Panel: State of Play | What’s in Store for the MENA Market in the Next Five Years

[Music] thank you we're moving on to our next session which is a panel and the topic of it is state of play what is in store for the Mina Market in the next five years that's a long period of time in the Mina region I can tell you that um I'd like to get on stage Chris James from steel media Bassam from 96f from pocket Gamers uh MJ from Babel games felva falva from 966 newer from misal Awards and David from sansoff please give them a warm welcome [Applause]

take your way I think I might have to stand how are we doing I think it's only five seats it's fine you can is there a seat for me there's noise there you know you get given a message stand sorry you sit down I'll stand over I'm sorry I'm a little bit away from you but it's fine so um hi there thanks for uh thanks coming back this afternoon um if you saw the opening you'll know I'm Chris James I'm CEO of Steel media part of the company being responsible for putting this all together um basically and I as you'll probably know you saw the the intro I've been coming to the region for quite a while now and I've always been as I said at the start impressed by the spirit and the enthusiasm and the latent talent but um it's fair to say what's come out of that in the last five years has been incredible it's been in a really over delivered what I expected some incredible companies come out some real success stories it's fantastic so this panel we're going to kind of reflect

very brief on these kind of achievements and where we are now but then kind of project forward uh for the next uh the next five years or so of the industry so um it's an incredible panel here so I'm gonna let you briefly introduce yourself and your company and I want you to also tell me what you think is the biggest achievement of the last five years what you're most proud of can be your own company it will be or it could be it could be something wider in the market go on nor you go first founded in 2003 a very focused casual and Hyper casual game developer our main office is here in headquarters here in Amman and we have an operational office in the UK since 2017 working on hyper casual games the biggest thing that you know we we achieved is entering into the

hyper casual uh side of the business learning a lot on the user acquisition and the importance of new data science behind CPI ctrs and about the region the region and the news that we are hearing today from acquisition and investment that is happening in the region which basically the right time you know to highlight such such growth that is happening in the region fantastic excuse me there's gonna be a lot of Applause here this is good I'm not used to this I've never get anything first but uh yes totally uh so I'm David and the CEO of Science of games we are a mobile game developer and publisher based in Saudi Arabia so I've been working in games since 2004 for combines like THQ Digital Chocolate Nokia or King before joining uh science of two years ago presume I may say a couple of achievements if you don't mind so one pre-sign soft which is I see a lot of students here and I was one of those managing to make your moms play Candy

Crush so hopefully that's one and the second one is about putting together a highly highly highly talented team in Saudi Arabia of game developers with International experience something we are building there are really happy about what we have achieved so far from Talent attraction perspective cool cool cool [Applause] so hi everyone this is MJ family CEO of bubble games Chris I would say that you know in the in the last five years my biggest achievement I would say that you know we went all this you know covet years uh I think that you know it was it was very hard times with everybody you know having to work from home uh stuff like that but I would say my biggest achievement is my team and Babel games team I mean they really did an amazing job working day and night trying to overcome uh this you know closing and

sickness and everything and we grew up the team we grew up the revenues and to be honest I'm very proud of them awesome thank you I think some of them might be in uh I don't know so cool hi everybody my name is I'm a business development manager at 966. uh basically I got into the game industry in 2012. I co-founded G Khan the first video game convention for women and to be honest that's my biggest achievement is actually proving that there's women presence and very very strong women presence in video games and I'm glad it's still going strong even though I I stepped down in 2017 but basically I'm working now with 966 establishing the third party publisher in Saudi Arabia so it's a it's really

great awesome fantastic and last but nobody's least I hope there's still a pause at the end because yeah I'm sure I'll get the photos from them Amber Samuel Romiti I'm from psut any pset graduates here or students yeah I got that basically I got in the game industry in 2011 I will celebrate something different from from you guys because all of us we have these great success stories I would like to celebrate my previous company play Arabi which is not here anymore but they did great job and I want you guys to take the risks and take the courage and do your business we've learned a lot from that business and now as individuals we're stronger than we were before and it's okay for our company to go bankrupt and do another thing that's really that is pretty good actually that kind of segues into a conversation earlier about business in a recession and you've got to be brave right you've got to be you know we learn something for everything we do I've got a really random request before I continue my phone just died

