South Korean developer WeMade has formed a partnership with a Savvy Games Group company, Nine66, to further develop Saudi Arabia’s games industry.

With one of Savvy Games Group’s key objectives being to do just that, and WeMade seeking to expand its footprint in Saudi Arabia, the reasons for the partnership are clear. The move was announced as a Memorandum of Understanding between the two.

Building abroad

WeMade made its way onto our Top 50 Mobile Game Makers in 2022 for the first time since 2014, and for one key reason. The company’s emerging presence and success in the market of blockchain games has been noteworthy, especially given Wemix was the only blockchain gaming platform featuring a complete set of coin, NFT, and DeFi as of last summer.

The company has more than 22 years of history and has accumulated millions of global users across its games library, with titles such as The Legend of Mir.

This partnership with Nine66 represents a commitment by WeMade to support gaming ecosystems locally in Saudi Arabia and to provide educational content. The company will also be collaborating with developers in the country and provide training.

Programmes such as regional sponsorships are also expected.

Based in Africa, Metaverse Magna raised £3.2 million in a seed funding round last year with participation from WeMade.

The South Korean company has also recently launched a game of its own, MIR M Global, which released on 31 January and is currently topping RPG categories in Middle Eastern countries, Saudi Arabia included.

Earlier this month, Niko Partners released a report predicting that the MENA-3 games market will grow by 56 percent by 2026. Among them, Saudi Arabia is expected to lead in terms of ARPU.

The country’s stake in Nintendo increased only last week with the state-owned Public Investment Fund once again investing, raising its stake in the company to 7.08 percent.