Pakistan’s Gaming Industry revenue to cross $200 million in 2023

KARACHI: According to industry experts, Pakistan’s gaming industry is growing, but it has yet to reach its full potential.

According to Pakistan Software Houses Association (P@SHA) Chairman Muhammad Zohaib Khan, the gaming industry’s revenue will exceed $200 million in 2023, with an annual growth rate of 9.77% from 2023 to 2027. However, he believes that Pakistan’s gaming industry has yet to realise its full potential.

“By 2022, mobile games alone will have generated $171.30 million.” According to the most recent statistics, online games generated $21.34 million and download games generated $16.13 million’, said the P@SHA CEO.

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According to Noman Ahmed, CEO of Si Global, “despite the gaming industry being highly profitable, Pakistan is not benefiting as much as it could.” Investing in the future is critical, and the government’s support for technological development in Pakistan is encouraging.”

“The establishment of training centres for aspiring game developers is one initiative that could help Pakistan’s gaming industry,” he said, adding that “despite the gaming industry’s global volume of over $500 billion, Pakistan’s share is limited to $50 million, which could be significantly increased with initiatives like establishing a local gaming and animation industry.”

Kapeel Kumar, a startup investment specialist, believes that this investment will revolutionise research and innovation in gaming, VFX, computer vision, and AI by fostering a robust ecosystem involving collaboration with tech partners, industry, investors, industry associations, and the government.

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Kumar stated that the goal is to promote indigenous product development while also accelerating the growth of tech entrepreneurship in the country, with a particular emphasis on the youth. He believes that by collaborating with industry partners, the model can be built on a solid foundation to realise the mission of creating world-class gaming, animation, and deep tech providers.

The P@SHA chairman cited Statista Market Forecast and the International Trade Center (ITC) to explain that Pakistan has the potential to become the next regional hub in game development because 64% of its population is young, and Pakistan can exceed its yearly projections through targeted skill development.

However, he reiterated his position that the federal government, SBP, and FBR must adapt their practises and regulations to international best practises in foreign exchange management and allow the IT & ITeS industry to freely manage their hard-earned foreign exchange to fund their businesses, reinvest in their entities, invest in marketing, sales, and networking, and contribute to the strengthening of Pakistan’s foreign exchange reserves.

“We can easily add 3000 gaming developers to the human resource (HR) pool every year,” Khan said, “and in that fashion, Pakistan can comfortably achieve a 30% year-on-year growth in the gaming industry’s foreign remittances, provided we can invest in HR and skills development for aspiring game developers.”

The gaming industry in Pakistan currently employs approximately 8,500 game developers across three major sub-sectors: gaming products, middleware, and gaming services.

Collaboration between industry and government would ensure that the model is built on a solid foundation, allowing world-class gaming, animation, and deep tech providers to be built. Finally, investing in game developer training centres is an important step towards realising Pakistan’s potential in the gaming and technology industries, which will lead to economic growth and prosperity.

It is worth noting that P@SHA and its member companies supported and participated in the Game Developers Conference 2023, which was held in California with the support of the Trade Development Authority of Pakistan, the Ministry of Information Technology and Telecommunications, USAID, and the Pakistani Consulate in Los Angeles. The Pakistan Pavilion drew the attention of the global gaming fraternity due to its excellent presentation of Pakistan’s game development potential.