In addition to focusing on football as the World Cup host, Qatar wants to tap on its population’s gaming prowess as it enters the nascent eSports market.
The gas-rich emirate, whose many “majlis” rooms, or community gathering spaces attached to homes, have long served as video game centres for groups of friends, largely young men, is ready with a digital army.
Ibrahim Samha exclaimed, “Our majlises have a lot of equipment.” He added the rooms are frequently furnished with consoles for five or six gamers who lie on couches while participating in virtual worlds and conflicts.
Samha is the director of eSports initiatives at Virtuocity, Qatar’s first gaming facility. Virtuocity opened in 2019 and, following a Covid pandemic pause, conducted its first significant competition in March.
The beginning is there, I suppose,” Samha remarked.
Virtuocity seeks to capture a portion of the rapidly expanding global eSports market, with annual earnings projected at more than $1 billion, as part of Qatar’s larger effort to diversify its economy away from energy by 2030.
It held the first match of the Super Smash Bros. crossover fighting game’s Smash World Tour three months ago. The winner received 5,000 Qatari rial ($1,300) in prize money.
