit it was a crowd of 30 350 300 mustache 300

today we see a more female developers more successful female developers more leaders and this is something we work with our local and international speakers to make sure we have a bigger representation of female and I think Jordan is one of the biggest a Christian confirm in terms of female representation in the industry so sabaya Brava alaikum insha Allah our second round second Grant round today I would love to announce hadil Lambert Manziel kinda beautiful Robert Mars so they will have a grant that will help them to

accelerate Market their products we always say we cannot be successful alone we need to have people to to work with us to partner with us and I would love to thank our partners all across Jordan who basically work with us to build gaming labs to basically conduct training so thank you our partners sharikazeem uh could lead motor Hussein at is

and if you are not a partner with us yet whether locally or internationally we would love to see you with us in our grant in our gaming labs and thank you very much for you know giving your help to our lovely game developers thank you so this year today we will announce two Awards two prizes tell me about the awards so uh this year we have the sixth I would today we will announce it together all right and so why there was a question people asking me since day one why we are having the the King Abdullah the second sixth award today for youth Innovation and achievement here in the gaming Pocket Gamer Jordan

and we will know today that innovation technology is part of our day-to-day today so entrepreneurs are using technology today and we saw it through covet we use technology to accelerate and push and not to delay our vision and to conduct all our projects correctly is from all across the Arab world they come under this umbrella to celebrate innovation and creativity we push and we try to push the creative industry in a way that takes us from this spot to insha Allah as we say to the next successes that we all want here in the region I will leave you with this video to know more about the award

so please

foreign foreign foreign

foreign 630 applicants this year they applied and we have today four finalists and one winner will go back with fifty thousand US dollar before going more into details who's our winner we would like to thank our we would like to thank our jury panel that came from all across the Mina region thank you very much for being part of this award this year

is sunny for this year foreign [Applause] reaching to this level is a big achievement knowing how complex is this award so congratulations and the winner we will keep it for later because I want to talk about the app challenge for me the app challenge is my

my baby this is something that I'm very passionate about this is the future I see this is something that since 2011. changed my whole Vision about education honestly change my vision about my company because the those 14 to 16 years old students who comes from all across Jordan working hard during a month and a half to build and launch a mobile game being a game developer I know this is not easy this is not easy to learn in five days or seven days it's not easy to build the product any a year in a month and and a half it's not easy to Market this product because they have to pitch it to our jewelry panels so this is something I'm in I'm in love with this is a passion that I have and I see it through our students

foreign let me tell you about the achievements we we did in the back few years in that chance but before that let's see this video about the app challenge for eign

Muslim

foreign I since 2011 more than five thousand hundred five thousand eight hundred schools imagine all across Jordan 140 games developed by students from 14 to 16 years old

140 30 has been published so to support them please go to the gaming lab store the Google Play or app store download their games support those students 1416 I can I know a few of them already they are in their career in in gaming and developing games working with companies so support them and you know the more and more you support us as a community you support those students to take them an internship to show them what is happening in the real real world of gaming that will be excellent so please our partners community the option of students the future are all here with us before talking about our finalists of course as any uh we need juries we need people who can help basically pick the winners so I would

love to thank our 2022 our 15th cycle juries thank you very much for being part with us this year and it for them this year it was tough so the theme so every year we have a theme and the theme this year was it was space so we wanted our students to create games about space how do you know they imagine space so we we had a very tough panel for the juries and thank you very much for being part of the app challenge this year so and nothing the prices and and to announce the winners so ready for the winners is a khalina

[Music] [Music] Russia means congratulations having gamification having an application that address education is very important and I think his Excellency Dr roji will be happy also because we were talking about this the other day and now we have a product that we are announcing Bravo and let's see a small video about the project thank you foreign

foreign that person amazing amazing

doctor which is foreign [Music] foreign Malik Russia just tell me [Applause]

laughs challenge is the app challenge winners ready we will go to north of Jordan [Music] said

[Applause] [Music] foreign [Music] foreign

I love the mix and I I always have I always tell the teams not always but you know most of the time when there is a mixed female male inside the team they will have something special so um foreign [Applause]

and now fat is at Central of Jordan and the winner for this year app challenge is madrasid thank you foreign

we always does not mean that who build another product or the second or the third is not the winner themselves they achieved and they build the game and it's live today and the Survivor the fighter we had one team that they quit on him and the the

developer stayed and he finished his product alone so we have certificates foreign [Applause]

problem fighter Bravo foreign

shotgun and we will go to the south of Jordan Mr Dean Santa Rosa is challenge sunny minute we have special always stories inside our projects

[Music] thank you foreign [Music]

I'll go group [Applause] um

thank you thank you alhamdulillah alhamdulillah

and I give you umana foreign

[Music] foreign [Music]

foreign Chris how what do you think very cool am I on hello hello yes incredible incredible stuff thank you well done well done everyone gonna fight my way to the stage in a minute foreign so um challenge we uh Chris it's uh it's a great opening it is it's fantastic um are you leaving me now are you no I'm

not you're abandoning me so um thank you so much for a big round reports going for all the app challenge people that was fantastic um it really is an incredible initiative and it's something I hope is is copied and emulated around the world because it's a it's a fantastic way of engaging young people in the ecosystem what we're going to do very shortly is kick on with our main content track which was is going to start in here uh which will be the global Trends track [Music] [Music]