A lack of funding, cultural misconceptions and AI replacements – how studios in the Middle East are overcoming obstacles to game development
Gaming has come to be massive in recent years. With industry-wide revenues dwarfing those of the film and music industries combined, it’s clear that the demand for new games is only growing.
But while the demand is there for gaming all across the globe, the places games are being made is a bit narrow.
With most studios being located in the global West – with the U.S. a clear frontrunner – and Asian nations like Japan, China and South Korea quickly catching up, the industry has a tendency to limit itself to a few places.
But the newest region to enter the scene is the Middle East and North Africa (MENA). With the region already having made valuable contributions to the industry in the lanes of mobile and web3 gaming, and e-sports in the region skyrocketing, it’s quickly become one of the fastest growing gaming industries in the world.
Ashraf Abi Said, an experienced game developer from Lebanon and lecturer of game narrative design at the American University of Beirut (AUB), spoke on the challenges facing the region, and how it’s flourishing in the face of adversity.
He says: “Currently, the MENA region is the fastest growing region for game development – that gives me real hope.”
Ashraf gave an insightful overview of the region’s different industries, noting Turkey’s general success in the industry, Saudi Arabia as a key player in global e-sports and the UAE’s ventures into web3 games.
He continues: “Countries like UAE, and Saudi are working really hard to get the gaming industry up to par.
“We’re usually seen as more ‘primitive’ than other areas, which really sucks, because it’s just not true.”
Ashraf, who is involved with a handful of initiatives – some of his own creation – such as LebGameDev, Gaming Academy and Arabic Games which aim to promote the gaming industry in MENA, shared his experiences of ‘crunch culture’ – where devs are required to do unpaid overtime during the development of a game – in the region.
“Yes, crunch culture does exist here too. But I would say that studios here run like most other jobs. Which is good and bad – yes, a lot of passion needs to be put into games, but this often leads companies in the wrong direction.
“I would say that from what I’ve seen in Lebanon, games in the region take employees’ health a bit more seriously [compared to the rest of the world], and don’t run their companies like churn factories.”
Crunch culture, which is a problem for game developers in studios all over the world, has only become a more prevalent issue over the past few years as AI has become a looming threat for devs. And with the possibility of AI replacing a lot of roles in the production process, the expected workload for devs has only got worse.
Speaking on AI in the gaming industry in MENA, Ashraf says: “If I work for a company, and I don’t feel like my job is safe, I’ll do one of two things.
“Either look for another job and leave the industry, or work myself to the bone just so I can stay – this in itself is part of the crunch culture problem, causing people to burnout and leave the industry.”
And studios adopting AI has become a regular practice in gaming companies in recent times, which has been widely criticised, as it’s often being used as an outright replacement for human labour – which has played a part in seeing many developers being laid off in recent years.
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Ashraf says: “Yes, I’d say that I’ve seen layoffs secondhand – thankfully my company wasn’t impacted.
“This is absolutely terrible – nobody should go through something like this. Executives really need to take some responsibility for the choices they make.
“Given they make hundreds of millions of dollars a year, sparing a few million to pay the people they hired to make things, instead of just letting them go would be welcomed.”
“A lot of companies also use AI as it’s cheap – cheaper than hiring an artist, for example, as with the click of a button you can make something new.
“Usually we’d use AI for arduous tasks like testing game stability, rather than actually making the game for us. I see games as an art form, and if you’re not producing your own art, you’re just copying someone else’s.”
Ashraf also shared his academic perspective on the effects of AI in game development, which are particularly profound in narrative design.
“When it comes to narrative design – the main thing I teach in my classes is tell your own stories, not someone else’s, because no-one has lived the life you’ve lived.
“So if you want to use generative AI, be my guest, but you’ve basically just lost your handle on the story that you’re writing, because someone else is writing it for you.”
Education on game development in the region is also growing more popular and accessible, but it’s not without issues.
“I wouldn’t say there’s enough education in MENA, no, which is why I started up an initiative called Game Development Initiative for the Global South (GIGS).
“We realised that there aren’t enough courses that are able to teach people everything that has to do with game development.
“In Lebanon, a lot of universities are starting to add game development into their curriculum, through special courses, which is really wonderful to see. More and more people are learning – and getting excited about getting into this industry.”
