During its first year Nine66 has concentrated on building communities that will enable us to support where it is most needed and initiate strong links to connect the Saudi ecosystem to the global industry.
Nine66 started with research into the community to be able to enhance the opportunities on the market and provide the best support. Our Saudi Arabia developer survey highlights the main statistics of the local developers and the full report is available for free to use as a reference when building their support programs for the ecosystem or relocation plans for global developers. On the other side, Nine66 put together an overview of the game development ecosystem in Saudi Arabia to make it easier for local and global game developers to navigate the kingdom’s support structures.Nine66 started a number of event series this past year catering to the local as well as the international games industry. IGDA Riyadh is holding a monthly networking event since March 2022 for all current or future game developers to come together and share their work; there are also regular meetings of game executives; and also main ecosystem builders.
As a finale for 2022, the inaugural Pocketgamer Connects Leaders Summit was held in Riyadh, where 120 games industry CEOs visited Riyadh to discuss the potential of the region and made plans for the future.As the MENA region is the fastest growing region with the best average revenue numbers, there are naturally have a number of game studios interested in publishing their games on the market. The Nine66 Publishing arm is supporting developers with full Arabic localisation, user acquisition, community, live-ops and publishing services. More news on this in 2023.
As a cherry on top, in December Nine66 was selected as no 1 in the Pocketgamer MENA top 30 list that lists the main players in teh game development field in the region.