The Middle East gaming industry is in growth mode, but it’s still lacking female developers and gamers, industry experts said during Fortune’s Most Powerful Women International conference in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, on Wednesday. By not having enough women in these positions, games can become toxic and unethical.
The gaming industry in the Middle East is expanding, and it’s expected to grow rapidly throughout the next decade. In 2024, the Middle East gaming market size was valued at $17 billion, and is projected to reach $42.6 billion by 2033, according to research firm IMARC.
But what the gaming industry in the Middle East is missing is more women working in the field—and female gamers.
“I’m really proud that from our region, we have more gamers and we have more developers, but I think we have more work [to do] to raise these numbers,” said Reine Abbas, founder and CEO of Lebanon-based game developer Wixel Studios at Fortune’s Most Powerful Women International conference in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, on Wednesday.
“To have more females in this industry will affect the economy,” Abbas added, saying it would create a “ripple effect” that could make a difference in any country.
But one of the most impactful changes having more women in the gaming industry would be making games less toxic and more ethical, Abbas said, speaking during a panel called “Ensuring That Women Win at Gaming.” Many gaming companies struggle with toxic gaming among players, including bullying and punishments. She also called out some examples of unethical game design—for instance, games in which players lose a reward or achievement if they don’t log on for a while.
“When you have more females involved in the narrative and the game design, it will also make a non-toxic, ethical design,” Abbas said.
Eunice Lee, chief operating officer of mobile-first gaming company Scopely, said her company takes toxic play “very seriously,” and has developed an inclusive design committee to combat toxic and unethical play. The committee makes sure characters are designed by people who are representative of them and accurately reflect their intended demographic, she said. Scopely is behind games including Monopoly Go, Scrabble Go, Yahtzee with Buddies, and Marvel Strike Force.
The committee helps ensure “it’s not somebody writing the voice of somebody else that they have not walked in the shoes of or necessarily understand, or almost comes across as a caricature of a culture,” Lee said.
Lee’s team designed the first Native American character for a Marvel game, the Navajo Spider Weaver, she said. Marvel “blessed that character,” Lee said, and Scopely was allowed to put it in the game.
“That’s just one tiny example, but these things are happening every day, increasingly in gaming, but probably not fast enough,” Lee said. “The more we can do this … the better the outcome is going to be, and the better audience reach you’re going to have ultimately.”
This story was originally featured on Fortune.com
