Saudi Arabia is a lucrative market for mobile games, particularly due to its high concentration of heavy spenders. There is however a dearth of data to assist both foreign and local publishers to navigate with clarity and confidence. At Casual Connect Europe Amir-Esmaeil Bozorgzadeh of Gameguise shared insights on how to pierce the veil and offer proven strategies to help tackle this den of whales and what this market represents. One thing to keep in mind is that “About half of Saudis are using prepaid cards for their in-app purchases.” It is little bits of knowledge like this that can hep you target this lucrative audience.
DOWNLOAD SLIDES
Amir-Esmaeil Bozorgzadeh is the Co-Founder of Gameguise, a mobile game publisher in the Middle East and specializes in consulting with global game developers and those who need assistance in understanding and operating in this particular market. The company is based in Dubai, and just recently they discussed their work and insight into the game industry with Casual Connect.
Casual Connect: Tell us about the work you do at Gameguise. How did you come about to work at your Gameguise?
Amir-Esmaeil Bozorgzadeh: I’ve been wearing an entrepreneurial hat for five years and I’ve always tried to associate any venture or collaboration with the game industry. Co-founding Gameguise back in 2013 is the most recent manifestation of that effort, especially as it has me increasingly involved in the development aspect of game projects we work to localize in the Middle East. The majority of our work, however, continues to revolve around being the guys with all the right numbers to provide global publishers with the KPIs they need when entering new markets. In most cases that translates to us managing the helm in terms of marketing know-how and execution.
CC: What is your favorite thing about your job?
Amir-Esmaeil: Being empowered to act. There is nothing more disheartening than working within the ranks of a large organization and feeling powerless to participate in the process of innovation. I thrive when I am permitted to make things happen. Nothing is more satisfying than watching things unfold before your eyes and knowing you were at least partially responsible.
CC: How have your past career experiences been helpful to you in your current position?
Amir-Esmaeil: Meeting mentors along the way, even if they weren’t clearly marked as such at the time. In retrospect, there have been a series of superstars I have encountered who have taught me certain psychological aspects of what it takes to be a good collaborator. Of course there are also a handful of people I have known who have been mentors in the full sense of the term, and much more could be written of the nature of their impact and how it has allowed me to make the right decisions at critical times.
I have failed so many times it’s difficult to count them all, though I probably could if you forced me to. But my relationship to those failures is not one of growing discontent, but more of a scientific attitude towards them. I have become increasingly impartial towards them, as I suppose a Venture Capitalist is. I’m not surprised when something goes wrong or against the preconceived plan. Instead, I try to anticipate it rather than hinge my emotions on the dream as things can always go wrong. There are no straight lines in nature. Pivot, pivot, pivot until the wiggly line of my efforts lands on something solid. I have come to live by these principals, which are certainly what a leadership position should be based on.
CC: What inspired you to pursue this career?
Amir-Esmaeil: Games are essentially interactive storytelling, it’s the creation of borrowed experiences. This has intrigued me since I was a kid, and I have always wanted to be involved. My personality trait of always wanting to be in the helm seat is what has encouraged taking on an entrepreneurial approach to participating in the industry.
CC: How did you become involved in the game industry? How did you make your start? What part do you find to be the most fun?
Amir-Esmaeil: I’m hitting my tenth year out of college. My second job was at an exciting young tech company called Vision Critical. They created online communities for Fortune 500 companies with built-in research tools that allowed a two-way dialogue to be established between the product teams and their customers. One of my clients was Electronic Arts. I managed two online communities (one was general and the other was specifically targeted to sports titles) for them, most of which involved executing their research projects and ultimately resulted in them improving their product content, packaging, marketing, and, of course, better understanding the hearts and minds of their gamer community. A few years later I was hired by Netlog, the social media network popular with youngsters. There I was involved with managing their games section in the Middle East, which included popular MMO titles by Elex-Tech. After that I was in a position to go my own way and I did.
CC: What are some of the challenges you have faced in your current position? How have you overcome these challenges?