“However, an even bigger issue we sometimes face is the lack of tech needed. When you have students from computer-based subjects – computer science, engineering, that sort of thing – they usually have good hardware for their studies. But for some other students, they don’t have that access they need.
“For example, when we started the Gaming Academy, and we asked people if they would like to learn Unity or Unreal engine – the number of people that decided to stick with Unity was surprising. But they weren’t staying with it because they were more interested in the engine – it’s because their devices weren’t able to run Unreal engine.
“So that’s a huge problem. The hurdles of accessibility means that we have to adapt our teaching.”
“Another issue is that some courses aren’t taught by people in the industry – they’re instead taught by people in wider tech or design fields. Which is a start, but it would also be wonderful to see people with experience in the industry teaching.
“But that requires there being a space for them to have that experience here in the region. And for that space to exist, there needs to be companies – which won’t happen without funding, which then needs a level of international trust that we as game developers can actually get the job done.”
While more and more people from the region are training to get into gaming industries, the area has issues retaining that workforce.
He continues: “It’s definitely our biggest problem. The workforce usually ends up leaving the country as the work opportunities abroad are much better – it’s not through any fault of their own.
While studios in countries like UAE and Saudi Arabia have began to expand the norms of gaming in MENA, the region has struggled a bit to break free of some of the boxes they’ve found themselves in.
“If you go back a couple of years, you’ll see that a lot of companies in the region were working on mobile games, and that’s because these games are seen as an easy entry way into game development,” Ashraf says.
“Unfortunately, this kind of got companies stuck in making mobile games, and made it harder for devs to break into PC and console games.”
Ashraf brushed off some of the struggles of the region, saying that investment is paramount to seeing the region thrive – but without any international ‘trust and investment’ in the region’s people, it’s unlikely to come.
“There are some investments happening, though. In Saudi and UAE, investments in a variety of gaming businesses are increasing their foothold in the global games industry.
“The fruits of the labour put in by local games companies is yet to be seen, but in nations like Morocco there’s been a particular focus on strengthening this sector. Alongside the success of e-sports in the region, I have no doubts about the growth of indie games in MENA.
“Unfortunately, there’s a bit of a divide, with that growth not being seen of the other nations in the region.
“It would be nice to see some support so that those countries can grow, as if we want the region to grow, we need the whole region to grow.”
The benefits of investment in the MENA games industry are clear. “The number of companies still making mistakes when it comes to their products in Arabic – whether its Marvel, or whatever AAA company, foolishly writing Arabic from left to right, in the opposite direction than it’s supposed to be, for example. It’s quite embarrassing,” says Ashraf.
“Any of the 300+ million Arabic reading individuals that glance at the texts in these products can see the mistakes.” Rami Ismail event made a website to help people on this particular issue.
“If you have those people for the region working on your projects – that unlocks a huge population of gamers, that will really appreciate that extra bit of work you’ve done.”
That ignorance from the rest of the world doesn’t end there, sadly. Ashraf also discussed how negative sentiments about the region have a knock-on effect on the gaming industry.
“I’ve also heard the sentiment: ‘Oh, you guys don’t have electricity over there. We can’t trust you with our investment money’ – this cuts money off from entering the industry here.”
In Beirut specifically – where Ashraf is from – game development took off following the Port of Beirut explosion in 2020, as people set out to start new business ventures in the wake of the incident.
Years later, things in the region have unfortunately remained rocky with several ongoing conflicts. Ashraf argues that the negative headlines further puts off those investors, who are ‘worried that their business will get bombed or have someone kill their employees’.
“One of my biggest gripes with this industry is that we’re shut down by that absence of investment – and then those people will go and invest in companies that are making games that are about killing Arabs,” he says.
“Particularly as a narrative designer, I really hate playing a lot of first-person shooter games, because generally I see myself playing as the ‘white saviour’ and invading a land that looks suspiciously similar to mine – and killing people that look just like me.
While the issues facing the region are definitely there, his outlook remains positive and hopeful. He says: “I don’t blame people for not wanting to work here: Not everybody has that affection for this place, as it isn’t their home, and they don’t see the region the same way that we do.
“But generally, the gaming industry here is not as good as it can be. It is rapidly improving though, which is wonderful to see.”