it's got all my questions on can someone be a real there and bring my laptop bag is there in that brown bag if someone could bring it to the stage that'd be great so I can get my laptop out of it that's fine I can start for a minute but yeah perfect fantastic that's not yeah over here I need it okay anyway what I want to do very quickly is kind of establish a few things about the region for people that maybe aren't in the region thank you um so I I won't go through some super detail but like we obviously here we're mobile we're kind of mobile first we're interested in other genres but is it fair to say that the the the the the region and a lot of countries in here I really I realize but is is mobile dominated and if so what other other what other kind of parts and genres and and sorry other platforms that are sort of successful are there any other kind of key facets we should think about when we think about the mean reason what they're really strong at so quite a broad question but like so platforms and other key

distinguishing features about mobile about the media Market any will go with this in the middle I I think it makes sense to be mobile first here in the region any Emerging Markets basically will you know if you look around the word Africa similar to the Middle East developing countries Always Mobile is the first choice for everything not only for gaming for payment and so uh yes and uh luckily I think here in the region luckily as a mobile game developers luckily the Telco operators invested a lot in the region in their infrastructure and reaching people and you know building their networks other Platforms in terms of revenues I think they exist but not as much as big as as the mobile today and I I think the upcoming years definitely even if we talk about esport we talk about all the platforms that is yes I think mobile will be the uh yeah so it's only got different opinion to that well because I I is there a so because I think that's

fine I like mobile being dominant but yeah now I would say that um I think there's a lot of PC Gamers and you know console Gamers but to be honest you know if you want to go to PC gaming that you need a very big investment these days right yeah uh the the graphic cards alone like it's costing a fortune these days yeah yeah so you know most younger age and we have about you know 50 of the population in the Middle East it's younger than 25 so it's 25 and younger right so you know this young population cannot do a lot of investments in in PC rigs console and you know premium games because it's costing a lot yeah so that's why we have a higher percent of mobile penetration than other you know uh devices I would say so we're all coming from is anybody disagreeing that much mobile first maybe complementing that I think we tend to generalize about Mina as a region and yes different regions a lot differently

if we think about North Africa maybe that's the case that you know they access a platform might be mobile based on this case been a cheaper platform for you know users in this case to access gaming if you think about 11 might be the same but if you think about GCC maybe it's slightly different yeah do you see in a more PC you see more console and that's basically for the reason of the actual spending power that these countries have not because of you know players in in Egypt or place in Morocco don't want to play PC they actually want to play PC as well you don't have the means to play on PC okay now I guess I'm just trying to establish a bit so there is a PC in a a console business here but I presume it's not that different to the rest of the world where mobile is still the biggest biggest exactly so yeah one point to add to that is that in the region we don't really get much support from the console and the PC market like steam PlayStation Microsoft PlayStation Microsoft you're listening yeah you guys sort it out

Nintendo they won't let it go away so it's fine no I love switch it's okay um what about what about game genres that are successful now is a oh they realize it's a broad region but other particular genres that are dominating here that are any different to anywhere else that you're finding for instance I see that that kind of uh Jericho's very you know have a lot of kind of card games and and maybe some sort of local card games I'm not necessarily aware of that are very popular is that is that typical or are any particular genres that are unique or dominant in the in the Middle East that maybe aren't working as well elsewhere I would say that you know a local game cards of course is very popular and uh this is you know what people normally play at the cafes or at their homes because you know it's it's very accessible exactly and part of the lifestyle but from my perspective and my opinion I would say that you know we have huge percent of female gamers in

the Middle East that are playing serious games like pubg or Call of Duty or strategy games yeah and um people are not looking at that section actually and that there is lots and lots of Gamers males and females and praying playing different genres um on all sides so I wouldn't say that it's different but I would say that um what like uh what males are playing at what and what females are playing is totally different for us what's very important in the Middle East is socializing and communication right so when you have those features inside the game then it's most probably I'm not saying it should but it most probably that it will be more popular because they like more interactions with other than other single player games that could be very successful example in Japan or Asia yeah so thus if you get what I mean it's not a lot of jrpg yeah exactly