Amir-Esmaeil: While we thrive as publishers and know-how guys, the development end continues to feel daunting. We mostly learn from small projects and try to learn from them before we attempt to commit ourselves to ones requiring far greater investment and risk. The Middle East also doesn’t have a large supply of talent on the development end, so that requires us to often work with developers who are not in the same country, which I think makes the creative and collaborative process feel more surgical. It’s hard to create great stuff when the working atmosphere is lacking.
CC: What do you do in your free time? What are your hobbies?
Amir-Esmaeil: I’m not athletic, but it’s important to me that I’m at the gym at least 5 times a week, be it weights, squash with colleagues or business partners, or getting injured at a kickboxing class. I write a weekly blog on geeky psychology stuff (pandoic.com) and recently got engaged, so I’m a bit less of a socialite these days. I’m still out at least a couple of nights per week though, which in Dubai is bordering on being labeled with the scarlet letter.
CC: If you were not in this industry what would you be doing?
Amir-Esmaeil: I’m keen on the tech industry even if it weren’t in the niche of gaming. I also dreamed early on of becoming a film maker.
CC: What was your dream job as a child?
Amir-Esmaeil: Game producer. Then film producer. Then back to game producer.
CC: What do you think will be the next big trend in the industry in the next three to five years? How are you incorporating this trend into your future plans?
Amir-Esmaeil: eSports is one undeniable trend that I think will continue building global momentum for at least the next five years. As the Middle East usually lags by some degree to the rest of the world, we’re still getting ready to properly welcome the phenomenon by the right caliber of event organizers, who have yet to surface. As such, we’re investigating the possibility for ourselves, either for the events or the accompanying industries, like live broadcasts and publications. We’re also keeping a close eye on VR, but I’m not sure it will go mass until well after 2020. I’m usually wrong, though!
ARTICLE CONTINUES AFTER THIS AD FROM NPD
CC: How do you think M&A activity will respond to these trends?
Amir-Esmaeil: M&A is virtually nonexistent in the Middle East, which I mentioned before on how it lags relative to the rest of the world, and only has a handful of game-oriented investments every couple of years. They prefer tangible brick-and-mortar investments. Games seem so risky that they’d feel more comfortable throwing their cash on a game of roulette!
CC: What interests you about the game industry?
Amir-Esmaeil: The degree of disruption and the rise of the freemium model keep everyone on their toes. Big players feel much more paranoid than in any other industry. At any time, some change in the industry or in players’ preference could happen, rendering their products and forecasts obsolete or irrelevant. Indies can suddenly strike gold. It’s action packed.
CC: Are you a gamer? What are some of your favorites?
Amir-Esmaeil: I have a somewhat addictive personality, so I do play games for relatively short spurts. The last one was Wargaming’s World of Tanks Blitz on iOS. For the most part I stick to simple edutainment games like Mindsnacks, which are not as seductive and dangerous to being productive in my day.
CC: What do you think your staff most commonly says about you? What do your employees think about you?
Amir-Esmaeil: I think my enthusiasm and sense of urgency is generally appreciated, but it can also be a bit too much for some people out here in the Middle East who are more accustomed to a slower pace. I like to get things done fast, which in the past has equated to a good measure of recklessness. Experience is having its positive effect on balancing that out, though.
CC: What attributes do you look for in a member of your team?
Amir-Esmaeil: Pro-active, risk-taking and a sense of accountability. They need to be their own person and not constantly try to cleverly shirk off the tough decisions or the boring tasks. Their ambition should translate to making decisions to keep the flow going. I hate when people press the pause button, not to meditate and ponder, but simply to procrastinate.
CC: What inspired you to start your indie projects?
Amir-Esmaeil: We’re sitting in a region with quite a bit of rich history and content. There are a lot of great stories, like tales and mythologies that deserve to be shared with the rest of the world and most likely will be received quite well. This is one of my passions.
CC: Does your company do F2P or premium and why?
Amir-Esmaeil: We only do online, mostly mobile, and that means a focus of F2P. We don’t have the know-how or the means (ie. dearth of developers in the region) to participate in the world of the premiums.
CC: What type of talent do you think is the hardest to find?
Amir-Esmaeil: High-end creative developers.
