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00:10 How are you, Paul?
00:34 Excited for this episode?
00:35 I'm doing great.
00:36 We've got some fun topics.
00:38 And we've got big games coming out this summer, fall.
00:42 So there's a lot happening, a lot of buzz
00:44 in the gaming industry, when it would normally be
00:46 a little bit of a quiet time.
00:47 Let's see the stories.
00:48 [SPEAKING ARABIC]
00:54 So tell me about Lenovo.
01:03 They're making a new console, a gaming console.
01:06 And I'm curious to know how it's going to look like.
01:08 Yeah, I love this.
01:09 And I'll tell you what.
01:10 In the technology world, the one thing
01:12 you can almost be sure of is that when
01:14 one person has a good idea, it gets copied 20 times,
01:18 and then to infinity.
01:19 Everyone starts to do it.
01:20 And I think what people have realized
01:22 is the traditional console wars, Sony versus Microsoft,
01:27 PlayStation versus Xbox, that is sort of going
01:31 the way of the dinosaur.
01:32 I think no one wants to be tethered to their TV anymore.
01:36 And where we're seeing all the growth happening is in mobile.
01:39 We have the Steam Deck, which we've talked about.
01:41 Yeah, now Steam versus Lenovo.
01:43 We had the ROG Ally made by Asus, which we talked about.
01:47 And now Lenovo is looking at this going,
01:49 well, if Asus, who's our competitor in laptops
01:51 and desktops, can make a mobile console,
01:54 we can make one as well.
01:56 And I think you're going to end up seeing all
01:57 of the manufacturers, PC manufacturers, Lenovo,
02:01 Alienware, Asus, Acer.
02:03 They can succeed if they have a good plan.
02:05 For sure, but I think now the battleground for the console
02:08 market is going to be mobile.
02:10 And what will really make it interesting is Nintendo Switch
02:13 2 added into the mix, maybe.
02:16 This gets really exciting very quickly.
02:18 Let's see another news story.
02:20 [SPEAKING ARABIC]
02:23 [SPEAKING ARABIC]
02:25 So Valhalla Ventures launches a $66 million gaming fund.
02:38 This is a huge number.
02:39 What's their plan?
02:40 So their plan is to invest in gaming startups, which
02:43 I think is a good thing.
02:44 It's always good to see new funds entering the space,
02:46 especially funds with quite a bit of cash to deploy.
02:49 More importantly, it's a very smart team based in the US,
02:52 but they're looking at the Middle East also.
02:54 This is a fund that's been getting a lot of buzz,
02:56 a lot of attention, and it's no surprise.
02:59 Because I think the future of gaming venture funds
03:01 are going to look a little bit like Valhalla, where
03:04 relatively small team, but deep gaming knowledge,
03:07 and hyper-focused on the very, very best gaming startups.
03:10 Look, I think any money going into the industry
03:12 is a good thing.
03:13 But smart money going in, that's the best.
03:16 Let's go to N-Word.
03:19 [SPEAKING ARABIC]
03:27 So here's a very interesting story.
03:29 N-Word AI raises $50 million to create better video game
03:33 characters.
03:34 How the characters are going to look like?
03:37 Look, this story bugs me, because I
03:39 had this exact idea like two years ago,
03:42 and I wish I had built it myself.
03:44 But I think it's interesting, because AI
03:46 has a place to play in the gaming and metaverse world.
03:50 And when you think of a virtual world,
03:51 it's filled with people, or any world.
03:55 Our real world is filled with people.
03:57 And it's much more interesting when
03:58 you can interact with all of those people,
04:00 whether they're human or not.
04:02 Because in a metaverse, in a virtual world, in a game,
04:04 not all of the inhabitants will be actual flesh and blood
04:08 humans.
04:09 There's a future where the NPCs, the non-player characters,
04:12 will be AI that's so good, you won't
04:14 be able to tell the difference.
04:15 Now, where I take issue with this investment,
04:18 I think it's a lot of money at a crazy valuation
04:22 just because they're calling themselves AI.
04:24 And maybe most disappointing is they
04:26 don't seem to have a lot of gaming expertise.