I don't want to add also to the point I'm sorry David uh but uh first of all when the genre started it was mainly predominantly Shooters strategy and it was like specific genres but with time with localization actually open the door for more and more genres to be recognized I would like to note that for example The Witcher 3 did open the door for more our players from Mina to recognize Western RPGs as an actual genre they could enjoy because of localization so I think with more localization and more things like that there's a huge chance that more and more players are going to be open to more genres as long as they can understand it and interact with it so you so the the barrier is not necessarily cultural taste but more just localization understanding exactly you do need to connect with the players at some point and is that is that relatedly is that really about is that more about it's

literally being in in Arabic everything or is it more culturally because we had Kate on here earlier talking about the importance of culture and cultural sensibility and understanding so is there any reason why certain games can't just kind of come over provided their localization I would say things like Casino or gambling is not usually something that people would let's say resonate with right but but as term as far as uh as culturalization or localization goes it doesn't have to be completely conservative or restrictive but as long as these people can understand the game and connect to it on some level then we'll definitely see more and more Gamers turning into new genres maybe even jrpgs at some point who knows jrpg is the opportunity if anybody's working on jail project you have a full space all to your own um so it's casino games not so much I get that localization important is that anything else sort of distinctive that

we would just say well right now the mean of Asian is typified by by this or the the mean industry even like are We Are we more developers Are we more Publishers here Are we more you know it's a good balance of kind of AD services and and distribution so is it is it is there anything that's I'm trying to kind of ask that why the competitive advantages to going ahead really I guess so maybe from from Market perspective here there is definitely a good uh representation of local game developers in the charts and we have here you know a few of those being you know Bible that walker uh could be a good representation but I presume that if you think about the global gaming Market I think the companies from the East have taken minamo seriously yeah I think that the companies in China in Korea have already looked at this opportunity earlier on companies in the west yeah yeah so you see already games like pubg here doing you know relatively well you think that's because so basically that's

getting an early maybe localizing and approaching so yeah it's not just about in this case localization about actually a bit about being present about building communities about supporting communities here yeah and as I think was mentioned before you know makers of Nintendo and these companies have not invested in building communities here yeah but actually pubg has that for example and that's why they resonate here basically to be successful you've got to be here I mean that's the thing a lot of people say be on the ground see what happens in engage I want to kind of sort of push forward a little bit so one of the there's a um some data a lot of data support that they have a a young population again it's lots of different countries it's you know you can't generalize completely um but someone's talking about 25 this might be wrong so you can create over 25 of the population is between 0 and 14 and generally there's a younger a more youthful population in many of the states here than in U.S and Europe where we're all aging like me getting on bit so does that create so for me that just spells Limitless

opportunity that's incredible for our industry like you know young people have more time maybe they don't have quite as much disposable income but have more time they're willing to embrace new technologies and ideas are you excited about that fact is that something that we should only encourage further growth in in the in the that you have a younger population here I would expect our growth to be really amazing in the upcoming years we have been expecting that I mean even look at the venue today I remember you know when we started all of this uh and and Pocket Gamer was in Jordan for the first and second time it was you know much much smaller but you know we can look at the scale growing and growing each day and in the upcoming five and ten years the Middle East is going to be one of the amazing hubs for gamers and game development and we have been you know talking about that

