Superstar Session: Making Your Game MENA Ready

next up i'm going to like to welcome our sponsors to the stage um uh uh from play through arabi and their ceo joseph shimali who's who has 15 years of experience of making games uh in the region that's what his bio says anyway uh which makes him ideally positioned i think even more so than abjad who's talking about government engagement uh to talk about uh how to make your game meaner ready i think he's coming on board i can just see his face i can see a static face there he is how are you doing sir i'm i'm great how are you chris it's been a while it has been a while i know i can always say i've not been i've not been out of the country i've been about at my house since march uh so it's it's very weird for me because i used to be on a plane every

week and now i'm i'm not at all yeah i can only imagine this is the very first 12 months of my life it's been almost 12 months since i haven't traveled for over 12 years are you enjoying it you look good you've not put any weight it's annoying i put on loads you look quite you look quite felt maybe it's the camera angle i put on weight i lost weight i think it's the same for everybody it's it's like um it's just you in the mirror now and like in the wife but i mean is it basically that's it i've got one of those uh i've got one of those kind of like concave mirrors that just just yeah i'm doing well i just every day i just bend it a little bit more i think that's fine we're looking good um anyway uh enough enough banter i will let you i went into your time so are you are you ready to go can i shall i disappear yeah i should start with the share screen right now or how it goes right so that i'm going to disappear into there we go looks like it's about to start so i'm going to disappear

uh sure sure uh well hello everyone um i'm joseph uh from playarobi ceo of playarabi we are against publisher that focuses on the mena the arabic market what we're going to talk about today is how to make your game ready for the mena region i've um i've watched the the uh the interview sort of with with mjet now chris and mgm thank you i'm jen thank you uh chris that's some of the questions we're going to be answers answer answering is uh genres and and what seems to be working what's not but more importantly we're going to focus on if you have a game and you'd like to bring it to the mena region uh what needs to be done we'll be focusing on some parts more than uh more than others uh because um you know there are some things that anybody can do and there are things that

that will need um you know a lot more focus so we will be looking at the let's say the general picture the minimum required uh to get your game ready uh first uh let's take a look at um let me introduce myself i'm joseph like chris said i'm a ceo of play arabi against publisher that focuses on the arabic language the mena region um i come from an industrial background around a bit more than 15 years in the industry um worked in positions starting from development with the production product management sort of a passionate person myself although you know vcu think i have to look a bit uh less than but yeah i worked on uh games on pc console the web as in browser as well as as mobile uh most of what we do at the arabi today

is uh is really mobile and um let's let's let's get uh to it so the meena legion first question would be what is mina and i think that is an important question i'd like to define our meena the mean of the way we look at it from the arabic language i'd like to separate regions such as iran turkey and you know some people include afghanistan and pakistan that is let's call it the bigger meena however the one that i'd like to focus about is the arabic speaking mena region in our region this is what we call nina generally because we are like like the slide says there's one language uh that basically connects us and this is our focus and um it's it's a bit it's a bit um confusing for a lot of people because

they they think that uh well uh it it's it's the same language with turkey no it's not or or iran it's not it might look the same it is because farsi and arabic have the same sort of letters but it is a different language and also a different culture so our focus will be on the arabic market we're talking about 18 countries over 400 million uh people over 250 million internet users over 170 smartphone users all connected by one language what i'd like to focus on is the lack of content in arabic not just in games but everywhere on the internet so less than one percent of of of content online is in arabic however um arabic is the

fourth most spoken language on the internet one of the top five spoken languages on on the world uh but uh in terms of content it's uh it it goes around uh the the eighth so uh there's obviously a mismatch between the the audience and the content which also means there's a big opportunity there's a discovery problem because people would be interested in consuming content and specifically games in in what we're focusing about because when you're talking about games you're talking about one of the top five languages in the world right and um there are more games with them that support greek it's a language then there are an arabic um which you can you can you can basically uh imagine that there are there's a lot more uh people who like arabic speakers and

