True Gamers Launches Four Venues as Part of $45 Million Rollout

• True Gamers opens four esports venues in Riyadh as part of a $45M plan to build 150 across Saudi Arabia.
  New cafes feature VIP pods, racing sims, and tournament tools powered by True Gamers' custom software.

• Company targets 10% global market share by 2030, expanding from UAE into MENA and Europe.

True Gamers opened four gaming cafes and esports venues in Riyadh under a deal signed on June 23 at Dubai Internet City, marking its first multi–location launch in Saudi Arabia. Operated by CRIT Gaming Saudi, and led by Ilya Yuryev, who will act as True Gamers’ representative in the country, these venues join an earlier franchise deal in Mecca, where a flagship club is already under construction.

This Riyadh debut is part of a $45 million master–franchise investment agreed with Nawaf Albishri’s Falak in January 2024 to build 150 lounges nationwide. The first Jeddah club opened early in 2024, and ten outlets were live by the year-end, which are now supplemented by these four Riyadh locations. Each site features high-spec PCs, consoles, racing simulators, VIP pods, and streaming booths and uses True Gamers’ software suite for leaderboards, event management, and cloud player tracking.

Founded in 2022 by Anton Vasilenko and Vladislav Belyanin, True Gamers runs 15 venues in the UAE and has expanded into Morocco, Jordan, France, and Germany. The company stages up to seven weekly esports tournaments, has partnered with Sony and LG, and created eQueens Villa, which is the Arab world’s first women-only gaming hub. In April 2025, it secured $5 million seed round to bolster its tech stack and support international growth via a hybrid franchising and venture-capital model. It is aiming at capturing 10 percent of the US, European, and MENA gaming-café markets by 2030.

True Gamers’ Saudi expansion fits Vision 2030’s National Gaming and Esports Sector Strategy, under which Saudi aims to create nearly 39,000 jobs and add about $13.3 billion to GDP by 2030. The country has roughly 23.5 million gamers (67 percent of the population), 59 percent aged 15–24, and 27 percent female.

The concentration of major esports events in Riyadh helps explain why True Gamers chose the city as the launch point for its Saudi expansion. Esports World Cup returns this summer with $70 million prize pool across 24 titles and the inaugural Olympic Esports Games slated for 2027 under a 12-year IOC partnership. Concurrently, Qiddiya Entertainment District is building a gaming zone with four arenas, one seating 5,300+, plus hotels and retail, targeting 10 million annual visitors.

Market forecasts project Saudi gaming revenues of $2.8 billion by 2026, growing 8-9 percent annually through 2027. With venues now operational and integrated into a rapidly developing ecosystem, True Gamers is well-positioned to scale its franchise model and embed itself across both casual and competitive tiers of Saudi Arabia’s growing esports economy.