The Growth & Potential of the Gaming Industry in the MENA - David Fernandes, CEO, Sandsoft

foreign [Music] [Applause] I'm gonna let you do all of your stuff and get comfy because we've got the incredible David Fernandez coming now from sansoft he's going to talk about growth and potential of the gaming industry in the Mina region so please if you've got loads of questions thank you about the Middle East and North African marketplaces think of them now and then come back in 20 minutes and we'll ask them welcome David thank you thanks so much can you hear me okay is it good perfect

so welcome all happy to see new faces uh definitely a few faces I know so happy to talk a little bit more about the mini games industry so I'm covering today three main topics as well so we are going to share a few thoughts about what we think is you know hot in the region I'm also covering the gaming Market in the region and presumably as well some opportunities for game developers and Publishers over there so what's hot presume that comes from something that maybe is unique which is a country plan yes a country plan Saudi Arabia Vision 2030 is a program that is defined to change the social economy and the whole dynamics of the market in the country so as part of this big big kind of change in the in the in the country they are driving something which is quite unique as well which is the national gaming and Sports Authority which is as well a national gaming plan that's the only country that have released a proper plan

for games in the same scale so what's behind that so that's a government-led program that pretend to create a gaming industry in Saudi Arabia so that's a ground creating opportunities in gaming and Esports trying to create the whole body chain in the whole market and definitely trying to create as well value for the younger generations and making sure they can offer careers for games that's a healthy investment that is putting forward is you know us 38 billion that uh the countries is missing the support unity and that's driven growth in many many sectors in the industry that includes game production that includes Esports technical infrastructure funding and financial support for some companies to establish the technical developments Hardware you know cloud services education Talent attraction a few more things to grow up the little daily ecosystem over there what we are trying to achieve in this uh in this big push so we are trying to create 250 games company in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia we are trying to have 30

Games written top 300 in the games industry we are trying to have as well uh or be in the number third uh country in the world in terms of yes borders Lee at least athletes but also we are trying to be the country with most viewership in Esports events as well what's next uh presume that there is also one of our country friends in Emirates they are trying to do something similar so they announced a few weeks ago they are going to invest almost 8.7 trillion US dollars in developing the country as well and out of those many of them will be landing on gaming opportunities that includes things on web free or metaverse and definitely we are here in uh really good news from UAE as well on how they would like to develop the games industry on top of the things they are doing in Abu Dhabi but let's get it back to the games market and how we think the opportunities you can materialize now at the moment in the country so uh the whole Global games Market have been a recession for 2022 and this is a

fact I think that you have seen you know all across the board that there's been a decrease uh in the market however there are regions that are actually grow in and one of the readers is actually you know Middle East and Africa so that region grew uh 6.6 last year if you think as well about players uh that's as well are really a junk population in this part of the world that they're really growing as a fastest Pace you know compared to other parts of the world and therefore you have a sizable uh player base there that is consuming games on that region so almost half a billion people play games in the region if we look more closely on you know the core markets in this region they are definitely free so then we have you know Emirates we have Saudi Arabia and we have Egypt uh the three of them with different uh Dynamics so in terms of audience you know Egypt is driving in the park and definitely there are more players in Egypt than any other country in the Middle East and North Africa region if you look into monetization then Saudi is leading the pack so really a strong Revenue driven from from this

country however you know Emirates is really following up in terms of monetization and definitely they are the best you know markets in terms of Revenue opportunities that also if you consider the whole gaming Market you know the growth of the market is almost you know from audience perspective it's growing 20 and it's five years so moving from 65 million to almost 90 million uh in uh in 2025 and similarly revenue is actually leveling from 2021 to 2025. so how the players look like in Saudi Arabia uh presume that is a little bit more mobile driven than other parts of the world and then when you consider Triple A they are more console driven than PC in terms of the kind of gender mostly male are playing games but actually that's changing with any generation so as you can see the new laptops the new kind of PCS that people is is buying we have more female Gamers coming in as well and really in

competitive space so if we consider the population of the country which is around 30 million 89 of the population declare themselves as Gamers so that means 21 people are considering themselves as gamers so what opportunities we see for game developers and Publishers definitely there is a matcher on my market you can capture in the region but let's be maybe more specific I think this is true across all media I think if you speak Arabic an Arabic is the fifth spoken language in the world with almost 300 people speaking the language not just in Middle East but all around the world there is not enough content in Arabic so definitely trying to make sure that your games on your lavik is a first path for you to leverage that opportunity then for sure you can culturalize it more and make it more relevant and make it more appealing for players in that in that audience base but I think that's the very minimum you need to consider if you like to capture that audience second is uh personal privileged I'm kind of a white man person I've been always represented in games but that's

not been the case for many people and particularly people in this part of the world have been always been the enemies I've been always the bad guys in the shooter games so you have the opportunity to capture that in a way that people can feel themselves in the game so they can feed the local they can be the Local Heroes they can be represented in a way that matters to them and then engage them in a different way that they used to be so that opportunity to make that part of the world represented in games it's an opportunity that everyone can exploit the third one is actually quite interesting um presume that if you think about history and this is not a history class The Way That civilization was born was in mesopotami right so that was you know a few centuries back you know six thousand years before Christ so uh there's a lot of stories that are in this part of the world that can be mainstream that can appealing globally you know to to the to the global audiences I invite encourage people to think about these stories so it's you know definitely things in mesopotamus Mesopotamia things on edit things on you know definitely Saudi Arabia Jordan

