Saudi Arabia's Steer Studios chief on his video game company's global ambitions

Next month, Riyadh will host Esports World Cup, the biggest gaming tournament on earth. With an increased prize pool of $70 million, the event reinforces Saudi Arabia's ambitions when it comes to growing its gaming sector.

Saudi Arabia is also investing heavily in game development studios under its Savvy Games Group investment arm launched in 2022. One of the leading entities under that banner is Steer Studios. Having started operations three years ago, the studio has now released its first game, Grunt Rush, a mobile strategy game that offers players an engaging experience and updates.

“They presented a compelling vision to create a 360-degree gaming hub in Saudi Arabia," says chief executive Yannick Theler, a French gaming expert, who previously worked in China and Abu Dhabi for France’s premier studio, Ubisoft. "After 20 years at Ubisoft, I decided it was time to take a leap of faith and start fresh."

Theler tells The National that his mission was not simple, since he had to start a gaming studio from scratch. “We started with a blank slate. No team and no structure. But my experience in Abu Dhabi and Shanghai helped me understand what to look for,” he adds.

And while they did start from zero, it didn’t take him long to realise that the expertise and work force was already there for him to hire from. After posting the first job listings, Steer Studios received more than 1,500 applications within the first hour.

“That was a huge sign of interest and potential,” Theler recalls.

After hiring his team, Theler says they decided to produce a mobile game as most of their employees would be working on their first project and would need to learn along the way. “Mobile allows for faster iteration, which is ideal for training," he says.

Mobile gaming is the most popular form of gaming in Saudi Arabia. UK research firm YouGov found that about three quarters of users opt for mobile phones when gaming because they offer convenience and portability.

Grunt Rush took a year to develop, from concept to publishing, with 20 people working on the game, half of whom are from Saudi Arabia.

“We hit 1.5 million downloads in the first three weeks,” he says of the game’s release. “Players have noticed and appreciated that the game doesn’t overheat their devices."

And while the game is produced and made by Saudi developers, it is primarily geared towards a global audience. Theler says their primary goal was to produce a game that was polished and delivered a high-quality experience. "Our team spent a lot of time optimising it," he says. "We’ll be incorporating regional themes and events in future updates."

Mobile games can keep growing in popularity if they can catch the attention of dedicated players who stick to the game. Theler says his studio is prepared to grow the team behind it to keep up with demand. “If Grunt Rush continues to grow, we’ll scale the team accordingly to produce more content and support ongoing development," he says. “We’re fully committed to the game and the original team is still involved.”

He says he takes pride in a “learning by doing” philosophy, an approach he learnt at Ubisoft. But he also says Saudi Arabia has taken great steps to ensure that new graduates have bigger and more substantial game development skills.

One of these efforts is the Savvy Games Academy, which opened this year. Its purpose is to work with universities to create opportunities across age groups and introduce students to the gaming industry. “We’ve also had internships at our studio for two years now. Structured curricula are being rolled out to give aspiring developers a clearer path.”

After the launch of Grunt Rush, Theler says the studio has already begun onboarding new teams to work on a console game. “We started with mobile for training and onboarding reasons. But now, we’re building a console core team,” he adds.

“Our first console project kicks off this year. So, we’ll soon be working on both mobile and console projects in parallel.”

Gamers take pride in the fact that a game they play is produced in their country by their compatriots, he notes, adding: “It creates a connection, especially when developers can share their work publicly and interact with the community."