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With internet penetration and social networks skyrocketing in the region, online gaming has been reaching new heights in the Arab world. A new annual predictions report by Deloitte on global media trends for 2012 highlighted the potential of social gaming in light of the booming global gaming industry, now worth 63 billion dollars.

Social network game development company Zynga had a shaky IPO back in mid-December with its stock closing down 5% from its initial offering price by the end of the first day of trading. Locally, the online gaming scene has seen major investments and acquisition with Twofour54 taking stakes in Tahadi Games and Jawaker, Turkey based Peak Games acquiring Saudi social games developer Kammelna, online gaming startup Nezal securing 1 million dollars in funding from Ideavelopers, and Timar ventures investing in mobile game development company Maysalward.

To shed light on the global and regional online gaming scene, analyze its current state, challenges and the opportunities that lay ahead, the ArabNet Digital Summit 2012 will host leading executives from the gaming industry including:

Sidar Sahin founded Peak Games, the fastest-growing emerging markets gaming company, in November of 2010. His previous ventures include Funpac, a mobile gaming studio which he set up in 2003; social video sharing Izlesene.com, the highest value Internet business exit in Turkey in its time; and GameGarden, a gaming company that was acquired by the Dogan Group, the leading media group in Turkey.

Vince Ghossoub is the producer of Arabic and Islamic Massively-Multiplayer Online Games, with distributed studios operating in the Middle East and China. A closet gamer frustrated by the lack of Arabic content and cultural references on the Internet, he is taking Falafel Games on a mission to fill that gap. In this quest, Falafel Games is a finalist in the Red Herring Asia 100 Award, and had its title Knights of Glory elected by users best Arabic browser-based game for 2011.

Brahms Chouity is the Founder and CEO of At7addak.com, the Arab World’s biggest Competitive Online Gaming Community, where gamers can compete in head-to-head and team action using their existing gaming platforms, such as consoles, PCs & mobile devices, to challenge other players globally using their favorite gaming titles, for cash and prizes. At7addak.com won the Wamda Reader's Choice Award "Best Startup of 2011".

Abdullah Hamed is the founder and CEO of GameTako.com which is a web game development platform for Arabic developers that helps them develop joyful games and monazite from them. Abdullah is an Indie Game Developer who might have developed the first Arabic android game أنقذهم.

Muhammad Ali started writing games in an early age and released his very first title, "Rescue" for the MSX platform at the age of 15. In early 2010 Muhammad started to pursue his long life dream of building great, inspiring games and founded Nezal.