what really need is that the younger audience to start creating games based on our cultures and our stories and our history yeah so you you were talking about what we're missing and about also the population and that's two points I think they are related to each other is that you know we want to see the new developers and designers start creating history games you know about Arabs and the Middle East and and we have very rich history yeah and we have also very good history in in our literature like our stories and like uh you know you say Aladdin and Other Stories like where it's all where originated in the Middle East and and I really think that the support we are doing right now it will show uh you know within five to ten years maximum yeah so young audience engaged a lot of Rich history which you you don't

feel we've tapped enough yet there's a lot of I mean there's a lot of potential yeah right yeah there's a lot it goes back a long way right so that's fine and if I can add to that point yeah absolutely the great thing is with the communications we got today the cultural differences between East and West are diminishing so these stories there are Global stories now they're not just for us but we can tell them better than others and everyone in the world enjoy them so whenever you're making a game don't just think about it for this region because you can easily reach someone North America or Japan or wherever you want yeah and it's really great resource to showcase yeah so again what's that that strength of that and Chris I would like to add we have to remember that um the political status of certain Arab countries delayed a bit of the game development and the growth and there is great opportunity that will come soon from those countries taking as an

example Iraq for example and everyone is looking away from Iraq because today or they cannot spend as much money that we want as game developer but this is a mass Market this is the future not because it's just about population because the population in Iraq are used for entertainment and creating entertainment tomorrow things will change and we can see it today by credit cards enabling users in Iraq we can see it in the revenue then you look into Egypt for example Egypt is a huge population mobile advertising is not there yet right tomorrow when traditional advertisers in Egypt were used to push their advertisement on TV we realized that the mobile games is their only way yeah we will see 10 times what we are seeing today in terms of revenues I mean there is move to digital advertising slowly steadily I mean TV's only on the way down but it's still so vast put all together with the Young Generation that we we will see from now

until the coming 10 years this is where yeah because they're gonna they're not going to consume terrestrial TV advertising anyways exactly exactly so segue on that same point what do you think are the biggest opportunities then we talked about advertising opportunities of digital advertisers coming in there talk about young audience and the great stories are are there any other huge huge opportunities that any or um either business models to be taps or new technologies that are kind of for instance and this there's not anybody here representing this I guess but as I understand it like Dubai is very big on blockchain right there that's they're trying to position themselves as a blockchain center do we do we see these new technologies as a big opportunity kind of for the region or something let me start with something slightly different and connecting with something that you mentioned already here I have been privileged because I'm wide European man and I've been represented in White lives I've been represented in games and every time I've been playing a game right I think when we're talking about

you know how we can make games relevant for the region definitely you need to talk to these people in their language so definitely Arabic is a must yeah and Arabic is not just with single version to understand that you know there are different dialects that you need to tune in in your games another important thing as I mentioned before is that for this younger population for these kids they just have to be the heroes yeah they feel need to feel represented in games yeah and as such we need to make uh games uh with more diverse casts of Heroes for them to feel represented so yeah so I get that again about the stories right yeah that we were mentioned before with these three things we'll be connecting with the communities here and that will be an opportunity process for the region so there's our fourth technology and some of the change in Industry might inform some of the opportunities but these three are existing today and we can exploit together so I guess to talking to potential young developers out there who

are working about how they're going to gonna kind of go forward somebody asked me earlier actually when will there be an Activision Blizzard in in the Middle East and how can we do that and and I was just kind of try answering I was thinking about it but I don't think that's the right question really you don't need an Activision booster that was a specific country going uh company grown from specific circumstances at a specific time Activision Blizzard Now 52 of their revenues this quarter came from mobile they're trying to change the company they are so trying to follow be that and and what you're saying here and I think this is a really interesting inspiration about opportunities and just interesting point is the opportunity is to tap into the rich culture here to pop into this Market to focus on games for this market for for the local audience and and be properly localized this this is what we are seeing right there's no need for Activision Blizzard we can create our Activision Blizzard what what people here are overseeing or not