04:29 If you look at their website, most of the product offering
04:32 is focused on metaverse without much gaming focus.
04:36 And I think that's a mistake.
04:37 I think the biggest opportunity for generative AI
04:40 is in games, not in just these static kind
04:42 of boring metaverses.
04:44 And now let's move to Twitch.
04:47 [SPEAKING ARABIC]
04:49 So tell me why Twitch is banning the promotion or sponsorship
04:59 of CSGO games.
05:01 Look, poor Twitch.
05:01 One bad decision after another, unfortunately.
05:04 And I think this is leaving them extremely
05:06 vulnerable to their competition.
05:08 Because who's their competition today?
05:10 It's not YouTube.
05:11 It's actually kick.com.
05:12 Kick.com, like we've talked about,
05:14 backed by online gambling giant stake.com,
05:19 who allows gambling on their website of all kinds.
05:21 But now Twitch is cracking down on-- and this is really
05:25 borderline gambling, right?
05:26 Where you're trading and betting with Counter-Strike skins,
05:30 like in-game skins from a game, not with dollars.
05:34 And so they're trying to be holier than thou, I think.
05:36 They're trying to be very pure in the hopes of appealing
05:40 to the widest range of advertisers.
05:42 But the problem is, I think, they've become
05:44 very creator unfriendly.
05:46 Because creators on Twitch now don't know how to behave,
05:49 don't know what they can do on their streams,
05:51 don't know what's allowed, not allowed, one day to the next.
05:54 That kind of environment, I think,
05:56 kills a streaming company like Twitch in the long run.
05:59 And now let's continue our chat with our guest for today.
06:03 [SPEAKING ARABIC]
06:04 [SPEAKING ARABIC]
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06:09 [SPEAKING ARABIC]
06:13 Hello, Mohamed.
06:20 Welcome to Game Changers.
06:23 Hi, thanks for having me.
06:25 First of all, let me ask you, as someone
06:27 who has covered the gaming industry in the MENA region,
06:29 what are some of the biggest changes you've seen?
06:34 Well, the changes have been happening around the world,
06:36 not only in the MENA region.
06:37 And gaming is an industry that's evolving all the time.
06:42 So when we started doing this, at that time,
06:47 going to the stores and buying your consoles and games,
06:50 and even renting games was a thing.
06:52 So you can see how much the gaming industry evolved.
06:56 Now we have digital.
06:57 We have all these competing digital stores on PC,
07:04 on console.
07:05 We have new ideas that's starting to come up,
07:07 like gaming as a service and Game Pass,
07:11 and starting to copy the model of Netflix.
07:16 So gaming has evolved a lot in the past few years.
07:19 And e-sport was centric to all of this,
07:21 with how much popular it became, how much focus on it we have,
07:26 especially here in the region.
07:28 So gaming events, e-sports, e-sport players
07:32 going around the world and winning tournaments
07:34 and becoming the best in the world,
07:35 gaming has become very important to this region.
07:39 Mohamed, we've seen a lot of gaming media
07:41 struggle in the West.
07:43 And I'm curious, if you think this is something specific
07:46 to gaming media, or is that just the bigger
07:49 challenge with media in general, like the profitability
07:53 around media in general?
07:55 And do you think the MENA region is immune from some
07:58 of those challenges?
08:01 I think it's a constant struggle.
08:04 And I don't think it's exclusive to the gaming industry.
08:07 But for the gaming industry, if I wanted to talk locally,
08:12 gaming media never became a profitable thing
08:15 to begin with when comparing to what's
08:19 happening around the world.
08:20 Because I think a big part of this profitability
08:25 comes from the gaming publishers.
08:26 And the gaming publishers never invested
08:28 that heavily in the region.
08:30 That's why we never witnessed the gaming media becoming
08:35 more than what it is today.
08:38 And many of them just quit the market.
08:41 So I think it's a struggle.
08:43 And for us here in the region, if you're not
08:46 working in the gaming industry in general
08:48 and doing different verticals when it comes to profitability,
08:52 you will not survive as a gaming media alone.