Israel there are plenty of stories that they have been told in in some forms of entertainment but not so much in games so definitely encourage everyone to look into these opportunities and that was all so I hope you enjoyed the presentation I had went through some of the content relatively quick I didn't want to go into some of these details but I'm really happy to take any questions that you have and give you some more insights on how we see the opportunities in the region any questions please yeah coming to you thank you for the presentation in terms of channels do you have any recommendations you know Facebook YouTube and so on excuse me so if you think about user acquisition specifically right presume that you know Facebook is definitely you know and Google are working well from your

acquisition perspective but it's true that there's an advantage Tick Tock are also quite effective I think as well there are some non-traditional you know channels that are used on on mobile acquisition that you can leverage so there are a few uh I would say distribution social network channels like visa for example that is a good opportunity for you to engage communities that are playing games especially on mobile and also I think opportunities that you can use more traditional media as well to leverage you know things like TV for example so for us I think that we are trying all of those and something that maybe is connected so something that was was mentioned before even things like SMS are becoming really attractive as well to drive installs considering you know distribution challenges that we see uh on on data under the Privacy as well um I've got a question what's the decentralization climate looking like from the perspective of gaming you mentioned uh local and historical cultural storytelling medieval Empires which is a fantastic

game IP is based in web 3 and decentralization and has seen it an immense amount of of attention without a single Western player inside that space so how do you see decentralization working in in the main region when a person that you know there is the opportunity to build specific communities in this part of the world that can engage with your game properly I I don't see that as you mentioned that they need to be building a global scale you know game that can just work on the region presume is about the kind of potential Edge you have to engage with that audience and if you are really into engage with local events local activity might make more sense to decentralize the opportunity and make sure that you have local teams looking into those and doesn't need to be in a global process we sell some local games doing quite well that are more things like maybe car games like you know similar to you know one called for example valud which is

you know a French based game called bellot in this case so there is really opportunities to engage with some of the communities with existing gameplay but also to create new gameplay that actually can engage with these audiences as well so I'm I'm all in favor for decentralization particularly you have the right community that you can develop that can definitely you know sustain your game for future Community yeah before room someone else puts a hand up for a question another question I've got is you talk to talk to the African Marketplace could you could just saying and it's pretty much untouched in these types of conferences yeah for sure I think that in Africa perspective there are mainly I think three main markets so one definitely South Africa which is I'm presumed in terms of monetization the one kind of driving really the bug in the same way that Saudi Arabia might be doing in Middle East presume as well that in terms of uh audience Nigeria is actually the one that is really you know driving the downloads as well so there is a as well a few some other countries that are

still you know developing a bit so think like you know Ivory Coast as well things like Ghana that can can ramp it a bit but uh presume that they are still uh from gaming perspective Zhang in terms of the device adoption and most of them are mostly focused on mobile as the first device they can play with so definitely an opportunity to grow the base over the particular when you think about this country is developing more in future do you see this is about like the African markets again do you think this is about mobile first fintech applications and less about things like Esports I mean Esports is massive in South Africa right now but if you go to places like Ghana or the Ivory Coast the communities are not so you know involved in Esports but they are definitely involved in mobile first fintech applications so that's probably a reason why they're more you know happy to do Mobile gaming Etc what what do you think about the relationship between what it is that sunsoft are doing here in terms of understanding the meaner area and the

relationship between fintech because I feel like all of these things especially this morning all feed into each other presume that in that context uh we need to take into account that this is really uh an audience that really needs value for money so definitely the disposable income is not as in other parts of the world so from that perspective uh they are Keen to explore entertainment but I think my between a way that can drive uh some some value to them which is in some cases monetary value so I think that some opportunities on skill based games can be over there like you know actually people can get uh real real money by by them playing and definitely I believe as well that there is an opportunity to engage with communities on areas that you can drive some Financial impact through some Partnerships particularly with Payment Solutions as you acknowledge and financial services over there so might not be ready yet in terms of monetization as as you know and definitely there is an opportunity on that one was the the kind of the the

spending power increases but from actual gameplay and engagement we find really assumption really Avid uh communities in in both Nigeria and South Africa as well I think going to Saudi Arabia for example I hear they're pretty strong you know is it worth utilizing or uplifting a relationship inside the Mena region for businesses that are out here today thinking about where to go next presumably yes then I think as I was telling before part of the national strategy for game Sunny is poised about attracting in this case you know foreign companies to establish in the market and make sure they can contribute to the to the audience growth and to the affiliate industry growth over there so that opportunity exists and I think the government is really supportive and it's providing plans for some of these companies to come over and to help them land over there as well for David have I covered everything in the main region for you all this morning please give him a massive Round of Applause thank you

really appreciate it [Music] [Applause]