Hiring a game studio in Saudi Arabia or the UAE

Why every Gulf project is competing for the same engineers

Saudi Arabia's National Gaming and Esports Strategy is not a press release. The Public Investment Fund has committed roughly $38 billion through Savvy Games Group, and the Vision 2030 targets are specific: around 39,000 jobs in the sector and a world-leading position in development and publishing. Savvy launched Steer Studios inside the Kingdom, NEOM is building a gaming campus with motion capture and incubation space, and MBC Game Studio surfaced at Gamescom having hired veterans out of BioWare, Ubisoft Montreal, Bungie and Hi-Rez.

The UAE has taken a different route. Dubai and Abu Dhabi are courting international publishers to base regional operations there, through the DMCC Gaming Centre and Abu Dhabi's AD Gaming platform. It works: the Emirates attract executives, esports organisations and studio headquarters.

Here is the part that decides your project. Analysts looking at the region make the same observation repeatedly — the Gulf is attracting capital, leadership and top-tier esports talent far faster than it is building the mid-tier bench of production engineers, technical artists and animators who actually finish games. Money is not the constraint. Delivery capacity is.

Which means if you are funded and based in Riyadh, Jeddah, Dubai or Abu Dhabi, you are bidding for the same small pool of experienced developers as everyone else in the region, and most of them are already inside a Savvy-backed or government-backed programme.

The three ways Gulf projects get built

Hire locally and build a studio. The right answer if you intend to be a permanent studio and you have the runway. It is also the slowest and most expensive path, because you are recruiting against organisations with sovereign-fund budgets. Expect a long hiring cycle and to pay a premium for anyone who has shipped a title.

Bring in an external production partner. A studio that already has the engineers, the art pipeline and the shipped history, working to your timezone. You get delivery capacity immediately instead of in nine months. This is the route most funded Gulf projects actually take for their first title, whether or not they say so publicly.

A hybrid. A small local core — product owner, design lead, someone who owns the relationship with the funder — and an external team doing production. This is usually the right shape when a grant or mandate requires local presence but the deadline does not allow for building a full team first.

What it costs

Budget is driven by the same three things anywhere in the world, and being in the Gulf changes none of them: how much content you need, which platforms, and whether it is multiplayer. Our own packages start at $999 for a focused prototype or single-scene experience and $2,999 for a full application, with multi-scenario training platforms and multiplayer quoted individually. The cost calculator gives a realistic range in about two minutes without giving us your email.

What is different in the region is the shape of the work. A large share of Gulf briefs are not consumer games at all. They are visitor experiences for giga-projects, training simulators, cultural and heritage titles, and branded AR for retail and real estate. Those have different cost profiles from a free-to-play mobile game — usually more 3D content and less live operations.

One local factor genuinely worth budgeting for: Arabic. Right-to-left UI is not a translation task, it is a layout task, and retrofitting it into a finished interface costs far more than designing for it from the start. If your audience is regional, decide on Arabic support in week one.

How to choose a partner from the Gulf

Ask what they have shipped, not what they can do. Every studio's deck says Unity, VR and AR. Ask for titles you can download and play, and check the store listing shows a real release history rather than one app from 2021.

Insist on the overlap hours in writing. A partner nine hours behind you who answers once a day will add months. Ours run an overlap window on Gulf hours, and one of our directors is based in the UAE. Get the specific hours into the contract, not "we are flexible".

Ask who owns the code at the end. If a grant, an accelerator or a government programme is funding you, IP ownership is usually a condition of the money. Every engagement we do transfers 100% of the source, assets and IP, with an NDA. Confirm your partner does the same before you sign, not after.

Ask for a build every week. The single most reliable predictor of a project going wrong is a partner who shows you progress in slides. Weekly playable builds on your own device is a low bar and a lot of studios fail it.

Get a fixed quote. Hourly estimates drift, and they drift most on the projects where the scope was least clear at the start — which describes most first titles. We give a fixed quote within 48 hours of understanding the scope.

If you are starting this quarter

Write down three things before you talk to anyone: the platforms that actually matter, whether more than one person is in the experience at once, and the date you are working towards and why. Those three answers move the budget more than anything else, and a studio that quotes without asking them is guessing.

We work with studios, brands, agencies and government-backed programmes across Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, remotely, on Gulf hours.

Common questions

How much does it cost to develop a game in Saudi Arabia or the UAE?

The same three things drive cost anywhere: content volume, platform count, and whether it is multiplayer. Our packages start at $999 for a focused prototype and $2,999 for a full application, with training platforms and multiplayer quoted individually. Budget separately for Arabic support if your audience is regional, because right-to-left layout is a design task rather than a translation task.

Should I hire a local team or use an external studio?

If you intend to be a permanent studio and have the runway, hire locally. If you have a deadline, use an external production partner, because you will otherwise be recruiting against sovereign-fund-backed organisations for the same small pool of experienced developers. Many funded Gulf projects use a small local core plus an external production team for the first title.

Why is it hard to hire game developers in the Gulf right now?

The region is attracting capital, leadership and esports talent much faster than it is building the mid-tier bench of production engineers, technical artists and animators who finish games. Saudi Arabia alone targets around 39,000 sector jobs under Vision 2030, and most experienced developers already in the region are inside funded programmes.

Do you work on Gulf hours?

Yes. We work remotely with clients across Riyadh, Jeddah, Dammam, NEOM, Dubai and Abu Dhabi with an overlap window on Gulf hours and weekly playable builds. One of our directors is based in the UAE. Note that the working week there runs Sunday to Thursday, which we align to.

Who owns the game and the source code?

You do, on every engagement: 100% of the source code, assets and IP, with an NDA on request. This matters more than usual for grant-funded and accelerator-backed projects in the region, where IP ownership is often a condition of the funding.

Keep reading

Game development in Saudi Arabia →Game development in the UAE →How to choose a game development studio →The complete game outsourcing guide →