Saudi Arabia has decided to invest $38 billion in the gaming industry to make its economy more diverse and move away from oil dependency. The Public Investment Fund (PIF), a sovereign wealth fund, will pour this amount into the $184 billion global gaming industry.
Savvy Gaming Group, a subsidiary of PIF, will lead the financing. Savvy was previously focused on the eSports sector but will now expand into game development and publishing.
As quoted by Bloomberg, CEO Savvy Brian Ward explained that they were mainly an eSports firm but this year they will concentrate more on game development and publishing.
Saudi Arabia currently has no significant involvement in the gaming industry, however, despite that its population of gamers is growing.
Analysts from Niko Partners, a market research company, stated that there are roughly 21 million gamers in Saudi Arabia, making up about 58 percent of its population. This is huge as it competes with the second-biggest gaming population in the world, the US.
Likewise, the gaming industry in West Asia and North Africa is projected to increase by 56 percent to $2.79 billion by 2026. PIF has also invested billions of dollars in gaming companies such as Nintendo, Tencent Holdings, and Activision Blizzard.
It is the biggest foreign shareholder of Nintendo with an 8.3 percent stake. PIF now hopes to purchase studios and publishers to achieve its goal of becoming a leading entertainment center by 2030.
