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Esports in the Arab world between the different opportunities and obstacles that threaten its investments
Amr Selim
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Esports is one of the fastest growing technology investments in the world in general, and the Middle East and North Africa region in particular, as it is growing at a rate of 25 % per year and its expansion in the region is expected to reach nearly $ 6 billion by the end of today’s world. The sport has grown from a simple hobby of playing electronic games to becoming a huge investment industry, linked to many big brands with direct investments. These benefits have not been confined to businesses alone, but have also extended to gamers and individuals, and let’s not forget that these opportunities face a number of serious challenges that significantly threaten their future growth. Like the bad content provided to the masses, in addition to making sometimes inaccurate promises to young people from a number of investors in these games, which loses the credibility of many brands, and things get complicated with the lack of clear and transparent data. for this growing industry in the region or the volume of investment therein, which has heightened concerns in recent times and may pose a threat to this emerging industry.
Crises threaten the future of gaming
Esports is witnessing a set of crises that can threaten its future and throw these huge investment opportunities to the wall, or at least could slow its growth and limit its expansion in the period to come, which raised concerns from both “Edward Kondrat”, executive director of esports at Empire game from Dubai, United Arab Emirates, and “Mohammed Majali”, co-founder of DESTINY Sports, which were explained in a report Sports initiate, with little oversight or regulation, the start of the professional esports scene in the Middle East started to go wrong, and Al-Majali cited this as a course Dota 2When the tournament organizer threw another party, which ultimately led to riots, this news gave many general negative signs for esports in the region, and many companies were unwilling to do anything with the teams in the area. esport or event organizers, which caused a big blow. to these games and the related investments of their time.
The false promises of some companies, the loss of credibility in relations with the masses and the poor quality of the content provided to them are also considered among the most significant obstacles which threaten this industry and reduce the demand from the public, which leads finally to a decrease in the investment rate. It is difficult for tournament organizers and broadcasters to find the right formula to attract the greatest number of viewers. For example, the way the dialect and the way Arabic words are pronounced in the Gulf Cooperation Council differ from countries in North Africa, which reduces interaction and audience participation as these games mainly depend on the excitement and attraction of the attention of players and spectators. In addition, the lack of data and statistics on the volume of esports investment in the region, and the inability of some broadcasting platforms, Internet service providers, and even publishers to share their analytical data on the market, makes communication between companies and sponsors difficult, and considerably weakens the work of marketing activities.
On this subject, Majdi Al-Lulu, founder of the platform and the application, declares GrintafyAnd she works to uncover talent in the field of football and provide the necessary professional support to her players electronically, and she is based in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, in Wamda: “Unfortunately, esports culture does not is not sufficiently available, so building an electronic profile for the player and raising their rating is one of the most important things that should have been taken into consideration before, so we have been working for two years to consolidate this culture and the broadcast in the region. At first, the public thought that we were an application dedicated to booking football stadiums, but over time we have reached 500,000 electronic profiles on the platform, which is a great achievement that has been achieved. This has allowed us to complete two investment rounds of “Waed”, as well as a group of angel investors, and the third will arrive within 3 months.
“Lulu” called on the various sports facilities in Arab countries to support the applications of electronic games, to encourage investments in them, and to support emerging companies in this field to develop the volume of their investments, while providing a financial, logistical and technological support, which can change this industry and gain worldwide attention.
Huge profits
Despite the challenges that this industry faces, it should be remembered that it is currently growing at an undisturbed rate, but could take off strongly in the years to come if efforts are made to overcome these obstacles, as according to the research conducted by Damian Radcliffe, University of Oregon researcher, In February 2021, on the growing popularity of esports in the Middle East, it emerged that the region is one of the largest gaming markets in growth in the world, where virtual reality games and competitive sports are developing alongside the growing community of active gamers and the spread of the internet, the gaming and esports industry is expected to experience in the Middle East and North Africa, a boom in the near future, for example, in October 2019, the company W companiesBased in Dubai, it will spend $ 50 million to develop a local esports and gaming ecosystem in the Middle East and North Africa. Meanwhile, in Turkey, Europe’s largest esports website has opened, and Kuwaiti telecommunications company Zain Group – which has 50 million customers in the Middle East and North Africa – recently launched a new esports brand, which is “Sport waiting‘, with the aim of creating a calendar of regional online esports tournaments.
