São Paulo – The online gaming market is booming in the Arab world, according to a statement issued this Monday (12th) by the Arab Advisors Group, a computing and telecom consulting firm based in Amman, Jordan. The company issued a report on the topic, according to which the number of online games in Arabic language went from only one, by September 2007, to 135 as of November 2001.
According to the company, that includes 95 multiplayer games and 40 social network-based ones. As of late last month, the total number of users of Arabic games on Facebook averaged at 2.89 million per month.
The survey informs, for instance, that the total number of Arab players of strategy game Travian, set in the Roman empire, peaked at one million in January 2009, which at the time was equivalent to 20% of total players of the game worldwide. The Arabic version of Facebook-based game Happy Farm had 1.9 million players by October 2011.
“The increasing traffic on casual game portals, and the popularity of community-based games, is prompting international companies to target Arab users and driving investments into Arabic online games,” said Arab Advisors Group’s senior analyst and author of the report, Samer Abbas, according to the statement.
*Translated by Gabriel Pomerancblum
