The Open Platform and s16vc led a $3 million funding round for Playgama, a game tech startup based in the United Arab Emirates that aims to provide HTML5 game developers with access to the entire web market at once. FJ Labs, The Games Fund, TON Ventures, and Kirill Eves, the CEO and founder of Unlimit, are also supporting the round.
With a rapidly growing development ecosystem and rising revenue streams, the Middle East is becoming a vibrant center for the gaming industry. The gaming market in the region is expected to reach $6.34 billion by November 2024 and grow to $10.69 billion by 2029, a strong compound annual growth rate of 11.02%. This expansion fosters an atmosphere that is conducive to HTML5 gaming.
The Significant Deficit in the Worldwide Web Gaming Market
Due to in-game purchases and advertising, the HTML5 gaming market is experiencing a renaissance on a global scale. It was valued at $23 billion in 2021 and is expected to reach $32 billion by 2030.
The market is still fragmented in spite of this expansion. The HTML5 market includes thousands of standalone playgrounds, as well as non-gaming websites, media, social networks, and messengers—both international and regional—in contrast to centralized hubs like the App Store or Google Play on mobile devices or Steam and the Epic Games Store on PC. Even industry leaders only account for a small portion of the worldwide web gaming audience, and developers are currently unable to reach the whole market at once. Playgama wants to make this different.
By streamlining distribution using a “master key” strategy, Playgama hopes to maximize developers’ chances of reaching a wide range of users by giving them an easy way to access all platforms, languages, and markets.
In order to accomplish this, Playgama is building a comprehensive Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) ecosystem that will give game developers all the resources they require to successfully negotiate the fragmented online market, increasing their reach and return on investment (ROI) while relieving them of the burden of resolving distribution issues and enabling them to concentrate on game development and creation.
The goal of the platform is to provide developers with access to as many distributors, playgrounds, and other platforms as possible. At the heart of this ecosystem is Playgama Bridge, an open-source “integrate once, reach everywhere” SDK that has already been utilized by more than 1,000 developers.
Playgama’s alliance with TON Ventures and The Open Platform is especially strategic because the company aims to close the gap between Web2 and Web3 gaming. Play-to-earn features and cryptocurrency payments are already supported on Playgama’s in-house gaming portal.
While on sabbatical to finish his studies at Harvard Business School, Dmitry Kachmar, the founder of Playgama, founded the company in Dubai in 2023. He has played video games since he was a young boy and is a seasoned tech executive with extensive knowledge of classified ads and advertising technologies. A highly skilled international team of professionals with experience at companies like Miro, Playrix, Easybrain, and Vivid Money was put together by Kachmar to build Playgama. The group employs more than 30 people, with headquarters located in Dubai and locations ranging from the US to Indonesia.