08:54 So yeah, it's a struggle.
08:55 And it affected this region more than any place in the world.
09:00 On the flip side, they say content's king.
09:02 And I'm curious, what do you think
09:05 is the media or the type of media
09:07 or the type of content that's most in demand in this region?
09:11 I think that video content is the most demanded thing
09:16 in the region.
09:17 Steaming did not pick up yet here in the region.
09:20 Our numbers is very low compared to the rest of the world.
09:23 Even when we see big esports tournaments happen here
09:25 in the region, we get low numbers.
09:28 And most of the views come from the global audience.
09:31 So I think we still have a potential
09:36 to grow when it comes to streaming.
09:37 But video content is very strong.
09:39 Short form video content like TikTok and the YouTube short
09:42 and Instagram Reels are way in demand here in the region.
09:47 Everyone is demanding them.
09:50 Everyone is trying to master them and master
09:53 how to connect with the audience that
09:55 use these new platforms.
09:57 So, Mohamed, based on your experience,
09:59 what do advertisers in the region
10:01 look at when sponsoring online gaming content?
10:04 Yeah, so advertisers in general and brands,
10:10 they love the gaming audience.
10:12 They want to connect with them.
10:13 And they are very focused on engagement.
10:16 So they always try to do creative content
10:20 where they can engage with the audience,
10:21 where they can connect them with their brands.
10:25 So they're always looking for the engagement part.
10:28 So if you have the engagement part strong
10:29 in your social media platform or whatever content
10:32 you're creating, you're on the good side.
10:35 Because creating engagement is one of the hardest
10:39 part of creating content.
10:40 You can create content all the time.
10:42 And you can even generate views.
10:44 But engagement is only available for very
10:48 strong people when it comes to using
10:50 these social media platforms.
10:51 Thank you so much, Mohamed, for your input.
10:54 And with that, we have Mohamed Albsami,
11:00 the CEO of True Gaming.
11:02 And now, we'll move on to the Q&A segment.
11:05 Our question for today is from X.
11:11 [SPEAKING ARABIC]
11:17 So there's a poll on X. It says, do you
11:19 think it's a good idea to have a gaming section at work?
11:23 Only 34.7% of people said yes.
11:26 These are workaholic.
11:28 They don't want to get fun at work.
11:30 So what do you think of people who said no, 65.3%?
11:36 Look, I think that's a good take.
11:37 It's probably the easy take.
11:39 You go, why wouldn't people want to have more fun at work?
11:41 Who are the 65% who think work should be more boring?
11:45 I'm pretty sure they will be more productive
11:47 if they have fun at work.
11:49 Well, that's been the philosophy of big tech companies
11:51 for a while, right?
11:52 Up until COVID, really, a lot of the Googles of the world
11:57 created more fun, entertainment, reasons to stay at work.
12:00 They give you food.
12:02 So they would keep you there for as long as possible.
12:05 And I'm wondering, maybe is that why 65% are saying no here?
12:10 Is it because now more people favor maybe remote work,
12:13 that they're going, don't give me fun reasons
12:15 to stay at the office.
12:16 I just want to go home when I'm done.
12:18 And I don't want to feel like I need to stay,
12:21 because my employer's giving me reasons to stay.
12:24 I wonder if that plays in here.
12:26 And I'd be curious-- unfortunately, we
12:27 can't go back in time.
12:28 But I'd be curious if we had done this poll two or three
12:31 years ago, if the results would have been drastically
12:33 different.
12:34 But I'm surprised, because I do think
12:36 gaming at work in small doses can be both team building
12:40 and beneficial to morale in the office
12:43 and good for the business as a whole.
12:45 Paul, I really enjoyed this episode.
12:47 We covered a lot of interesting news story.
12:49 It was a lot of fun.
12:50 Look, and I will say, there's been so much news
12:53 that we don't cover on the show, just because so much is
12:56 happening in this industry.
12:57 But I love that people get to get this taste of the industry
13:00 by watching Game Changers.
13:01 This is the power of the gaming industry.
13:02 That's it.
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