there are greek speakers so it there's an obvious mismatch and there's a there's a huge lack of content means there's an opportunity it's it's a welcoming um uh market and it needs requires a lot of more games and that is exciting i hope now what is more exciting is what we will look at next um press including nuzo uh identifies the region as the fastest growing market in the industry um the percentages have been varying some say 15 when you know these are these are postcoded the percentages everything the industry is growing faster for everyone so that's great for everybody uh the region is still the fastest however i'd like to note that this screenshot it talks about middle east and africa in total the uh meena itself is part of it and it is still the fastest growing however i honestly

could not find something specific another thing i'd like to point out please forget the icons uh somehow uh they managed to repeat the asia pacific for the middle east it the map looks different look at you know closer to the map that i've shared before um and and ign reports that it's it's growing in billions uh in terms of population and speed it's it's it seems to be uh going pretty well again it is the fastest market uh uh the fastest growing market in in in the gaming industry and what is even more exciting it contains the half the highest average revenue per paying user worldwide hands down the difference between what game analytics sake reports as a global average between 25 to 30 dollars and what saudi arabia is reporting as an average is 12 tons

it's it's massive it's uh it's great honestly so being in a region that where people spend the most should be exciting for everyone should be welcoming foreign should be you know a great uh reason uh to come to the region now if you look at the the definition of nuzu for big spenders there are payers who spend an average of 25 dollars per month um there can they start to be considered big spenders and if you look at the you know the saudi arabian average if you divide that by 12 you already know that basically every spender or on average every student in saudi arabia is a big spender so um it's um it is that's these are the records and uh we get a lot of questions like are you serious is this really the case um because it sounds surreal it does not sound you know it's just really really it's much higher than the global average and that is exciting

at the same time scary because you know when something is so far off you think that what's going on and you're not sure and you start doubting the data now um i'd like to confirm this information by sharing this um part of our experience i'm sorry so uh an example of one of our games it's still in some sort of limited uh let's call it type of a soft launch um swords of glory um it is showing us over seven hundred dollars in average of any propane user so yeah these numbers are pretty and and um pretty real uh we're seeing it and it's um it seems to be you know uh it's repeatable it's happening this is the region we're talking about so it is an exciting region so how do i how do i get there now uh a lot of people say you need to localize right some people use the word translate some people use the word localized i like the word adapt so when you adapt something it is

uh you don't just you know make it close but it makes you make it feel like it is tailored for that certain audience and adaptation means a lot more than you know just translating the language it means understanding a certain culture and uh while this is absolutely true for for the media region um reports and and experiences show that recently it is also true for other regions including parts of southeast asia even parts of of latin america which are exciting regions as well so it seems to be a requirement for um a global gaming approach if you have a game you want to take it uh to as many people as possible the the better you adapt it to different cultures the the better chances you get and probably getting more users as well as as making more more revenues so what do we uh what do let's say what my opinion about

adaptation includes is basically you need to fix graphics so and uh sorry text which which means you know you need to translate the words make sure the names are are acceptable so for example uh if you're going to to to our region we're familiar with very different names and the ones that are in southeast asia or even in europe and so on um adapting the story to making sure that it makes sense it is acceptable by that culture and of course graphics uh you need to make sure that the ui locations they're they're familiar uh the closer to a culture you get is is better as well as sounds so a lot of times you get a game with their with that with voice overs there are in uh in english but dvd or in japanese and then but the game is targeting or talking to a different type of users which is a bit of a mismatch obviously um and of course if you're if you have um

your game distributed on on the stores or platforms you need to to adapt that make sure the screenshots the text the icons the the app store optimization is correct when it comes to marketing the same two things i'd like to uh focus on a little bit differently is you also for our region you need to work on the monetization you see bigger numbers but the region monetizes differently um for example um we like the concept of the eyepiece which is interesting so people like to feel that they are vips so if you have a special program for vip players bigger spenders and so on they get excited they get more invested in their game they they spend more and so on uh you need to make sure the packages make sense for example for certain types of

