How women in UAE are changing gaming industry, from esports athletes to coders

Amna Alameri still remembers the phone call that changed her gaming life. Known to fans as "Moki", the Emirati streamer and esports athlete had been playing competitively for years, mostly from her home setup with her sisters. Then came the invitation — a female-only tournament in Dubai in 2020. “They called me to join a women’s team,” she recalls. “That was my first step into team esports. After that, I progressed into the wider industry.”

Moki’s journey is a snapshot of a fast-growing scene in the UAE, where women are finding their place not as tokens in a male-dominated arena, but as athletes, coders, designers and community builders. She laughs when she talks about her household. “We’re all girls, and all gamers.”

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These days, she splits her time between training, streaming, and running workshops to teach aspiring players how to create content. It’s a tough schedule, especially when competitive gaming in the region is still patchy. “Finding teams that pay a salary is difficult,” says the 28-year-old. “And female tournaments are fewer.” Still, her drive is palpable: “I ran workshops to teach people how to be content creators,” she adds, the same way others might casually mention cooking lessons.

KT Photo: Amna Alameri by Haneen Dajani

Building the invisible infrastructure

While players like Moki capture attention in the spotlight, women like Reem Fakhouri make sure the games run at all. An online programmer at Ubisoft Abu Dhabi, the 23-year-old spends her days building backend systems — the invisible plumbing of matchmaking, latency management and player accounts.

“I was always curious about how any software or website works behind the scenes, including games,” says Reem, who studied computer science at the University of Waterloo in Canada. “My role mainly involves backend development of systems that allow games to run smoothly. I find it interesting to come up with solutions that improve overall user experpHience.”

Photo: Reem Fakhouri 

She describes her work less in terms of breaking barriers and more in terms of scalable systems, solutions that can handle millions of players at once. Ubisoft’s Abu Dhabi studio, which opened in 2011 and now employs over 100 people, is one of the company’s global hubs for live operations. The code Reem works on doesn’t just keep players happy in the UAE; it scales across Ubisoft’s global live games.

Designing stories that include everyone

Aditi Monga, 25, also at Ubisoft Abu Dhabi, approaches gaming from a different angle. A game designer with a background in multimedia, she found herself fascinated by the difference between watching and playing. “Games give agency to the player,” she says. “It’s not a passive story; you’re part of it.”

For her master’s thesis, she surveyed over 500 gamers on diversity and inclusion. “It’s a behaviour shift,” she explains. “I assumed some design changes would be simple. In reality, production is very difficult, and trying to change behaviour at every step is challenging.”

KT Photo: Aditi Monga by Haneen Dajani

That’s why she takes an almost method-acting approach to design. When a feature revolves around a sport or activity, she learns it herself to make the in-game version more authentic. “If there’s swimming or diving in the game, I want to understand the movements properly,” she says. The commitment isn’t without risks: She recalls how she once injured her leg while practicing diving in real life, just so she could better design the mechanic in-game.

Seasonal content is another area she pushes to rethink. “Most games focus on Halloween or Christmas,” she says. “But why not a crescent-moon festival? Our real-life experiences shape fictional experiences.” For MENA gamers, women and men alike, that kind of recognition matters. According to Newzoo, nearly 37 per cent of MENA gamers are women .

Policy and pipelines

The goal is to make sure talent like Reem and Aditi aren’t exceptions, for Aziza Al Ahmadi, Adviser to the Undersecretary at Abu Dhabi’s Department of Culture and Tourism. During an event celebrating female gamers on Thursday night, she spoke of Abu Dhabi’s “clear strategy for women’s participation in the gaming industry,” with training and university programmes already rolling out.

Last year, Abu Dhabi University announced a partnership with the French school Rubika to launch a dual-certified bachelor’s degree in video game design. The programme is part of the emirate’s wider AD Gaming initiative, which aims to turn Abu Dhabi into a regional hub for game development.

Taste, community and the long game

Esteqlal Al Humaidi, Community and PR Manager at NVIDIA GeForce MENA, brings another perspective. She started as a gamer and content creator herself, producing reviews and voiceovers, before moving into industry roles across Kuwait and Dubai. “It’s all about taste,” she says. “A genre can win or lose depending on the audience. Community engagement is what keeps people loyal.”

KT Photo: Esteqlal Al Humaidi by Haneen Dajani

Her career underscores a simple truth: Gaming in the region is not just about studios or tournaments, but the communities that keep games alive between launches. For Esteqlal, listening to players is as critical as the technology itself.

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