![]() " So really trying to create the best products we can with the best people we can bring to the company and then make sure based on where we are leveraging some of the support that in this case government have provided us. I mean we are not different from any kind of game development company in the world." " So you know when you think about that you think about we are a company based in Saudi some people we kind of raise their eyebrow and think you know is that true? But actually it's true. ![]() We have almost 30% of our staff is female." " Similarly on game development particularly is not an industry that we have enough female and we have not enough female talent and women are something that we were trying to grow in the industry. For example in the 53 people that we are across the different locations I mentioned we have 24 nationalities which is on a company this size quite unique." " But similarly I think that we are trying to assemble truly multicultural, multi kind of national and diverse teams. That said I feel that as I was mentioning to you before there is maybe more support that we get in this case from the government that is helping companies to establish, to you know grow, to you know definitely mitigate some of the risks that game development has." We are trying to capture the same market opportunity. " So from that perspective there is no difference on having a company in Saudi Arabia versus you know Finland. So how do you think you know having more studios based in Arabia can sort of impact or shape the industry going forward? Yes, so I presume that you know particularly mobile games industry but that might be applicable for games industry overall is a global business, right? I think that generally speaking there are really small companies that work on specific segments, specific markets or specific niche let's say audiences." ![]() " We've seen this for example in football, new markets, new industries enter the fray let's say and we've seen this with video games with China and with Korea as of late. And you said that the country itself is changing in that regard and their industry within but I guess this is also going to have an impact on the video games industry itself." " So there is as far as I understand the only country in the world that have games as part of the national strategy. ![]() You have certain regions in the world, you have certain cities in the world that have some support for game development and trying to incentivize companies to establish, help them grow and participate in some of the vehicles for promotion of the games industry but here is the actual country." " So one of the things that in this particular case the Saudi government did a few months ago in September, they announced the National Games and Esports Strategy which is an actual national strategy and this is kind of unique. So in a given way you are part of a change that is happening in this country, you feel somehow you are making history if you know what I mean and then it's really exciting to be that in a country that has a firm belief on investing in games." " Similarly the country is going through a big socio-economical transformation. I think that you are going not just through creating a kind of industry because games industry is not there so we are trying to contribute towards the growth of the industry." " What can you tell us about running a studio in KSA and being there, life in there, developing games in Saudi Arabia? Well it's been really a journey and when I mean a journey it's in a positive way. And these are, one is a RPG game, another one is a racing game, the third one is an Astralis game and the fourth one is another RPG game but with an NFT kind of layer on top of that game." " All of them are kind of core, mid-core, trying to target more a kind of male, more engaged audience. And which are your main products as of now? So at the moment we don't have a game I can tell you this is available in the market so we are testing a few of them from the publishing pipeline perspective and we are developing as well with third party four games at this stage." " We have smaller offices as well in Shanghai and also in Helsinki. We started our journey in 2021 and we are having presence in different locations so we have a small team here in Barcelona, 8 people, probably 30 people in Riyadh, in Saudi Arabia." So, we are a mobile first game developer and publisher based in Saudi Arabia and we are trying to create not just games but a company because we are in a startup." " What do you guys do at Sunsoft? Lovely. Thank you so much for joining us, David." " All right, we are at Gamelab Barcelona 2023 and now it's time to talk about mobile gaming for a little while, what we can play now and what we can play perhaps in the future.
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