The benefits of esports weren’t just limited to large corporations or emerging companies. Individuals and young players can now practice it and derive huge profits from it, and its players can now participate in international tournaments or obtain sponsors from large companies, the most A vivid example of this is “Anubis Gaming”. An Egyptian esports team received $ 460,000 in two rounds of seed funding last year, which they intend to use to recruit more players and coaches, in addition to young Egyptian Ali Barakat, who has become a professional player. MonitoringAnd he was able to participate in international competitions and tournaments until he reached 60 A thousand dollars in profit in just one year, and we also see the German of Lebanese origin, “Mohamed Harkous”, who made 250 thousand dollars in profit in 2019 by winning the world championship of electronic games “FIFA” , to confirm that making money from this sport is not limited to investors and owners Not only companies, but also the individuals who practice them.
Related sectors
The world of esports has not only limited itself to these opportunities, but has been associated with a wide range of different sponsors and stakeholders, such as energy drinks; And the various renowned international brands which have taken advantage of the demand of young people for this sport and the growth of their audience to also participate in these investments as sponsors or financiers of the most famous e-sports teams in the Middle- East and North Africa.
These are some companies that make special stadiums and studios for these esports, such as Power League Gaming (PLG), an esports specialist in the United Arab Emirates, which recently announced the launch of a 10,000 square foot fully equipped production studio in the region, specifically designed to deliver premium esports content, equipped with the latest broadcast equipment and IT infrastructure, and the company has invested in the crowd thirst for these sports through the creation of a large cafe that contains live broadcasts of competitions and competing teams. This has been confirmed by Matthew Pickering, CEO of the company, that his company is looking to integrate games into its marketing strategies, which helps to increase the audience base, while achieving a tangible return on investment by producing innovative mechanisms that link global brands to the region’s large esports audience.
Which confirms that if more attention is paid to the future of investments in these sports and games in the region and the obstacles that hinder their growth and expansion are removed, then many major industries and global brands can be theirs. associates, which will take advantage of the large public participation for them – especially among the youth category – to promote its products and increase its marketing and promotion capabilities.
large audience
With the boom in internet usage in the region, its audience is growing and the volume of investment is growing, so that the scale of the spread of this industry has overtaken Europe and Asia, according to a study announced by YouGovIn 2020, it was found that the majority of gamers in the region are playing on their smartphones or tablets. In Egypt, 58% play on mobile devices compared to 57% in the United Arab Emirates, 52% in Saudi Arabia and 51% in Iraq, rates that rival their counterparts in high-income countries outside the region, where the Egypt has the largest number of players with 68%, followed by the United Arab Emirates (65%), Saudi Arabia (61%), and Iraq (57%).
Said Sharaf, CEO of Esports Middle East, specializing in esports tournaments, told Wamda: “It is difficult to know the size of the Arab market as the industry is growing rapidly globally, but we are aiming for 6 millions of fans of these sports. . ” competitions over 70 million players, with the greatest opportunities in the players themselves, team management, the creation of accompanying content, as well as staff organizing activities.
Sharaf expects a prosperous future for esports within 3 years, especially with the investment of many international companies in the region and the creation of employment and competitive opportunities for players. Investments are also increasing in terms of partnerships or team building, but … he came back and pointed out that there are a number of challenges that need to be faced and overcome, such as technological infrastructure. which requires great development, and also for gamers, the false negative image of parents is the first obstacle, as professional video games for them consider more time wasted in creating the future of their children and their education, as for them. activities, and this is seen as a lack of Knowledge of marketing managers and decision makers of the details of the work are the obstacles that make them invest little in it.
Esports has grown into an independent industry that has attracted a lot of investment to the region over the past decade, but … years to come, especially as it faces fierce competition from large companies based in Europe and the United States of America!
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