“Since the holding in October of the first Morocco E-Sport Summitwhich has seen the participation of world champions such as Ubisoft, to whom we presented our city of gaming project, it is in the process of being set up with investors who are very interested”, confides Mehdi Bensaïd. department will soon move to the second stage of the project, he adds.
Five hectares to hatch a local gaming industry
While waiting to decide on the economic model of the city which will house all an ecosystem, with the largest French and Korean video game manufacturers who are going to settle there and organize competitions, the Minister reveals that a plot of five hectares has already been allocated to the project.
Three buildings will be built there in the long term, in the district Yacoub El Mansour in Rabat.
On the purpose of this area, which he willingly compares to that of the Renault manufacturer in Tangier, Mohamed Mehdi Bensaïd indicates that future buildings will meet all the needs of gaming manufacturers to design new games. They will include filming studios and coding workshops, among others.
260 million dirhams of investment supported by the State
“Like the training that had been initiated by the State before the construction of the Renault mega-factory in Tangier, we will first prepare the ground by offering young people interested in this project coding sessions so that the process is ready on the day of the inauguration”, explains the minister. The State will finance all of the construction work for the future city.
It is the Ministry of Communication that will support the construction of this industrial zone, with an envelope of 260 MDH. A budget that will allow it to be operational as quickly as possible.
The city will allow the recruitment of 3,000 to 4,000 people
Studies prior to the construction of this city should start in January 2023, and the expected duration of the work is around 18 months, i.e. until 2024. However, the Minister wishes to start its operation as soon as the first of the three buildings is completed.
“Ultimately, the main designers like Sony or Ubisoft will bring their know-how and create a gaming industry, by hiring 3,000 to 4,000 employeesincluding a hundred qualified engineers to invent new video games that will be exported around the world,” said Mohamed Mehdi Bensaïd.
A Moroccan ecosystem that will bear its first fruits in 2027
When asked when this city can be qualified as a “Moroccan gaming ecosystem” capable of producing exportable games, the Minister provides for a minimum of three years of functionality, i.e., counting the duration of the construction work, at the horizon 2027.
Refusing to comment on the turnover likely to be generated by this industry in Morocco, the Minister nevertheless recalls that gaming has become the most lucrative cultural sector in the world, far ahead of the film and music industry. .
“Like what we have accomplished in the construction of automobiles in a few years, we have the firm intention of making Morocco a champion in the production and export of gaming, and no longer a simple consumer of video games”, concludes Mohamed Mehdi Bensaïd. He expects the arrival not only of major foreign manufacturers, but also of Moroccan start-ups which will contribute to an integration rate that will no longer have anything to envy to that of the automobile industry.