Over the past year, the gaming sector in the Middle East has gone through a major shift. It's seen the split of one of its most successful teams (from Birdy Nam Nam to Game Cooks and Gamabox), the closure of a few main players, and the launch of several new gaming companies that are experimenting in the space. Overall, it's still a giant experiment; no one has cracked the model yet. From the nearly 30 gaming-focused startups we've covered from across the region over the past year, 18 original games have been launched. Only about nine really stand out. The regional opportunity, however, is huge. The Middle East, and the Gulf in particular, is some of the world's most active consumers of games, with a market estimated to be around $1.4 billion in 2011. Most gamers buy titles for consoles like Xbox and PlayStation, yet online and mobile games are also becoming more popular, thanks to rising penetration rates for smartphones- expected to reach to 39% by 2015- and internet use, which is higher than the global average at 40%. Now, the question is: can regional game developers reach those consumers? If the example of Angry Birds teaches one thing, it’s that there’s no simple formula to creating a successful title; Rovio famously created 51 poor performing titles before launching Angry Birds.
