Saudi Arabia is placing the gaming and esports sector at the heart of its economic transformation, allocating billions of dollars to build the Kingdom into a global hub for creativity and investment in digital entertainment. Backed by a national strategy, the Kingdom aims to position itself as a leader in game development, publishing, and competitive esports.
A clear demonstration of this ambition came with the Esports World Cup, hosted in Riyadh, which drew more than 2,000 players from 200 clubs from over 100 countries. The seven-week tournament concluded on Sunday night with Prince Mohammed bin Salman, Crown Prince and Prime Minister, awarding Saudi Arabia’s Team Falcons as champions of the 2025 edition.
Spanning 25 competitions across 24 different games, the event featured record-breaking prize pools of more than $70 million, redefining the scale of global esports contests and underscoring the Kingdom’s ability to combine innovation and creativity in a rapidly expanding industry.
Speaking at the New Global Sport Conference, Prince Faisal bin Bandar bin Sultan, President of the Saudi Esports Federation, emphasized that “games will always remain at the core of this industry - whether in development, esports, or content creation.”
He noted that gaming revenues in the Middle East and North Africa reached $6 billion in 2024, with Saudi Arabia accounting for more than a third of that figure. The region, he added, encompasses 22 countries and over 250 million gamers.
The role of Savvy
At a press conference in Riyadh, Brian Ward, CEO of Savvy Games Group, outlined the company’s pivotal role in attracting international partners.
Global outreach tours led by Prince Faisal, he explained, are part of the national gaming and esports strategy that has no parallel elsewhere in the world.
Savvy has already invested around SAR 50 billion ($13 billion) in game development and publishing, securing high-profile deals with Scopely and Niantic, while also establishing local studios in Riyadh.
Walter Driver, CEO of Scopely, which was acquired by Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund in July 2023 for $4.9 billion, shared details of the company’s recent performance. In 2024 alone, Scopely recorded over 5 billion hours of gameplay, with half of its active players logging in daily.
He revealed that its titles have been downloaded more than one billion times worldwide, generating cumulative revenues of over $10 billion in 2024.
Since 2019, the company has maintained a compound annual growth rate of 53 percent, far outpacing the global industry average. Flagship titles such as Monopoly Go, Pokémon Go, and Star Trek Fleet Command have each surpassed $5 billion in revenues individually.
Saudi Arabia’s rise in the global gaming and esports arena is part of its broader Vision 2030 to diversify the economy and foster creative industries. By 2030, the sector is expected to contribute more than 50 billion riyals to GDP and create nearly 39,000 new jobs.
The Kingdom also plans to establish 250 new local gaming companies, cementing its role as a key player in an industry now valued at more than $200 billion globally.
