World-class educational opportunities offered through GameDevZone at Gamers8: The Land of Heroes this summer

Gamers8: The Land of Heroes, the biggest gaming and esports festival worldwide, is proud to feature ‘GameDevZone’, an educational platform that offers world-class opportunities to enhance and expand Saudi Arabia’s gaming and esports sector. 

More than 20 programs will be on offer at GameDevZone during Gamers8: The Land of Heroes, organized by the Saudi Esports Federation (SEF), which runs from July 6 for eight weeks at Boulevard Riyadh City. These include: Masterclasses; Java Programing With Minecraft; Game Design and Mechanics with Fortnite Creative & Unreal Engine; Metaverse; and Esports World Workshops. 

Nine66, building the games ecosystem in Saudi Arabia to support local and international game developers, is the presenting partner for GameDevZone. There are also 10 providers offering their expertise at GameDevZone: DigiPen; Unity; Gen.G; Digital Media Academy Silicon Valley; Robothink; MISK; Google; Veryality; and Gosu Academy. 

Ahmed Albishri, Deputy CEO at the Saudi Esports Federation, said: “As the regulating body in charge of nurturing elite gaming athletes and developing Saudi Arabia’s gaming community and industry, our GameDevZone objectives are to increase knowledge, raise awareness, up-skill, expose gamers to new resources, generate new ideas, and network. 

“These objectives are vital to progressing the gaming and esports ecosystem in Saudi Arabia, which is absolutely imperative. Education helps all of us learn and grow and furthers the development of better, more talented people in every segment of the ecosystem. By doing so, we contribute to fulfilling the overall ambition of making Saudi Arabia a global hub for gaming and esports. Every step along that journey is important and this is why we consider GameDevZone such an integral part of Gamers8: The Land of Heroes.” 

The target this summer is to provide more than 3,000 training hours to some 3,500 participants – a substantial rise on the 2,000-plus training hours given to over 1,000 participants last year. More than 400 games are pinpointed to be developed this year compared to over 200 in 2022, while more than 50,000 visitors to the pillar are anticipated this year compared to over 30,000 last year. A target to have 30% of visitors who are female has also been set this summer. 

The full GameDevZone program is as follows: 2D Game Development; 2D Game Programing; 2D Game Art & Animation; Youth 2D Game Animation; Game Sound Design and Music; Youth 2D Game Development; DigiPen Music and Sound Design Studio; DigiPen 2D Game Programming Studio; DigiPen 2D Game Development Studio; Unity Certificate; Game Development with Roblox; Game Coding with Scratch and Processing; Java Programing With Minecraft; AI Game Art Masterclass: From Vision to Reality; Anatomy of a Game Engine Masterclass; Games UX Foundations Masterclass; Engagement and Emotionally Rewarding Level Design Masterclass; Introduction to Fuzzy Logic and Neural Networks in Game Development; Contemporary Sound Design Aesthetics and Practice for Interactive Media; Introduction to Conversational AI; Storytelling in Video Games; Fortnite Creative & Unreal Engine. 

Gamers8: The Land of Heroes has a prize pool of $45 million – triple that of Gamers8 last year. The biggest gaming and esports festival worldwide showcases elite gaming titles alongside live concerts from top global, regional, and local artists, as well as numerous fun-filled activities and attractions for all the family.

The festival concludes with the Next World Forum, a gaming and esports forum held at the Four Seasons Hotel Riyadh at Kingdom Center on August 30-31, that brings together sector leaders and experts from around the world.

ENDS