games um in in different types of the world you see smaller packages like a dollar and a two but if you come to the region these types of games should not have a dollar or a two because then the users would feel that these games are a bit cheap which is a very funny it's just you know a package to support those who would like to spend less but on average they're spending a lot higher so that is seems like a mismatch for them that's one of the things uh to consider when it comes to monetization another thing that is important is um please understand that while the average energy user is a lot higher the conversion rate is lower it's still a win still better to take your game to the to the region you still make more money per arab user or saudi in this uh case because it is the biggest uh country in terms of population and and and revenues at this point in the region you still would make more money per saudi user

than you would make for a lot of other countries including the us china and so on um but sorry i i basically uh forgot i'm saying yeah but remember that you would get less payers but more spending and that is what you need to make sure that your game supports make sure that it can allow people to spend more uh and you should expect a bit of less uh in conversion at the same time and another thing that i'd like to focus on is live ops a lot of people are talking about live ops recently and um it seems people are starting to understand that that uh today's world in games is a lot of there's a lot of live games what we call which are games that continue beyond the release the adopt they adapt with time they change they they keep supporting the players new offers new events uh new cool things new content new

marketing approaches um even sorts of esports or or smaller championships and all that live ops are very very important for a legion that lacks social activities well now kovid everybody's lacking social activities so that even makes it more for the entire world i would say but it's a region where um let's let's be honest there's a lot of heat it's somewhat hot the social structure is not it's a shy region let's call it people stay indoors more and they talk online so so so these things they're they're you can focus on them in terms of features in terms of of live ops which also means community support being heard connecting uh with the with the game publisher or developer is very valuable um so one of the things that you really need to focus on is also the live ops now let's get into a bit of details um some of the easy things to look at is

okay live ops might require professionals from that region monetization might require experts right but if you have a game and you'd like to to to get it there uh what do you do let's talk about the the features inside the game including text and graphics for example um arabic is a connected language that is the first thing uh you you need to know and i know it's hard if you look at the first two to two rows in in this slide you see it is sometimes hard for people to realize that these are these characters are not connected the last two lines are connected uh so if you can if you're doing translation if you're doing um graphics or things in the game if you can notice this know that that the game that uh the text is wrong you need it to be connected uh and it reads from right to left which sometimes requires flipping the the ui insert sorry in certain games not not not in

everything um and uh there are differences between the dialects and the traditional or the uh textbook the the things we learned in school arabic advice is generally focused on the traditional unless you have special vision focuses focuses for example you'd like to focus on gcc uh so you'd like to add a few words that would fit uh the gcc more and that usually needs someone from from from that part of the region to you know to advise um finally um a lot of the things that we we see are are you know it is hard for someone that is not from the region not that does not have an actual background in this language to realize that something's wrong because if you look at the last two uh rows for a lot of people they look the same because they're connected they look uh sorry they're coming from right to left but they're they're they're not really the same um the right

one is is the last one which basically says how are you or how is everything basically um uh so our advice would be is after you get translation and and you know you have it ready have someone that knows the language to look at it to verify that it's working correctly um generally not that expensive if even if you have a friend and stuff like that i'm sure people will be happy to help now graphics so graphics is a tricky part so a lot of people say well graphics are global in general however some people are more comfortable seeing things that are more familiar and more familiar does not just mean acceptable sometimes it also means culturally relevant if you look at one of so these are examples from games we published if you look at the one on the left um

basically it's it's a modern warfare sort of theme which makes sense for our region it is acceptable it is known uh we added a couple of characters i basically added them rather so so all the other characters made because they also fit somewhat and made them look like they're coming from the region so they were modeled based on basically saudi arabia and this uh in this case and and then added them in in the title near and that made the game um more acceptable made it a more culture so in this case we the theme stayed the same what we added is is a couple of characters to make it more familiar um in in the other case which is a sort of a sports game a penalty shootout we once published um the theme of graphics which is uh a bit cute you know the big cats big eyes um i'm not one to say but it's close to manga i'm not pretty good in

