Sanam Games publishing director Bassam AlRomaithy talks Blitz of Battle, mobile MOBAs and community-led development

• Sanam believes mobile MOBAs have become too long and too PC-like.
• Blitz of Battle aims to deliver competitive MOBA gameplay in matches averaging just three minutes.
• The game's Discord community is already organising its own tournaments and shaping the roadmap.
• Sanam is prioritising player retention and onboarding before aggressively scaling user acquisition.

Mobile MOBAs have become bigger, longer and increasingly closer to their PC counterparts. But Sanam Games believes there's still room for a different approach, one that delivers competitive gameplay without demanding 15-minute matches.

That's the thinking behind Blitz of Battle, a 2v2 mobile MOBA developed by Istanbul-based Forge Masters and published by Riyadh-based Sanam Games. Built around matches averaging three minutes, the game aims to combine a high skill ceiling with a truly mobile-first experience.

We caught up with Sanam Games publishing director Bassam AlRomaithy to discuss why the company is rethinking the MOBA formula, building alongside its community, and why player engagement remains its biggest priority.

Mobile MOBAs have spent years borrowing from PC games

Longer matches, larger teams and increasingly complex mechanics have helped games like Honor of Kings and Mobile Legends build enormous audiences, but according to Bassam AlRomaithy, they've also drifted away from what makes mobile gaming unique.

"Whenever you play those games, they're like 15 minutes long. It does say mobile, but it doesn't feel mobile."

He argues that many modern MOBAs have successfully recreated PC experiences on phones, but in doing so have sacrificed the quick-session gameplay many mobile players still crave. At the same time, he believes many successful mobile games have gone too far in the opposite direction.

"We had the challenge of how we can make a mobile game with a high skill ceiling in it. This is where we got Blitz of Battle."

Unlike larger five-player teams, Blitz of Battle's default mode focuses on two-versus-two matches, placing far greater responsibility on each player. Character builds, timing, positioning and teamwork all become more influential when each player represents half of their team's strength.

Building with players

Although Blitz of Battle remains relatively early in its lifecycle, AlRomaithy believes one of its biggest strengths is its community.

Rather than waiting for developers to introduce new features, players have begun organising tournaments themselves, even building their own tournament management tools before Sanam stepped in to support them with in-game rewards.

"They don't really wait for us to build a feature for them,” said AlRomaithy. “The community decided they wanted tournaments, so they built their own website and tools to organise them. We saw what they had created, we liked it, and we started sponsoring the tournaments and offering in-game rewards to the winners. That kind of engagement has really helped shape our roadmap for the game.”

The game's Discord server has grown to around 3,000 members, with players regularly discussing character builds, sharing gameplay tips and creating content across social media. For AlRomaithy, that community has become more than an audience; it has become an important source of product feedback.

The team recently increased character movement speeds after player feedback suggested gameplay didn't fully match the game's "Blitz" identity, while other roadmap priorities have also emerged directly from community discussions.

Development focus

Forge Masters spent roughly three years building the project before signing a publishing agreement with Sanam in May 2025. The Istanbul-based studio began as a six-person team and is now expanding, with the game remaining what AlRomaithy describes as a passion project.

“They're a team of highly experienced developers who've worked on major titles across Turkey, Germany and Japan,” AlRomaithy added. “This is their passion project; it's what they've wanted to build all along. We were lucky to meet them, and there was an immediate link between us.”

Despite interest from multiple publishers, Forge Masters ultimately chose Sanam, which has made Blitz of Battle its flagship publishing title.

“This will be our major focus. This is the only game we're working on, and it is our flagship game. If we sign any other game, it will be second to this. We believe in the potential, we believe in the developers, and we believe in the community that we have." 

Preparing to scale

Like many mobile developers, Sanam faces one of the industry's biggest challenges: discoverability. Rather than relying entirely on paid acquisition, however, the publisher is investing heavily in improving the game before aggressively scaling marketing.

"We do lots of testing. We run A/B tests on our store listing, keywords, screenshots, marketing campaigns and targeting. Who are we looking to bring into the game? Competitive players. We have a vision for this game to compete on a global level and ultimately become an esport." 

Instead of focusing purely on download numbers, AlRomaithy says the team is currently more concerned with improving first-time user experience.

"What keeps me up at night is how can I keep players in?"

The company is also encouraged by signs that organic growth is beginning to take hold. According to AlRomaithy, organic installs recently accounted for as much as 75% of weekly downloads, although he noted those figures fluctuate significantly depending on ongoing marketing tests.

Looking ahead, Sanam plans to introduce additional progression systems, expand community features directly into the game and continue adding new heroes before significantly increasing user acquisition spending. The team’s current objective is to ensure the product is ready before exposing it to a much larger audience.

A good game comes first

Beyond Blitz of Battle, AlRomaithy believes the challenges facing publishers in MENA are often overstated. While developers frequently point to rising acquisition costs, privacy changes and discoverability issues, he argues those problems become far less significant if the underlying game genuinely resonates with players.

"The challenge for every publisher, anywhere, is providing an engaging experience for players. I truly believe that if you can do that - whether it's fun or energising - it has to make players want more. That's the core of what games should do. They should be an activity that people want to keep coming back to,” said AlRomaithy.

“If we can get that formula right, we'll get the right players. We'll have the community. We'll have the creatives. Everything else will fall into place if we have the right game mechanics, the right gameplay and the right balance in the economy.

Rather than chasing market trends, Sanam's philosophy is to focus almost entirely on player engagement. Everything else - from community growth and retention to discoverability and monetisation - should follow from building a game people genuinely want to keep playing.

"You see lots of games out there that don't succeed, and they'll tell you it's because of user acquisition or the privacy policies of Apple and Google. Well, if you really have a good game, it goes back to the old way of word of mouth - people saying, 'This game is fun. Let's play it together.' That will supersede any privacy policy Apple or Google, or anyone else, puts in place."  

Looking ahead

By the end of the year, Sanam hopes to nearly double the game's playable roster, introduce additional play styles and continue refining what AlRomaithy believes could become a new category of mobile-first competitive games.

“Currently we have 11 characters in the game, and we're targeting 20 by the end of the year. We want to give players more options from a skill perspective, and we want to introduce new characters with different playstyles that make the battles more engaging. Going back to what you asked earlier, what should this game be? It should be a different experience,” AlRomaithy concluded.

For the publisher, success won't simply come from launching another MOBA. It will come from proving that shorter sessions, meaningful skill expression and an engaged community can still stand out in one of mobile gaming's most crowded genres.