Gaming · E-Sports · Live Entertainment · Mobile · Mega-projects

Saudi Arabia has put $38 billion on gaming.
The sector is reshaping faster than most strategy work.

Dilogic is the Strategic Principal for gaming studios, esports organizations, and gaming-adjacent brands across MENA, the UK, and Europe. Inside the moment, with senior partners. Accountable to the outcome.

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What changed

Gaming is a $197 billion industry having its sovereign-scale moment. Most strategy work hasn't caught up.

The global games market is forecast to reach $197 billion in 2025 — mobile alone at $108 billion, with 83% of all gamers accessing games via mobile. The MEA gaming market sits at $10.6 billion in 2024 and is projected to nearly double to $17.9 billion by 2030.

Inside that growth, the headline event has been the Saudi sovereign bet. The Public Investment Fund has allocated $38 billion to the sector through Savvy Games Group. Savvy acquired Scopely for $4.9 billion. Scopely then acquired Niantic's gaming division — including Pokémon GO — for $3.5 billion in March 2025. The Esports World Cup 2025 in Riyadh drew 2,500 professional players, 3 million visitors, 340 million hours watched, and a peak concurrent audience of 7.5 million. Abu Dhabi is rising as a parallel gaming hub with a $1 billion eSports Island in development.

This is not a regional story. It is the largest single sector-reshaping event in global gaming this decade. Most of the strategy work this scale demands is being done by firms watching from outside. We work inside it.

Bigger picture

We hold the bigger picture.

Strategy that connects title portfolio, geographic strategy, monetization model, esports tie-in, brand activation, and gaming-culture positioning in one frame. Launch motion connects to live ops connects to esports platform connects to fan-platform monetization — and we hold the through-line.

Directed execution

We direct best-in-class execution.

Gaming-native creative, performance media specialized for gaming audience acquisition, influencer and streamer partnership design, esports event production, content production for gaming culture, broadcast production.

Accountable

We are accountable for the outcome.

Installs landed at target CAC, live-ops revenue compressed against retention curves, esports partnership pipeline signed, brand permission earned in gaming culture.

What we do, in this sector

Six practices, applied inside gaming.

01

Strategy.

Title portfolio strategy, geographic expansion (Saudi entry as flagship), IP commercialization across formats, esports tie-in strategy, M&A integration following Savvy-scale deals.

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02

Growth Strategy & GTM.

Game launch GTM with cold-start economics of 2026. The Five Leaks recast for gaming. Cross-platform launch.

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03

Omnichannel Strategy.

The player journey across discovery, install, first-session, monetization moment, retention. The fan journey across broadcast, social, in-game, merchandise, live event.

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04

Experience Design.

Event and exhibition strategy is core. Esports World Cup, Global Gaming Show Abu Dhabi, Gamescom, Tokyo Game Show, PAX. Brand experience for esports venues.

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05

Marketing Ops.

Eight pillars applied to player-data realities (consent, age verification, regional regulation around microtransactions). Cross-platform attribution. Live-ops marketing operations. Influencer and streamer ops as a major channel.

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06

Operations Excellence.

Player support workflow optimization. Live ops decision velocity. Esports event operational handoffs (broadcast, hospitality, athlete management).

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A second thesis

Esports is a $70 million prize-pool industry. Most brands engaging it still treat it like 2018 sponsorship.

The Esports World Cup 2025 made the scale legible. Seventy million dollars in prize pools across 25 competitions. A peak concurrent audience of 7.5 million. Three hundred and forty million hours watched. Esports is no longer a sponsorship category. It is an industry with its own commercial mechanics — team valuations, prize-pool economics, broadcasting rights, athlete contracts, fan-platform monetization.

Most brands engaging esports still buy logos and hope for relevance. The brands extracting compounding value treat esports like a media-rights and platform-strategy problem with its own audience-engagement physics.

The strategic question for any brand entering esports in 2026 is what it always should have been: what is the strategic role of this engagement, what is the platform we're building, what is the audience-conversion motion we're running off it.

Perspectives from the practice

From the room.

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Saudi gaming

The Saudi gaming bet is a global sector inflection. Here's how to engage it without burning the runway.

What the $38B deployment looks like in operating reality, and what it means for studios and brands.

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Esports

Esports is not sponsorship. It's a media-rights and platform-strategy problem.

The brand-into-esports playbook designed for 2026 economics.

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Launch GTM

Player acquisition cost has tripled in three years. Most launches still budget for 2022 economics.

A diagnostic studio CMOs can run on their own before the next launch.

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Gaming partner inbox

Talk to a partner who is inside the moment, not outside it.

The motion diagnosed. The Saudi corridor walked. Senior-led from the first conversation. Outcome-tied.

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FAQ

Gaming questions.

What does Dilogic Group's gaming and esports practice do?
Dilogic is the Strategic Principal for gaming studios, publishers, esports organizations, and gaming-adjacent brands across MENA, the UK, and Europe. We design title launch motions for the cold-start economics of 2026, build esports brand-as-platform strategies, work the Saudi gaming corridor, and direct execution through a network of senior gaming-native specialists. We do not build games, do not implement live-ops technology, and do not run media buying ourselves.
Why "inside the moment, not outside it"?
The Saudi-led sector reshaping is happening in real time and most established strategy firms are advising on it from headquarters in New York or London. Dilogic operates across MENA and UK/EU with senior partners on each end. The Saudi gaming corridor is not a market we read about; it is a market we engage in. The same applies to Abu Dhabi's parallel rise as a gaming hub.
Does Dilogic build games or run live ops technology?
No. We design and direct. Game development, engine work, live-ops technology implementation, and platform engineering are run by specialist partners from our network or the studio's own teams. We hold the strategic role — title portfolio, launch motion, esports tie-in, brand activation, monetization model — and brief execution against it.
How is Dilogic different from a gaming-research firm or a sports-marketing agency?
Gaming-research firms (Newzoo, Niko Partners, DFC) are research-anchored and data-rich but rarely stay through delivery. Sports-marketing agencies are activation-anchored and conflicted (their incentive is to sell more activation work). Dilogic holds business strategy alongside brand activation, MarTech, and experience design in one frame, runs senior-only delivery, and stays through execution until outcomes land.
Does Dilogic work with mega-projects like eSports Island Abu Dhabi or Qiddiya?
We engage on giga-destination commercial questions for gaming and live-entertainment projects — narrative, anchor-tenant strategy, partnership programs, audience acquisition motion, ecosystem brand strategy. We do not run construction, master planning at the architectural level, or operational ramp-up of physical venues.