Cultural policy aspirations and the turn in Saudi Arabia’s video game industry

ABSTRACT

Saudi Arabia is one of the largest emerging but least-known nations in the domain of game cultures and the broader transformation of popular culture. While previous studies focus largely on the representation of Arabs in video games and other entertainment forms, cultural policy and its influence on gaming culture have been scanty, owing to challenges arising from local linguistic conventions and the limited availability of primary materials. To overcome this gap, this study investigates the unique background and development turn of the video game industries in Saudi Arabia and then analyses some of the major shifts that occurred after 2016 when the Saudi government released its Vision 2030 initiative. The authors analyze key government policies and documents and findings from participant interviews with Saudi gamers, revealing a contradiction between the religious background of Saudi Arabia and the expansion of video gaming. In short, there are some new and possibly unexpected implications that have emerged as the status of video games has risen to meet global trends under aspirational national cultural policy. Unraveling the unmatched expectations between liberal gamers and younger audiences, and the state helps us to understand the nuanced shape and challenges of policy in the region.

KEYWORDS:

• Game policy
• soft power
• UNESCO
• Saudi Arabia Vision 2030
• creative industries

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. See: Fast Company (2022). ‘Saudi Arabia set to be a global hub for gaming and esports.’ (8 September). https://www.fastcompanyme.com/news/saudi-arabia-set-to-be-a-global-hub-for-gaming-and-esports/.

2. Statista. 2022. Games – Saudi Arabia. (September). http://www.statista.com/outlook/dmo/app/games/saudi-arabia.

3. According to the Saudi Communications and Information Technology Commission (2019), 17.7% of all online shopping by individuals and families in 2019 involved video games. Around 21 million mobile gamers spent USD $946 million per year on games, with 55% of this sum on mobile apps (Elliott 2021).

4. The Kingdom’s current classification system for both film and games includes: G (all ages), PG12 (parental guidance required), R15+ (15 years old and above), and R18+ (18 years old and above). Representations of violence and fantasy essentially dictate the boundaries set by these age groupings.

5. Limited space prevented the authors from analyzing popular contemporary Saudi games, such as Abo Khashem, Badiya: Desert Survival, and SOS: Shout of Survival.

6. All interviewees were males aged between 20 and 40, representing a range of family affiliations from different regions of the Kingdom. Respondents are identified by pseudonyms in square brackets.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Omar A. Al-Khamees

Omar A. Al-Khamees is a PhD candidate in Communication and Media at the University of Wollongong. He has an M.A. in Literature from Essex University, and in the recent past, he has been a Teaching Assistant in English, at Imam Muhammed Ibn Saud University in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.

Brian Yecies

Brian Yecies is an Associate Professor in Communication and Media at the University of Wollongong. He is the lead Chief Investigator of the 2022-2025 Australian Research Council Linkage Project: Empowering Australia’s Visual Arts via Creative Blockchain Opportunities and the 2018-2022 ARC Discovery Project: Mobile Korean Webtoons: Creative Innovation in a New Digital Economy. He is also the co-author of Korea's Occupied Cinemas, 1893–1948 (2011), The Changing Face of Korean Cinema, 1960–2015 (2016), and South Korea's Webtooniverse and the Digital Comic Revolution (2021), and the co-editor of Willing Collaborators: Foreign Partners in Chinese Media (2018).

Christopher Moore

Christopher Moore is a Senior Lecturer in Digital Communication and Media at the University of Wollongong. He is the co-author of Persona Studies: An Introduction (Wiley, 2020) and a co-editor of the journal of Persona Studies. His current research investigates the role of persona in the niche creator industries, focussing on analogue and digital games.