in in the in the name so please don't hold me to it um that might have some sort of uh connection with the legion however the when it comes to sports a more closer to reality style is is more accepted it's more like so we have to basically change the entire concept of the characters which is somewhat a big change what you'd like to do is go for the little changes were possible so if you honestly my advice would be if you have a game that has a total theme mismatch then either it's a game that would make a lot of money then it could be worth it but if it's uh if it's not and we'll quickly look at those um then it might not be worth it and and that is an honest advice so when sometimes when developers come to us publishing we just tell them it would be too much work to adapt this game to the region and therefore we do not advise that you did you just take it here um another

thing about characters because you know there's a lot of talk about the female sort of outfit in the region and what is acceptable when it's not honestly let's let's be honest all gamers are are most gamers let's say are open to all kinds of things however there are things that would feel closer to your culture and that is what you're trying to do you're not trying to offend judge or or decide anything you're just trying to make things look more familiar to the players because the more familiar something is um the the better it reaches right um that is uh that is basic you know human uh uh psychology people who would like what is more familiar with would understand it better and so on sometimes you'd have a uh you need to have a big change for that for example uh that is a character from one of the games on the left our name is pandora honduras from the um uh

the mythology right um we had to basically design a new outfit uh for her to to to feel more familiar however the the the next one all we had to do because the concept of the character required it is basically just you know slap a bit of black uh that feels like you know socks and the stockings and you know just to to make it uh easier to to to accept for for the players but again the recommendation would be always go for what is simpler again unless it's uh such a game that's going to make a lot a lot of money then the more you adopt the the better you do finally these the real sensitive issues there are a few issues that you just do not talk a lot or discuss in the region you try to stay as far away from them as possible and the ones in red are are the really really sensitive topics this includes religions uh controlled

substances or substances or or drugs and politics we try to avoid that um it is it is generally it's it's a very sensitive reason when it comes to to these topics so make sure why i'm saying this because we've had developers coming to us with a with a beautifully made games about about uh psychedelic trips based on you know um controlled uh substances you consume it's a beautiful game and everything but that is uh that is not a game you can introduce in this region um [Music] we've had a game um that basically uh shows offense towards certain religions that which is which is open and and accepted in other parts of the world and very dangerous or very sensitive in in our region so you try to stay away from them so these are uh topics that would make it very hard to to to bring a game

um to the region you need to avoid them if you're going there other things that are a bit sensitive but more acceptable include alcohol and gambling they're not very socially accepted but you know they're they're somewhat okay um yeah so that's a bit of a scary part now a cool thing that you uh i mentioned uh vip so features that are that are very important uh to to have because again it's a shy region that likes to connect online if you have uh the more multiplayer or social features you have the generally the the the more successful the game would be uh so for example we play adobe we like games that have a chat that allow alliances people talking together online and offline in in in whatever way because it helps people connect and that is a need we have

i think it's only the entire world has now because if you know uh like chris uh mentioned the the c word that everybody has to to talk about it in every uh in every uh uh event there is so because of the covert 19 it's a need that everybody has so um multiplayer support is is highly encouraged and and generally does does very positive things in the region and i mentioned the vip again because it it seems it's it's a it's a place where people like to be entitled uh which i think is a need for everyone but it's more so in in our region so vip features special vip packages and uh special vip shops and and things like that we do very well for the monetization in the region flipping is a bit funny because i clicked and it takes a while finally um about the live ops

you can do a lot of them uh hopefully you'll be able to do it on your own generally it's someone that speaks the language but you need to understand that someone which type of uh focus they support so for example the uh egyptian dialect is very different from the saudi one which saudi one is close to the kuwait and bahrain qatar uh gcc and oman the gcc area and then you have levant which is jordan syria palestine has somewhat of a of a common dialect in lebanon um and then you have more other parts in the north africa including tunisia morocco who have also some sort of a different dialect um and this makes a difference in in in your support so generally it is very hard for someone from morocco to communicate in their dialect with someone from uh saudi or or iraq i i doubt they would understand each