seeing is that gaming industry and the new addition of web3 and cryptos and nfts all that combined is going to make lots of jobs available not lots of creativity people don't need to go traditionally that you know I want to grow up to be to be a doctor or to be a lawyer to make money no there's more money in gaming than anything else right now and is that now more socially acceptable because I think there was certainly perception when I first started coming here that that's great go make your app and that's fun you have some fun but then go to university be a doctor that was kind of the perception and is that changing now p EP you're seeing the amounts of money parents I guess younger parents getting older and older parents exactly and it is changing but not in the right pace that it should it should be changing much much faster because gaming industry is going to make a lot of jobs available for all you know

the programmers designers uh you know uh story writers uh and and so many other you know uh here and there uh yeah sorry no it's okay so I was just looking at my questions I thought you you're gonna say something yeah so that Segways into another point I kind of wanted to to skipping ahead a few questions in terms of the business ecosystem that's what we're here we're here at a business conference um you know this isn't really a consumer conference it's to talk about the business so there's obviously been a some great success stories already there's more people engaged the University's engaged you're doing lots of great work um how do we see that how can how do we see that the ecosystem sort of developing the next few years in Jordan and and Beyond are we going to have more successful proposition developers on a scale of of of the the ones that are very generously sponsoring this event the Tama times the jailworks the babbles do we see that do you see like if we

came here in two or three years time there's like six more companies at scale um and if so you know or do you see more company and or do you see more overseas companies coming over here to set up and create competitions how would you see like put forward a couple of years now what do you see the business ecosystem let's stay start with Jordan but we can go beyond what what do you think it'll be like well you'll be competing with like 10 other companies doing similar things to you or is it are they gonna be local are they going to be overseas I I think uh definitely from what we are seeing today and the region is connected sure we have different dialect of Arabic and different languages that is spoken but what is happening in for example in Saudi Arabia today 100 will impact Jordan and Egypt and Beyond yeah because we are connected yeah we are connected and and if we go to the Silk Road and the old story Silk Road that we had in the region from China to to here we will

understand why we are connected to Asia yeah and Asian game developers here in Jordan we've been working a lot the beauty of what we did in the New Vision 2030 gaming or the gaming cluster is a major pillar in the creative industry and there is a lot of changes that will change within the country for lows universities custom duties Etc that will help game studios and game developers we sat for weeks and weeks as Gaming Community discussing and putting and brainstorming and finally we have a very solid action plan but what do you see what was success like though I mean you've got I mean you've done so much I'm so impressed but what is what in five years time say what is is this is it having you know not just our show but is it having twice as many companies I would be very Frank with you I will have companies who are willing to give their data without being worried from the tax department okay I will be and that's important for me yeah for data collection I will be having

companies hiring people from Asia from Europe without taking hundreds of weeks just trying to get a Visa or work permit here in Jordan okay that will change that will help and that will create International companies more when I can hire resources from outside of Jordan that's a benefit for any Studio here in Georgia so but I guess what you're saying is at the moment red tape's a bit of a challenge and I will be still local if I will keep on just having team members from locally with one type of thinking with one type of I will I will keep on selling for the region and for the country so this diversity that I need today will change and will change the way businesses and successes game studio will all products that will go from the region okay and from Jordan it's fair enough let me research a couple of thoughts here um well first from uh consumer Market perspective and I'm not talking about

the growth I mean people before talk about the growth presume that there will be more value captured by local companies in the local market so there will be more you know companies owning that market from the region and making sure that some of these Revenue stays in the region rather than going abroad maybe thinking on on the future of the of the region from game development perspective uh we need to acknowledge that we are really privileged because we have in some of our countries actual government plans to support the gaming industry yeah that will mean that there will be certain support that governments will put in together for all companies across the value chain from small startups to kind of mid-sized companies to even large companies so as such I expect that the local gaming industry will grow a lot and then after these companies have grown International companies will come here because they understand not just the market opportunity but also the Italian opportunity that we'll have by creating this new company established in here okay I think that's that's probably

