“We're not just building games, we're building habits”

Pocket Gamer Connects Jordan returns on November 8th and 9th, 2025, offering a chance to gain insights into the world’s fastest-growing games market, MENA.

As part of our MENA coverage and run-up to the event, we caught up with UMX Studio CEO and founder Ali Alharbi, who spoke to us on the company's 11-year journey which started from a small office in 2014 to being one of MENA’s biggest game studios in 2025 and raising $4.5m in a recent funding round.

PocketGamer.biz: UMX Studio is marking 11 years in the industry - what does this milestone mean to you and your team?

Ali Alharbi: For me and the team, this anniversary is a reminder that persistence matters. And most importantly, that a Saudi-born studio can compete globally with the right blend of vision, execution, and local insight.

Reaching the 11-year mark isn’t just a milestone - it’s a reflection of resilience, evolution, and long-term commitment in an industry that rarely stands still. We started small. Our very first game was modest in scope, but it exceeded all expectations after it launched in 2014. 

Then, in 2016, we released another title that became a breakout hit. 2018 also marked a major turning point for us as we shifted from download-driven games to building sustainable in-game economies. That decision still shapes how we design games today.”

Take us back to 2014: How did UMX get started, and what were those early days like?

In 2014, it was just me - no team, no funding, just a deep drive to build something that could break through. With almost no resources, I knew I couldn’t afford to build blindly. So I focused on understanding the market first, not just globally, but through the lens of what would resonate locally.

The goal was simple: launch fast, test hard, and see if anything sticks. What happened next surprised even me - the game hit number one in 10 countries within days, then ranked across nearly 100 countries in the racing category, and surpassed one million downloads shortly after.

That response was bigger than I ever imagined. It gave me two things: Proof that the market was hungry for something different, and the confidence to turn a one-person experiment into what is now UMX Studio.

Then in In 2024, we launched Drift X, a game that crossed 200,000 downloads in under 24 hours, without marketing, and exclusively on iOS.

How has the studio evolved in terms of team, vision, and scale since your first major hit? And what has been the biggest lesson learned across the past decade?

A lot has changed - and a lot hasn’t. When I started, I was doing everything myself: design, coding, art direction, even answering support emails. Today, UMX is a multi-location studio with teams across Saudi Arabia, India, and the broader MENA region.

We’ve built a structure that includes product, live ops, marketing, analytics, and QA - all focused on delivering long-term player engagement, not just hits. But the heart of our vision stayed the same: to build culturally relevant, commercially viable games that players in our region genuinely love.

As for the biggest lesson, success doesn’t come from talent alone - it comes from structure, iteration, and knowing when to pivot. You can have a great product, but if your systems, team mindset, or execution rhythm are off, it won’t scale

We’ve made our share of mistakes - but every one of them shaped our thinking. And over time, the company matured. From a product-led hustle to a strategy-led business - something that only came with time, tough lessons, and hard-earned maturity.

And the MENA region as a whole? How has the industry changed over the past 11 years?

The change has been massive and long overdue. Governments are actively supporting the gaming sector. Investors now recognise games as a serious business, not just entertainment.

And most importantly, we’ve seen a new generation of regional studios emerge - bold, ambitious, and globally-minded.

We’re also seeing more focus on cultural relevance - studios are no longer trying to copy Western models; they’re building for players here, with mechanics, art, and humour that feel authentic to our players’ culture and daily life.

There’s still a long way to go - especially in terms of deep talent development and global publishing capabilities, MENA is no longer just consuming games - it’s starting to define what the next wave could look like.

You recently received investment from Jetapult - how did that come about, and how is the partnership helping UMX grow?

For us, the investment wasn’t just financial - it was a signal that our market, our players, and our products truly matter on a global stage.

Jetapult believed in something we always believed in ourselves: that great game companies can emerge from MENA, not someday, but now. Even though we were still early in our journey, we had a clear vision, strong traction, and a proven ability to build games that players love.

That alignment between our local insights and their global experience is what made the partnership click.

The value of working with Jetapult also goes beyond funding. We’ve gained access to global expertise in product scaling, strategic thinking around portfolio planning, and a broader network that helps us avoid common traps and move faster with more confidence.

It’s helping us grow not just as a studio, but as a company thinking long-term, at global standards, with roots still deeply grounded in the region.

Can you share what you’re currently working on, or give us a hint of what players can look forward to next?

We’re currently working on multiple fronts, and all of them are guided by one core question: What does the next generation of MENA-first games look like?

We’re rethinking everything from onboarding to monetisation to narrative design, but with a sharper focus on short-session, socially-driven gameplay that fits the rhythm of daily life here. 

Without revealing too much, our next titles will lean heavily into cultural relatability, competitive personalisation, and most importantly, games built to last, with depth, progression, and a strong live ops backbone.

We're not just building games, we're building habits. And if we get it right, these new titles could reshape how the world sees game development from this region, not as an exception, but as the new standard.