Gaming for the greater good: Investing in Creative Solutions to grow Saudi Arabia’s booming sector

Gaming in Saudi Arabia is one sector that offers phenomenal room for growth. “Booming globally, and especially in Saudi Arabia,” is how AlZamil describes the gaming industry.
Last year, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman announced that Saudi Arabia would be investing $38 billion in the gaming and esports industry.

There are 23.5 million gamers in Saudi Arabia, a country with a population of 35 million people. Gaming consumption in Saudi Arabia is projected to surge to $6.8 billion by 2030 and grow at a CAGR (compound annual growth rate) of 22 per cent through 2030 from $959 million in 2020, reports the Boston Consulting Group.

Ithra itself has contributed to the research on the hugely popular pastime in Saudi Arabia. The ‘Saudi Arabia Cultural and Creative Landscape Mapping Report’ published by Ithra at the end of 2021 showed that video games in the Kingdom exceeded $1 billion in revenues in 2019, growing by 41% since 2017.

Internet podcasting is also consumed significantly by the population, with Saudi Arabia the biggest user of YouTube per capita worldwide. In addition, the report revealed that the Cultural and Creative Industry (CCI) contributed 1.5% to Saudi GDP in 2018, and that the industry itself is growing at 13% annually.

Local games, however, represent less than 1% of downloaded games – a key indicator that huge possibilities exist to flip the coin from Saudi Arabia being No.1 consumers to leading producers in the industry.

The third cycle of the Creative Solutions initiative by Ithra fosters innovation and creation that makes a discernible difference to the lives of people across Saudi Arabia and beyond.
While Creative Solutions revolves around “immersive content”, a huge part of that is gaming – and practical games that provide real life solutions as well as games for entertainment purposes. Gaming for the greater good, if you will.

Conceived as a way of boosting Saudi’s creative economy, the previous two cycles featured selected projects enriching education, healthcare, tourism, art, technology, and the gaming sectors. To be a part of the third cycle of Creative Solutions, all citizens and residents of Saudi Arabia over the age of 18 can submit proposals to participate up until Wednesday, April 12, 2023.

The five finalists of the program will receive a total of $100,000 as well as a raft of invaluable development, collaboration, and mentorship opportunities. The latest edition aims to build an ecosystem of innovators who are working on immersive technologies ranging from virtual reality to augmented reality, mixed reality, haptics and immersive audio.

But beyond creation and innovation, Creative Solutions also actively seeks investors. The Creative Solutions program presents two areas of investment opportunity: firstly, to elevate the quality of cross-sectional engagement and capitalize on knowledge sharing opportunities from leading experts in the XR (Extended Reality) industry. And, secondly, outcomes through main milestones that present strong investment opportunities through funding prototypes or individuals’ skills and employability.

Investment will “support unique, original content”, says AlZamil, “and creative ideas that have never been in the market before”. She adds: “What’s so unique is that it’s coming from Saudi culture, and that’s a different aspect to what currently exists.”

Investment opportunities exist both for the greater good and expansion of technology in Saudi Arabia and return on investment. “But the priority is the greater good,” says AlZamil. “The program graduates ideas and prototypes that can be taken to later stages to help with the return.”

There are two aspects of the program prototypes: creative and artistic based experiences, and practical based experiences. One practical example from the second cycle is Jeddah nurse Abdullah Alosaimi’s ‘Syringe and Pandemic’ immersive VR (virtual reality) game created to improve the medical skills of fellow healthcare sector professionals.

The game requires players to find a syringe to administer medicine to save the life of a patient in an operating room and was devised to help combat shortages of medical staff across the world.

A creative and artistic example is Bangladeshi artist Naima Karim’s three-dimensional VR experience ‘The Anticipation of Rain’ from the first Creative Solutions cycle. Paralyzed by a virus for a year that meant she could do nothing but look at the sky, Karim used her predicament to inspire herself to get better and inspire others to further understand the effects of climate change.

To create ‘The Anticipation of Rain’ prototype, Naima learned to paint using virtual reality painting tools. This enabled her to create 3D digital paint strokes to digitally visualize her artistic style within virtual reality in an incredible manner.

“Naima wanted to reflect her experience and transfer it to the public in an immersive way,” says AlZamil, who remembers this piece as one of her favorites from the previous two cycles. “She’s now fully recovered and doing well.”

The creation also amplifies how a cultural center such as Ithra can really contribute to the booming sectors of gaming and immersive content. “As a cultural center, we want to invest in the cultural aspect, the design aspect, the creative aspect of gaming, and the core idea of games,” says AlZamil.

“That’s Creative Solutions’ main focus. Ithra’s scope is to contribute to the culture and creative industry by supporting talent and content development through a wide range of initiatives, with Creative Solutions one of the great examples of that.

“When it comes to partnership and investment there are two fronts, not only investing in people and individuals, but investing in knowledge sharing. We always try and get best-in-class partners to help us in upskilling and who are willing to share knowledge and be part of master classes.

“We are certain there are prototypes from Creative Solutions that businesses will be able to utilize – be that in terms of experiences, content, training, simulations or real-life practical examples.”

For more information on investment partnerships, please see Corporate & Sponsorships | Ithra