Media City Qatar drives MENA gaming industry growth

🇵🇭 [TODAY NEWS] Philippines iGaming: A New Direction for Player Engagement? The Philippine online gaming market continues to evolve, and Bloomberry Resorts' recent launch of OnlyFun.PH is another development worth watching. The new platform brings together online gaming, livestreaming, and interactive entertainment, reflecting a broader shift in how gaming companies are exploring player engagement. 🔎 What does this signal for the industry? 🎮 Beyond Game Variety: Player experience and interaction are becoming increasingly important. 📱 Evolving Player Expectations: Digital entertainment, social features, and accessibility are shaping how platforms engage audiences. 🌏 New Opportunities for Content Providers: As gaming experiences evolve, localized content and market adaptability remain important considerations. 💡 The Bigger Picture For operators and content providers across Asia, developments like this raise an interesting question: Is the future of iGaming moving beyond traditional game offerings toward more interactive entertainment ecosystems? 💬 What's your take? Will social-driven gaming experiences play a bigger role in Asia's iGaming market? 🔗 𝘚𝘰𝘶𝘳𝘤𝘦: 𝘐𝘯𝘴𝘪𝘥𝘦 𝘈𝘴𝘪𝘢𝘯 𝘎𝘢𝘮𝘪𝘯𝘨 | 𝘖𝘤𝘵𝘰𝘣𝘦𝘳 8, 2026 #iGaming #PhilippinesGaming #iGamingAsia #OnlineGaming #PlayerEngagement #GamingIndustry #GameAggregation

Gaming in Saudi Arabia is moving far beyond entertainment. It’s becoming a serious space for business, technology, investment and partnerships. 🎮🇸🇦 Bringing 20,000+ attendees and global industry leaders together in Riyadh shows just how quickly the ecosystem is growing. Looking forward to seeing what Kingdom of Gaming brings to Riyadh this December and the new opportunities it creates across the region. The gaming economy in KSA is just getting started. 🚀

Saudi Arabia is all set to become a meeting point for the global gaming industry this December, when the inaugural Kingdom of Gaming brings together over 20,000 attendees, 500 studios and developers, 300 exhibitors and sponsors, and 200 investors for the event being staged at the Riyadh Exhibition and Convention Center in Malham from December 1–3, 2026. Across the three days of Kingdom of Gaming, decision-makers across game development, publishing, technology, investment, government, and esports will gather in Riyadh to discuss potential partnerships, investment opportunities, and the forces shaping the gaming industry's next phase. The event’s industry roster is being led by Riyadh-based gaming and esports company Savvy Games Group, France-based video game publisher Ubisoft, and California-based online gaming platform Roblox, all participating as the event's Global Gaming Leaders. They will be joined by Founding Partners Riyadh-based technology training provider Tuwaiq Academy | أكاديمية طويق, Saudi Arabia giga-project NEOM, and global cloud computing provider Amazon Web Services (AWS). In a statement, Annabelle Mander, Executive Vice President of Tahaluf, the KSA-based organizer of Kingdom of Gaming, said, “The gaming industry has evolved into one of the world's most creative and commercial sectors, but there are very few platforms that bring together every part of that ecosystem. Kingdom of Gaming has been built to connect the people making investment decisions, developing games, building technology and creating new business opportunities. Our ambition is simple: to make Riyadh a place where the global gaming industry comes together to do business.” More about what you can expect from Kingdom of Gaming in our full article here: https://lnkd.in/dTHEJDwG #KingdomOfGaming #SaudiArabia #KSA #Riyadh #events #gaming #tech #gamedev #innovation #investment #business #GCC #MiddleEast #MENA

Esports in MENA is growing faster than the tools built for it. For the last year I've been building Pickorban, an Arabic-first gaming and esports platform: live matches, standings, prize pools, tier lists and a 660+ organization directory across MENA and Africa, in Arabic, French and English. This week we shipped something I'm proud of: embeddable live-data widgets. Any site, media outlet, org or tournament can drop Pickorban's live esports data into their own pages. Free, no API key, one line of code, and every embed is Powered by Pickorban. If you run a team, a tournament, a media site, or a brand moving into MENA esports, I'd love to talk about: • Putting your data and events in front of our audience • Embedding our live widgets on your site • Arabic-first content and localization partnerships Comment or DM me. Let's build the layer MENA esports has been missing. pickorban.com/embed

Philippines-based Bloomberry expanding online offer with OnlyFun.PH platform: Philippines-listed casino operator Bloomberry Resorts Corp says it is expanding its digital gaming business with the launch of OnlyFun.PH. The company describes OnlyFun.PH as the Philippines’ “first regulated live interactive entertainment platform combining gaming, livestreaming, and creator-led content”. The new platform is part of Bloomberry’s FUNaloMAX digital portfolio and is “designed to tap the growing preference […]

