A research brief commissioned by Media City Qatar, in collaboration with Niko Partners

The Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) markets of Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE are emerging as key opportunities for the global video games industry. As part of the wider Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region, these markets are seeing growing interest from game companies, driven by rising player demand and strong consumer confidence.

Government initiatives, private-sector investment, and growing support for gaming and esports are helping build a thriving games ecosystem across the GCC. At the same time, the region remains a relatively untapped market, with international companies facing unique challenges when entering and expanding their presence.

In this research brief, Niko Partners and Media City Qatar examine the growing demand for Japanese games, IP, and hardware in the GCC. The brief looks at how Japanese companies are approaching the market and highlights the opportunities for global game companies looking to expand into the region.

Key takeaways from the brief include:

• Niko Partners projects that the GCC region will represent $3.5 billion in player spending opportunity by 2030 and reach over 40 million gamers.
• Japanese companies are now moving from basic localization and availability to more deliberate regional strategies. The Japan-GCC partnership landscape now also spans several business models, from capital investment, to publishing and localization support.
• Niko Partners’ analysis of 10 Japanese franchises that recently launched with Arabic localization and local GCC support found that these localized titles generated a 33.2% uplift in GCC sales share over prior non-localized franchise entries, with all 10 exhibiting an increase in share.
• Among the players we surveyed in Qatar, 95% were able to identify at least one or more Japanese video game franchise. Nearly half were able to identify more than five.

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