there we go I think to add to that about how they see what the industry's gonna look like in five years time whether it's going to be excuse me bigger well so I can add just one point yeah man from spoils here from Saudi Arabia he's a game designer I mean did you ever think you'll be a game designer in Saudi Arabia five years ago and it's a new job opportunity created for him for this industry and there will be thousands of abdulrahman in the next five years here and I think that's what will be success for us as an industry in the region creating jobs and as nurse said not just for the locals for everyone to come to our region and be working here I mean that for me would be the main kpi of success yes it's growing the the base but we I guess from a scale perspective just to force the question a bit twice as big in five years at the industry side what are we thinking I would say 10 times as big that's what we wanted to see that's what I'm going for 10 times as big five years fantastic boom that's what we like to see I I

guess on the flip side and you kind of brought into it um nor what what is it what are the challenges you know we've got lots of opportunities we've got incredible Talent we've got some you know government support we've got good traction we've got an audience um we've got a wealth of History to draw on what what is a challenge what's something that could stop us being 10 times as big as a region in I think uh the most important thing at least speaking for Saudi Arabia is education yeah I think it's very very important that uh aspiring video game developer not only understand the technical side of developing a game but also of the business side of it and I think this information is still needs to be shared and and for these developers to understand so I think one of the hurdles that we're having is is the lack of education and that people don't really have a specific place to get information from usually they talk to other people or everybody's out for them do you mean

that as as like kind of central media and events it's type in education or a more formal Educational Systems and also maybe something like an actual dedicated track that I think also could work in universities or something like that because at least in Saudi Arabia we don't have that yet so I think it's very very important to tackle this this problem and try to share information as much as possible so education both within and without yes is important and that's needs to improve in I mean you're trying to build an industry from you know much lower base really what else nor do you see you've mentioned red tapes you've kind of said we need to get Beyond some of that is there any other problems we've seen I totally agree with our education I think this is across the region uh we have big challenges when it comes especially if we you know we look into technology and look into gaming I think that's the only uh solution to accelerate the 10 10 times

we want growth to see in the in the coming years education is number one and and to think with the government we are they don't sync with us yet they were here that's that's the start that's a good start uh no no one from the UK government comes to wherever yeah that's a good start so we need them to think more so hopefully they will sink more and we managed to overcome the challenges the you know the red tapes that we have whether in education whether in taxation whether in uh custom duty Etc just a very you know an ambitious game developer here in Jordan if he wants to get into VR uh all the latest technology the hurdles for him to get tools and kits to start developing his own Studio games is really hard because still there is a no sync between our custom duty and and uh gaming

industry yeah so until they understand this is a tool a Dev cat that they can use to develop and it's not something that they want to sell Etc we will you know we will still have challenges to to grow in the latest Technologies following metaverse or whatever technology that will be coming yeah in the coming years so I'm going to throw out these questions a second I've got a few more but I'll give you a chance what's that you've got lots of fingers yeah me too it's fine he's got a lot of fingers they're very beautiful no um sorry so we've got a lot of young young developers and and the future you are the future you people are you still awake yes good are you still awake good thank you thank you so much so you guys the future are here so you're talking to you know students people already in the industry people coming into the industry you want to shape the future you want 10 times growth I like it yeah I like the way you're thinking um what what do we need from them what

do we need these these amazing young people to be focused on what is it what advice should we be offering them now they've got five years to grow you know their career or their company what is it they need to know this is not on the sheets I mean for me I would say take risks don't be afraid you can success like joaker like bubble like amazing world you can fail it's okay you will have another chance to go for it ending one study is not the end of your story no you can always do more you can always do it again but you will learn from your experience and learn from other people experience as well yeah you always learn more from failure than successful it's always happiness that's a bit of moderate clapping what you would you if you I think it was like sad yeah so maybe adding on that uh first of all be passionate this is about an industry it's about creating fun it's about you know driving people emotions and as such you need to be passionate to do so presume as well as we were mentioning before you look at yourself