other in that dialect so they would speak formal or traditional arabic so these are consideration you need to so if you're hiring for live ops in the region make sure that the person speaks the dialect that you want to support the most um and uh same goes for for other things if you're working with events you need to make sure you know because they sell they like celebrating national days and and religious holidays and and all that but the ones that are specific in the region for example ramadan uh which is basically uh the islamic lent uh um the fasting uh period is um is is is an amazing time where uh less than less installs happen because people are focused on what they have or or uh uh what they already have and and you know they want to focus more on on on worship which is more on uh spiritual things but at the same time

because they have that content and more time on at their hands because uh the workday is shorted and all that they would be spending more so it's an interesting time of the year where you'd like to get as many users before and then um let's say shower them with with with relevant events during that uh uh that time of the year that you know to make more money just because that's eventually everybody what was trying to do to make them happier to make them more comfortable and as a result of course generally people are players are happier feeling uh closer feeling that the the developer publisher of the game is closer to them they they'd be happier to part uh with their time and money into these products and then and games at the same time because i i kept mentioning vip is important is important there's a you need to keep

that in mind uh handling vips in the region is is rather different i've heard stories from people outside the region where they've had players spend over a million dollars that happens in a certain game and they would eventually assign something like an account manager rather than just a you know because eventually if someone has paid you a million dollars and whatever or it's like even a thousand hundred ten thousand hundred thousand we've seen players spend uh tens of thousands in our games right whatever you're selling even if it's a car you assign some sort of uh an account manager right uh so it's the same concept because if you have high spenders you need to understand that they expect different treatment and that is part of the things you need to keep into your uh live ops finally other considerations i go about them briefly there's a lot of let's say um details in each of them genres which genres work best here's a

screenshot from um um it used to be priority data now air now data today uh of the top crossing uh top charts in saudi arabia in uh you'll see that the top crossing games are basically hardcore games why because hardcore games allow for different monetization most of them i mean you see like a noodle game in there which probably which has also deepened monetization which allows it you will see that there are three uh there are gestures in arabic and then you look at everything else uh it is either a global phenomena or or uh some a game that real that it has very excellent support for the language so you understand that the support for the language and and all that is important um however like anywhere in the world if

it's a global phenomena like pubg there's a good chance hovering why do we see pubg rather than fortnite uh in here and like you see pubg and call of duty understand that part of it is the themes uh as i mentioned up there because more realistic graphics they they attract our region more for some reason and and and fortnight is is is more you know not not as realistic it's a different art style so that also makes a difference and then if you look at the the the free charts you see casual games also again something like mangas which is you know spread globally uh but but that's the thing if you look at us stores and and a lot of uh stores in many countries you see that even in the crossing charts it's casual games but our region seems to be more hardcore and that is simply because as as we mentioned before you have a higher average enterprise lower conversion so if you have lower

conversion um it means you're getting the money from those who spend a lot of money in in a certain title and generally hardcore games allowed that one the paid part is not a great business that has been we've noticed that before so paid premium games is not a which is part of business model is does not seem to be generating a lot of money if you look at the reports so that is something that i would you know advise to go with free to play business model when you're coming to the region uh focus is important because what you'd like tonight what you'd like to do is um focus on countries that are like the gcc uh for monetization and then countries like parts of north africa for for for the user base uh north african users spend less a lot less over play more again a lot more and then the somewhat opposite happens in the gcc

area um finally how do you get there uh just like basically everything you either do with yourself or get partners right um i know that do it yourself is a is um you know it's a passion today especially everybody that has a lot more time on at home uh which is something great and the developers um are people who'd like to do things themselves and then at least to make sure that the graphics and the text are suitable for the region another great way to do it is you know build relationships with the stores um including apple app store and google play store and huawei app gallery which is becoming also pretty uh which is growing very well in the region uh they would help you to give you advice uh they would not do the work for you but at least that helps a lot or of course you know find out get a

