Statistics show a substantial growth in the Digital & Interactive Entertainment Content Industry in the MENA region. This in turn had influenced content creators, developers, producers, designers, and aggregators to expand their scope of creativity. Statistics from the MENA region states that the Middle Eastern video games industry ranges between $1 billion to $2.6 billion in terms of annual revenue.
The Global Media Intelligence Report had revealed that the Middle East has the second largest mobile phone population with approximately 525.8 million people using a mobile phone, and those consume a lot of digital content on a daily basis. It does not stop there, as another report found that Smartphones penetration in the Middle East is expected to increase by a record 39% by 2015.
Building on this great boom in entertainment content and video game industry in the region, The Big Entertainment Show (BES) has become the best networking platform for the global and regional content creators to explore business opportunities in the fields of TV, films, video games, animation, digital content, and brand licensing. Through the past 5 years, The Big Entertainment Show has recorded massive success, attracting more than 800 specialized companies working in the field of content creation, distribution, and aggregation from all over the world.
Anas Al Filai, CEO of Lorem from Morocco, exhibiting at BES this year says: “With a great deal of mobile games going the freemium way, our company is launching 80% of their production as Advergames, or games being monetized by showing ads to users while playing, while they remain free of charge. This business model has shown a great success in the region, based on the number of advergames coming out. Through our participation in BES, we are looking forward to meet partners who are well established in ME region such as Ads agencies, education editors or big corporate companies who want to bring a new fun aspect on to their ads, educational and training programs.”
Content analysts are positive towards the local content in the Middle East as numbers show an increase in original content produced by regional developers. Mr. Mohamad Yassin, Arab Advisors Research Analyst, mentioned in a recent report: "Regional developers dominated the social games scene, 48% of the Facebook games published in Arabic were developed by regional developers."
From his side, Mr. Ahmad Al Liali, Head of Incubation Center from Ministry of Information & Communication Technology in Qatar, participating in The Big Entertainment Show, adds: “Our participation in the show comes to show our support to the local production of digital content by our Qatari youth. We participated to promote their production in this specific field, and to help them promote their business in foreign markets, paving the way for improvements on a local and international level. In addition to giving them the opportunity to meet key players in the field of digital content, and build a network of business ties with one another for future cooperation.”
On another level, Ms. Hiba Rabadi, Arab Advisors Senior Research Analyst, wrote in her report:
"Out of the 18 reality TV shows aired in 2013/2014, 9 are original shows rather than licensed formats from global companies. Channels are increasingly airing new reality TV shows to attract their viewers." Ms. Rabadi added.
Ms. Fahriye Senturk, Head of Operations and Public Relations, from Global Agency from Turkey participating in the upcoming edition of BES has stated that they are enjoying a great demand for Turkish TV series. She expects the positive trend to remain strong and increase even more in the upcoming years. Ms. Sentruk says: “We have several new projects to share with our visitors at BES; we will be highlighting two series and one format at MYCONTENT, part of BES, I believe it is a great place to present these new titles as the show has been witnessing great success in the past years.”
She added: “Our participation will be a great opportunity to meet new producers and strike important deals. Furthermore, we are doing great in this region and we plan to expand our operations furthermore in the MENA region.”
The Big Entertainment Show has become the largest show in the Middle East region specialized in media and TV content, character and brand licensing, game developing and publishing. This unique event, which combines the “Dubai International Brand Licensing Fair”, “Dubai World Game Expo” and “MYCONTENT”, attracts TV broadcasters, game developers, investors and licensors from all parts of the world to the Middle East market, considerably one of the biggest importing markets for this industry.
The Big Entertainment Show is scheduled from the 27th - 28th of October this year at the Dubai International Convention and Exhibition Centre. The event will highlight the importance of this promising market and the need to develop proper Arabic content, learn from the foreign experiences and the success stories during the event’s summit and educational sessions.
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FOR MORE INFORMATION:
Suzan Mounzer
Media & PR Executive
Phone: 04 362 4717 Ext: 505
Mobile: 056 907 0443
Email: suzan.mounzer@index.ae
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