make sure you have the skills required to operate in the industry then experiment and fail fail fail fail and learn and out of this learning you know becomes resilient and make sure that you are ready when the right opportunity comes because it will come I didn't really require a hard job from everyone here so make your best make your bets and hopefully you will succeed fantastic anything else from the panel before I ask for questions on that I would add that you know even if you don't want to open your company and you don't want to venture it's so easy to get a job in the gaming industry whether locally or worldwide we will be making lots of money good jobs and there's a job sport outside so check that out if you're looking for good but yeah but yeah there is definitely go with you know um and it also it's not only limited to developers uh designers content creators there's so many things you know uh you

can go for gaming yeah absolutely absolutely true right I'm going to throw this open for questions apparently I've got seven figures now okay um have we got any questions from the audience this is an incredible panel a chance to to ask difficult questions to senior people anyway there's one here there's a chap in the there's two heavy here or chemistry first sir hello yeah um thanks for the nice information uh actually I've got a question don't you think that we have to introduce the children for the future I mean there are loads and loads of modules in this course don't you think that coding and computer settings must be a module in the school in the beginning so did you get that can you paraphrase sorry just quickly again put really close to your face yeah exactly yeah right

um I mean like um do we uh do we have uh do do children must learn uh about coding oh coding children children learning about coding yes can we do more with that right good question is that essential of course of course of course well it's not available yeah okay and we had another question at the front here you still hands up over here maybe to put it wider I mean games are companies so that means we have a roles available for many people even

they if they could or not so we have people in finance we have people in marketing we have people in HR so yes we need coders designers artists scientists and and this is where my advice if you want the focus on on being a data scientist focused on analyzing data focus on doing user Acquisitions building the best creatives we spend hours with MJ talking about the best creatives and and Advising ND developers in the gaming lab a couple of weeks ago because we we don't have people who basically are working on Creative that will bring lower cpis better retention etc etc right so creative Studio someone here is going to have to set up a Creative Design Studio to create ads for these guys this is a huge opportunity guaranteed contract I heard so um will you say hi first of all thank you very much for your advices and the

challenges that you have explained but I have a main question for someone who already starting something we as uh new Joiner let's call this okay and we find plenty of doors that I must go coding then I must go a concert art and I have to write a story then I have to do this and that and each one of those steps are taking a huge time so what is the main factor that you are looking for as as you have crossed already a milestone in that industry what are you uh pointing us into like uh is there a trail that we can uh come up and down and facing it can be a little bit uh located as a as a map right should we get to an image.com for that again so are you saying sorry do you want uh to elaborate more sure

version yeah I'm sorry for this so no it's fine it's fine but there's a lot of bits now because they have already crossed a milestone in that industry yes they have the best so where did you where'd you start where do you is what you're saying it's not where I start you can start anywhere but the thing is I have plenty of doors that I need to cross so the thing is what is the the ultimate thing that you are looking into the people who are coming to get hired oh in terms of hiring exactly okay I think it was a Crayola question about what what skills you're looking for what sort of people you're looking to hire someone who wants to come and work for you guys and you know what what do they need I think I think that's kind of I'm paraphrasing but I think that's what he got to what are you looking for I can't start if you guys don't mind basically hard work and willing to learn just like absorb all the information that's out there and do your hard work yeah that's the main thing for me I mean I think I think there's one thing I can identify with I don't know your circumstances sir but I I know that a

lot of the time there's a gap between people coming out of University and then being job ready like people people say they want loads of students but then they want people that can do have two years of UA experience or coding experience so I I think there's always a challenge I don't know that's the same here at sillies in the UK there's a a way to Fast Track that how can how can people make themselves more attractive to you I guess as important for me we did hire a lot of people and whenever they come to us with their CVS they fancy looking CVS and everything and we do the interview and we ask them for a simple task they just don't put the effort into it yeah you should be willing to put the effort to get into this industry it's a rewarding industry it pays good but you really need to go hard working yeah I will go with David that David what he said the passion the passion if and not only the passion for games the passion for you know building something creating something yeah and and

