Gulf-based operators must play a more-proactive role in the cloud gaming value chain to extract more revenue

The COVID-19 pandemic led to the increased popularity of e-sports and cloud gaming platforms in the Gulf region in 2020. This surge in demand has attracted the interest of operators that want to associate their brands with gaming services and use them to diversify their revenue.

Prior to the emergence of the pandemic, the role of most operators in the gaming space was restricted primarily to providing payment facilities for gaming content and bundling gaming services with their triple-play propositions. However, operators such as Etisalat, stc and Zain have shown more ambition to experiment with new gaming offerings. In this article, we discuss the different roles that operators in the Gulf region can play to capture a larger share of the gaming market.