publisher or a partner in publishing in the region and there are a few of them these are ways you can you can do to go to the market as fast possible i think i i i spoke a bit too much i hope i answered more questions than i've raised and um i'm joseph uh you can reach me at uh twitter um happy to talk about your game whether it's an advice or uh or or a partnership for partnerships also you know you can reach me or the other team members and play how to be in the event uh happy to answer your questions and um you know would absolutely love to have more content in the region we need it people need it and it's always great uh so uh whether you know there's a there's a work relationship or not uh we're here um at least i'm here to help you uh yeah so thank you thank you very much

that was good yeah that was good that was very good i you answered a lot of questions i i want to very we are running a bit behind but i'm going to give you one or two very quick ones so be quick yeah uh should i stop the sharing to see something else stop the sharing yeah stop sharing it's just she will see you i wanna see you now you love people oh wow thank you that's better so i'm guessing two quick questions and we'll get on to uh she's waiting in the wings um so you've already can't answer questions about how an indie developer can find a good publisher you've obviously talked to you or all the other uh publishers in the region that are looking for content so that's that's that's one question answered i've got a question here about um what challenges you see in cooperation between western companies and the mena gaming industry uh particularly relating to marketing is there any any particular kind of barriers there or issues bearing in mind i mean uh so western countries you mean it's not my question it's asked her that but she said where's the meaner right now what challenge did you see in cooperation between western

and mena gaming industry i mean if i'm talking extreme west the first challenge would be the time difference rather than that you know if it's it's good business because i guess they mean like europe and u.s right so like okay okay so um depending on on on the type of the developer rather than where the developer is uh it's it's if you have a game that is already doing great it is very hard for you as a developer or a publisher to to be open to changing a lot and that is a a big challenge and uh i would say that the western developers from our experience are less accepting of of of of change than than the the eastern ones we've worked with but that could have been our experience other than that i mean um i think everybody is lying to everybody wants to partner up and do great business so yeah that that's basically you know

top of my head okay two super quick questions because one's been answered us twice um and then i've already got move on but is it can you shed some light on revenue from games made specifically for the region i i guess it's hard to say that i mean we talked about the industry being worth like you know predictably six billion this year in the region but how many of those games are made we can talk about a few examples so um one would be vendor sultan's salatin by developer publisher 1mt from china uh they were doing up to 10 million dollars per month for a while so um it's still one of the top uh grossing games somewhat doing millions per month so that is one thing that that game was specifically somewhat tailored as an slg strategy game again hardcore sort of mid-core hardcore game uh so that was the one one of babel's games um is reported to be making five or more million dollars per year it's actually in the crossing charts where i showed it's uh arabic that that's why it keeps having

pictures of these hotels isn't it that's right i can see it yeah and and and and uh you would see one of the in the same crossing charts one game by that is a card game but it's more hardcore so it's a beloit uh game uh that's doing hundreds of thousands per month uh uh so so that's the thing i mean if you're in the top ten uh you'd be making millions that's basically what you'd like to to look at uh yeah so yeah you can see millions it's a casual game which we've seen that that that aren't in the top crossing charts because ads are not making a lot of money uh which is something i did not mention you'd be you'd end up with a couple of thousands per month because probably so get the top ten that's useful yeah yeah yeah it's a hundred and and and yeah but eventually it can go up to a hundred million per year or more so

fantastic loads of questions were answered during that that session and of course i mean again sorry sorry for taking along i tried because i was looking for a time and i have a problem with there's a lot of yeah um so there is a panel that includes uh you know on thursday that includes different cultures i'll be there there's a there's a few panels where uh simon bass is there where from so you can can reach out to these people you can reach them out to me uh to um our team you know questions anything we're here to help and uh because we and i'm sure everybody is excited to bring more games into this very exciting region there's a great opportunity and there is serious need for content for for amazing games so i hope your amazing game will be next and one of the next so so please come it won't be my amazing game but hopefully something in the audience yeah i mean it's hard to i've had to look at the audience on your screen

you get the developers it's really hard well it's good it's been good it's been good i'm going to let you disappear into digital ether but um yeah we'll be around as another team we're coming into talks later so do seek him out because yeah they're they're they're good guys and they can help a lot with the region so fantastic thank you very much we're going to move along you