showcasing uh your career path is the question always it's not me what I want it's what you you want from yourself and and this we can see it sometimes from you know the new grads but we are becoming more CV oriented uh resume people you want to show no no do do show your portfolio show your work show your code show your passion show you read come to conferences for me when I hire when when I see someone putting in a CV I have done that but when I see I attended one Pocket Gamer two Pocket Gamer for me this is more important than all for me also so that's good as an example as an example and by the way there's passion you cannot enforce it right yeah you can hard work all the time and you know tell people to stay and work hard but if it doesn't come from inside yeah it doesn't work so I

think I think the answer hopefully enemies helpful is to be is to have that have a vision for yourself of where you want to be and can communicate that passion you know and work really hard I mean just once you've got a job you can stack off for ages that's right yeah but just at the start you've got it really uh really go harder in it one thing I'd like to add is that you don't really have to be a gamer to be working in the industry one of the best product managers I've worked in the industry they don't play games at all but they're good at what they do they're good at analyzing that reading the market and seeing what's yeah it's a very creative industry I mean it's an art form it's it's a very hard industry in terms of creating a something amazing game that makes money and is and is you know compelling but it is very rewarding um I mean lots of more smaller Studios doing games that are big heads actually okay it's easier to reach people nowadays than it was before so most

people you'll see more small Studios with big hits that's good fellow what do you what do you think for me I think uh more success stories because at the end of the day if you want to talk to people um you need to demonstrate that this is actually working so more and more success stories will actually help develop well I come across from all across the region yeah I mean in the entirety of the Mena region obviously because there's a lot of people still believe that video games is just like Esports for example yeah I think the only money you can get out of it is Esports unfortunately people believe that but with more success stories with more small Studios uh going out there doing what they can then more and more people will be incentivized to actually participate and practice and learn more okay so we're going to be so we're going to be 10 times as big there's been more small Studios hey what are you adding we can add some Jay more Mina games succeeding

International so you see it we're going to have five years big games here but have gone out everywhere so people definitely okay that's good now I like that I like that that's good David you get the last one to always think about because I'm thinking on Lillian's here uh I um haven't had the chance to have the green games when I got in University but many of the people you know coming in the future uh in this part of the world they will have University degrees today games I think that would be something you will start seeing here education in games will be mainstream fantastic so games education is going to be mainstream so if you're doing that already you're head of a curve 10 times as big low small Studios lots of successes local games going major International nor well Esports I didn't mention Esports it was all my questions about Mr over it so Esports will be big yes I don't understand Esports that's why it's over my head yeah I think he's supposed to become more and more to the mobile yeah and we will see we we like in this region especially we like uh competition this

is why we play a lot of card games board games we like it it's in our blood we like to you know to be competitive yeah in any game with a sport or whether you know mobile games or video games and I think as we had a mobile more as a region when Esports will come more and more to mobile it will be one of the leading regions worldwide okay well it's going to be next Friday is going to be fascinating um there'll be much bigger PT connects conference in five years it's gonna be huge unbelievable we're gonna need we're gonna need to take over we're gonna need a bigger Conference Center but it's gonna have to start working after a new big comp sensor so we'll be back here for the next five years we're going to be a part of it we really look forward to you guys delivering on this um it's it's a commitment for you it's like a mission but it's also a huge opportunity and I I really look forward to seeing more of you up here in in five years time talking about what you've

done and the incredible business you've you've made and and how successful you've been I believe in all of you so don't let me down okay and on that note uh come a big round of course my uh my power please thank you all right whistle that's good yeah fantastic so this is one of my lifelong achievements come true I can shoot you you can get this game there we go thank you so much everybody um that was really interesting [Music]