The idea of "monetizing your passion" — making money doing what you love — is still a hard sell in the Middle East.

One needs to be a doctor, an engineer or someone with an advanced degree in other fields to be seen as a person with a respected job. In this region, video games are generally classified as an expensive way to waste one's time and a form of entertainment for kids, nothing more. While this distorted image prevails, the industry is evolving and showing more potential for gamers and investors, as the public view is slowly shifting.

Globally, the video games industry is huge: In 2018, the market stood at nearly $135 billion, an 11% increase over 2017. In fact, this segment of the entertainment industry is considered to be the most popular and profitable on the planet. Although the market in the Middle East is young compared with other regions, it's on the rise and is expected to keep growing. According to Statista, the total revenue of the video gaming industry in the Middle East was estimated at around $3 billion in 2017.

In an April interview with Pocket Gamer, Nour Khrais, CEO of Middle East-based game developer Maysalward, said the market for video games in the Middle East and North Africa “has 25% year-on-year growth with the largest youth population in the world, with more than half of residents under the age of 25.”