The gaming recruitment drive taking UAE industry to a higher level as east Europeans get connected

Chief executive says more and more professionals are being lured to the Middle East

The UAE's gaming industry is growing as more professionals arrive to join the workforce. Antonie Robertson / The National

Mission Hire, a recruitment agency with offices in Dubai, Latvia and Poland is helping connect professionals with gaming companies, and the UAE is proving to be a popular destination.

Recruiting for video game studios is never straightforward. Unlike other industries, where education and experience are usually enough, in gaming it is important for a new hire to not only be professionally capable but also understand the project on several levels.

Marina Mendeleva, the company's founder and chief executive, moved to Dubai in 2022 to oversee recruitment efforts in the country, which she says has been growing steadily for the past five years. “A lot of companies are setting up their gaming studios in the UAE because the government supports the gaming industry’s development,” she says.

Gaming in the Middle East is a big deal, with the region having the second most number of gamers at 559 million, behind Asia-Pacific which has 1.8 billion gamers, according to industry tracker Newzoo. Last year, the first Esports World Cup took place in Saudi Arabia, lasting eight weeks as gamers competed in 22 different tournaments.

Mendeleva, who is from Belarus, says more and more gaming professionals from Eastern Europe are moving to the UAE and joining local companies and their workforce. Countries such as Poland, Cyprus and Ukraine have seen global success in their gaming sectors as titles like World of Tanks, Cyberpunk 2077 and S.T.A.L.K.E.R. become popular.

When it comes to matching gaming companies with potential employees, Mendeleva says she and her team conduct interviews with the studio that posts the listing first to try to find out what they are like and what type of person they seek to employ that would be best for them.

“It’s not just sending over a CV,” she says. “You can expect to receive a lot of information about the candidates and their specific experiences, which would match with the game you’re working on.”

Recruiting from Eastern Europe does have its challenges though, as some new hires have a preconceived notion that they would immediately step into luxurious lifestyles. Mendeleva says that they try to educate beforehand about the country and its rules.

“Not all of them have been in the UAE before and there are myths about budgets. Some even expect a limousine waiting for them,” she says.

The gaming sector has specialists uniquely skilled for certain roles. When companies look to hire them, Mendeleva emphasises the importance of casting a wide net rather than limiting options with overly specific job listings.

“There are more people who actually have what we need in terms of the expertise, and the trick is actually to use the right strategy to find these people,” she adds.

Much like the rise of gaming, artificial intelligence is also on the up. She says that AI hasn't hurt the recruiting process, but rather introduced new jobs to the market. “The technology helps produce much more content for games. The trend that I see is that we hire more, not computer graphic artists, but more prompt engineers or art managers,” she says.

For professionals from Eastern Europe who want to work in the UAE, Mendeleva says she often doesn’t need to convince them or sell the idea but rather focuses on selling them on specific projects and whether or not it suits their personalities.

“You need to believe in the game, you need to like the game, you need to believe in the opportunity that lies behind the offer, and then relocation isn't a problem.”