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After EA, the Gulf’s next gaming bet is the engine room
The Gulf has secured a place in global gaming through investment. Its next opportunity is to shape the technologies that will power the industry’s future
- PUBLISHED:Tue 11 Aug 2026, 1:24 PM
- By:
- Innovation City Ecosystem – Guest Contributor
Last week, Electronic Arts became a private company following its $55 billion acquisition by a consortium led by Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund. The deal – one of the largest in gaming history – marks a significant milestone in the Gulf’s expanding role within one of the world’s fastest-growing creative industries.
A decade ago, the Gulf’s role in gaming centered on sponsorships and esports. Five years ago, it evolved into strategic investments. Today, it includes ownership of one of the industry’s biggest publishers.
Now comes the equally important question: what does the region build next?
FIFA, The Sims and Madden are the products of an industry, but every successful game begins much earlier – with the tools that make it possible. Every game is built on a game engine: the software that powers graphics, physics, networking and gameplay. Today, that layer is led by companies such as Epic Games and Unity, reflecting decades of investment in game development technologies and the ecosystems that support them. The next opportunity is for new regions to help shape the technologies that will define the industry’s future.
The acquisition of EA is a landmark investment, but ownership of world-class publishers is only one part of building a sustainable gaming economy. The next chapter lies deeper in the value chain – in the tools, platforms and talent that enable new games to be created. Publishing franchises remain immensely valuable, but every generation of successful games depends on a continuous pipeline of new ideas, creators and technologies.
For decades, challenging the established engine providers was nearly impossible. Their advantage in technology, talent and ecosystem made the market effectively closed. Artificial intelligence is changing that.
Nearly one-third of new games released on Steam this year disclosed the use of AI during development. Just two years ago, that number was almost insignificant. AI is reducing development time, lowering technical barriers and fundamentally reshaping how games are designed, tested and published.
Every major technological shift creates an opportunity for new leaders to emerge. As development workflows evolve, so too does the opportunity for new platforms, new companies and new regions to help shape the future of gaming.
Technology, however, is only half the equation. The other half is people.
The Gulf has one of the world’s youngest and most digitally connected populations – a generation that has grown up playing games and increasingly wants to build them. Unlocking that potential requires more than capital. It requires education, technical talent, collaborative ecosystems and an environment where developers can create globally competitive products.
The UAE has already demonstrated how focused technology ecosystems can accelerate innovation across multiple industries. Gaming now has the opportunity to follow a similar path – not only through esports and publishing but by developing the technologies, skills and intellectual property that underpin the industry itself.
At SPARQ, we are exploring how AI can reshape the game development pipeline from the ground up. That experience has reinforced my belief that the greatest opportunity in gaming may no longer lie only in the games themselves, but in the technologies that empower creators to build them faster, smarter and at a global scale.
The broader lesson extends well beyond gaming. Every technology ecosystem eventually reaches the same crossroads: is it enough to own the products, or should it also build the technologies that create them?
The acquisition of EA proves the region is serious about gaming. The next defining milestone may be quieter: when the tools powering the world’s most successful games are conceived, built and exported from the Gulf.
Whether that future is driven by established global players or the next generation of innovators – including companies like SPARQ building from the UAE – the opportunity is the same: to move beyond consuming technology and toward creating the platforms that shape entire industries.
The future of gaming will not be defined only by the games we play, but by the technologies that make them possible.
This article was contributed by Christoffer Wilhelmsen, he is the COO and Co-Founder of SPARQ, the AI-native game engine headquartered in the UAE. A serial entrepreneur with a track record of scaling ventures to commercial success, he leads SPARQ’s operations, fundraising, and business development. Christoffer has steered the company from early concept through a $2.5 million self-funded development phase to a 20+ global engineering team and a 6,000-strong creator waitlist, positioning SPARQ for its $8.5 million seed round with participation from leading US venture firms. His focus now is scaling SPARQ from beta to global launch, with a commercial strategy built around the 250 million content creators currently locked out of game development. Originally from Norway, he is a vocal advocate for the Middle East as a launchpad for globally ambitious tech companies and brings deep cross-border experience to SPARQ’s expansion strategy. He is based in Dubai, UAE.
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