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Game developers who are looking to get some cash and experience in the game publishing field are in luck. CloudGames is an online gaming website tailored for the Arab audience in the Middle-East and North Africa, with the goal of improving Arabic Games development in the region.

Their goal is to encourage Arabs to develop more games, and to build up the Arab video game development community, which led them to create a scholarship for students who are excited about studying the major and working in the field.

Scholarship

The scholarship includes personal mentorship and at least one paid internship during university studies, help to find a full-time job after university by leveraging CloudGames’ extensive games developer network, as well as give $2,000 per student each year.

Eligibility & Selection

Potential candidates should show academic excellence and should be already doing their studies, or have at least been admitted to a university in the MENA region. The application is encouraged to have a game concept for PC, mobile, or tablet, and be as substantial as possible. That means explaining the idea clearly, ideally with game screenshots, and a game prototype or video.

The deadline for candidates to apply is September 30th, 2014, and games are reviewed in order of receipt, so the sooner you apply the better.

An applicant must be a student of game design, game development, computer science, web development, or another related field at a Middle East or North African university. Strong social media presence is a plus, and English proficiency is important though the application can be prepared in Arabic.

To further your chance of getting selected, meet all application requirements, make it thorough, with a creative game concept and description, and try to include images, a prototype, etc…

Roots

Not many people have ventured into bringing HTML5, especially not in the Arab region, but Swedish entrepreneur Johan Lofstrom is one of the very few to do so. CloudGames is actually the first Arabic mobile gaming platform that caters to both desktop browser and mobile app players using HTML5, so games are playable on mobile phones, tablets, and desktops alike. “Any Arabic speaking gamer can play from their browser instead of having to download an app. This is the next generation of online gaming,” says Lofstrom.

This decision came to Lofstrom after realizing that more people were looking for games on browsers than they used to, he said: “Back in 2012, at my old job, we saw a big increase from people searching for games in [web] browsers”

Lofstrom has a friendly attitude towards developers, and would rather focus on building the path ahead, than making quick money; “Most of our revenue comes from advertising, and we do want to make money, but now we are focusing on growing, so we want to be generous with the developers and keep them happy.”

According to Alexa traffic ranker, a quarter of all visitors are Saudi, followed by 18% from India, 16% from Iraq, 10% from Yemen, 5% from Algeria, 5% from Netherlands, 3% from Egypt, and 2% from Jordan.

The winner will be announced at Dubai World Game Expo on October 27-28, 2014. Need more information?