By Aitizaz Hassan

ISLAMABAD, July 26: Jumping the strong digital wave, Pakistani is gearing up to enhance its e-gaming industry in the world with an aggressive growth. The participants of e-gaming can nowadays earn millions of dollars through various online events and tournaments.

According to a spokesperson for Ignite National Technology Fund, Pakistan plans to launch a center of excellence for gaming and animation by the end of 2022. The excellence center has four wings -- the first wing is accelerating and incubating wing which will work on mentoring, coaching and allied services, launching of acceleration program, industry linkage and investor pitching.

In a report, Pakistan Software Houses Association (P@SHA) has suggested the Government of Pakistan take special steps to boost the country’s e-gaming exports. The report says that Pakistan should allow 100% limit of utilizing export revenue of gaming industry to spend on game advertising with Google, Facebook, Android and other vendors.

According to P@SHA report, online games earn money as a function of how much they spend in advertising and publicity.

“If we do not allow these entities to spend on its publicity, we may lose tens of millions of dollars in export revenue,” the report says.

Iginte is developing a center of excellence to promote e-gaming industry. The P@SHA report suggests that Ignite should allocate $5 million fund for creating centers of excellence in major cities.

The report says the Pakistani e-gaming industry needs facilitation where virtual production can be executed at global scale. Thus, Pakistan has a competitive edge in this nascent but booming industry.

The P@SHA report assessed that at least $10 million should be spent on media fund to accelerate the export revenue of Pakistani e-games and its content. It can open a massive new export stream.

“Canada is spending $350 million on media fund for its e-gaming industry and returns three times back to the economy. It has led to massive job creation, and also favors the creation of content for international export,” says the report.

It suggests that Pakistan should allow import of dedicated hardware at 100% duty exemption to allow exports to grow unrestricted.

The report says that there is no separate manufacturing plant for e-gaming hardware. Specialized game hardware, development kits, virtual reality hardware needs a different harmonized system under which they can be imported. Currently, companies are paying 100% overheads to bring in hardware which is then used to increase export revenue. According to latest figures issued by Ignite, the gaming industry is very vibrant and it has $40m to $50m of annual revenue at present. Digital games open a new way for the youth of Pakistan to make money in gaming market and compete in online game tournaments.

Toolset creator Quexil was acquired by Epic Games in 2019, which has its office in Sweden and Pakistan, with expertise of gaming and virtual effects. Lahore-based gaming firm Mindstrom produces games such as Cricket Revolution and Cricket Power which was about ICC (International Cricket Council) official World Cup 2011.

Credits: INP-WealthPk