The gaming and esports industry continues to experience strong growth, driven by increasing consumer spending, rising M&A activity, and the rapid expansion of user-generated content (UGC) platforms such as Roblox and Fortnite. Investors are increasingly attracted to gaming studios, digital content creators, and gaming-related intellectual property (IP), while new revenue opportunities are emerging through the adaptation of gaming franchises into films, television, and other entertainment channels. At the same time, countries such as Saudi Arabia are making significant investments to establish themselves as global gaming and esports hubs. However, alongside these growth opportunities, the industry faces increasing regulatory scrutiny in areas including antitrust and competition law, digital market regulation, app store practices, data privacy, online safety, child protection, cybersecurity, and the use of artificial intelligence. As a result, gaming companies must balance innovation and commercial expansion with robust compliance, risk management, and consumer protection measures to achieve sustainable long-term growth in an increasingly complex regulatory environment.

4 Years in Saudi Arabia. 4 years of building in Gaming, esports, sports, entertainment, automotive, tourism & Vision 2030. From Gamers8, the first lightpole entertainment IP putting Imagine Dragons on stage, and the Kingdom on the map. To ground breaking M&A deals, and a $100B Entertainment ecosystem spanning Electronic Arts (EA), Scopely, MOONTON GAMES, DAZN, Kings League, Paramountt - hopefully Warner Bros. Discovery by 2027. This is a jam packed podcasts full of nuggets and secrets: About the EA deal, massive distribution engines, how Formula 1, FIFA, Paramount, DAZN and Saudis own media IPs like the Esports World Cup reaching 850M fans already accelerate & compound growth. Watch the Podcast: https://lnkd.in/eNEvs6Jx But it’s also very personal: From late night dinners with ministers and LAN Parties with members of the Royal Family, because this country has welcomed me with open arms from day 1, that I will be forever grateful for.nbsp; We talk about the art of speed scaling and how Saudi is able to do in 5 years, what would take 15 in the US. The love for Gaming by the Crown Prince, how it inspires hotel resorts, Qiddiya and even CEERs revolutionary new car. Had soo many conversations with the one and only Peter George Bell, fr. Head of Strategic Transformation at EA, who is now building his podcasting empire Purpose Made Podcast bringing legends on like fr. PlayStation CEO shawn layden, talking inside baseball about the challenges and opportunities for our industry. Saudi has become a major player in Gaming & Entertainment within just 5 years which carries an enormous amount of responsibility for thousands of new colleagues in an era with a lot of transformational challenges - that also present fresh Billion Dollar opportunities given much larger distribution networks. And the Kingdom is just getting started on its path to SAR 1 trillion // 267 Billion US-Dollar non-oil revenue target for 2030, so expect much more growth moves. This is one of those podcasts, you don’t want to miss - might contain nuggets of gold and secrets that you won’t hear anywhere else :O)

50M+ installs. A product reaching millions starts with reaching the right audience. Rooter, India’s gaming and esports live-streaming app, is one of the products Nexgino has supported through digital marketing. For us, digital marketing isn’t just about visibility. It’s about creating the right connection between a product and the people it is built for. That’s the thinking behind our approach: real products, real audiences, measurable impact. Products, not pitches. #Nexgino #DigitalMarketing #Rooter #Gaming #Esports #LiveStreaming #DigitalGrowth #ProductMarketing #TechWithAccountability #BuiltNotSold #GrowthMarketing #IndianTech

Before you commit budget to your next gaming activation, pressure-test the plan. A strong concept needs more than a polished deck. The audience, event format, budget and delivery approach need to work together. Through MNA Group, I support brands, organisers and gaming businesses with esports strategy, event advisory, brand activation and community planning, and proposal or budget reviews. My perspective comes from publisher work, agency consulting and hands-on gaming business operations. Swipe through the carousel for the services, starting rates and how engagements work. Planning an activation, tournament or gaming business project? DM me your goal, target timeline and biggest challenge. We can discuss the right advisory scope before work begins. #Esports #GamingMarketing #BrandActivation

Getting the XR sports ecosystem to work together took two years. Proving fans will pay for it is the harder part. In a new APB+ (Asia-Pacific Broadcasting+) interview, Lucy Trang Nguyen, our Director of Strategic Alliances & Business Development, Emerging Technologies, explains what's next for the XR Sports Alliance (XRSA): moving from pilots to a commercial model. At FISE Montpellier 2026, XRSA tested sponsorship integration with real fans to see whether branded elements felt natural and created real commercial interest. With CAA Sports now among its 33 members, the alliance is turning that data into revenue frameworks for rights owners and brands. What would immersive need to prove before it earns a place in your budget? Read the full interview in APB+: https://lnkd.in/drTXnhDM