The total spending on gaming in Saudi Arabia reached $647 million this year, making it the second-top gaming revenue-generating country in the region.

The Middle East and Africa gaming market of more than 3.36 million gamers is expected to generate $4 billion dollars of revenue in gaming this year, 2.6 percent share of 2017 global gaming revenues, according to the latest Global Gaming Market Report from Newzoo. This means 25 percent year-on-year growth across the MEA market.

The UAE comes in fourth with $281 million revenue.

2.2 billion gamers across the globe are expected to generate $108.9 billion in game revenues in 2017. This represents an increase of $7.8 billion, or 7.8%, from the year before. Digital game revenues will account for $94.4 billion or 87% of the global market.

Asia-Pacific is the largest region with China expected to generate $27.5 billion, or one-quarter of all revenues, this year.

While gaming used to be a casual activity, it has now become a professional activity to many and router developers are keeping an eye on this.

Real world competitions such as the World Cup and Formula One are played out as professionally online. Professional players in the online world compete for prize money that reaches up to $100 million. Like in the real world, online gaming space is streamed and viewership creates online advertising and marketing.

Professional gamers will therefore look for gaming routers that can match the quality and pace of their profession, according to Amanullah Khan, managing director at Linksys in the region.

“Gaming enthusiasts spend serious money on game play and they want technology that gives them a clear advantage over their rivals,” he said.

“During our research into the way serious gamers use their internet connections and the kind of networking technology they have at home, we initially though they were using so-called ‘gaming routers’. But when we looked into this, we found out they were using regular routers, modified with ‘gamer-bait’ visual accents. This had been slickly marketed but there was no substance and nothing truly innovative.”

The Linksys WRT32X Gaming Router is made mainly for gaming. Linksys and Rivet Networks teamed to incorporate the Killer Prioritization Engine (KPE) to provide serious online gamers the product, becoming the only router in the market that’s optimized for high-speed gaming for users with Killer-enabled gaming PCs.

Low latency and super-fast speed are what professional gamers look for. “They look for how to improve the ping rate that’s measured in nanoseconds,” says Khan. “The average is between 64 to 74 nanoseconds. However, the moment you have a gaming PC with this equipment, the prioritization engine powered by Killer Networking delivers up to 77% reduction in peak ping for faster response time. As a result, the performance and response is extremely fast with no lag or latency. The whole gaming experience becomes exciting.”

He added: “Within the house, while the gaming is being prioritized, the other devices are also getting priority with an intelligent distribution of bandwidth. In a way, it creates harmony at home!”

“Integrating Killer Networking technology to the WRT32X is a huge win for gamers,” said Bob Grim, vice president of marketing and business development at Rivet Networks. “For the first time, gamers will have a router that is designed specifically to work with their Killer-enabled PCs to identify and prioritize important gaming network traffic and ensure their online gaming experience is fast and smooth, no matter what else is going on in their home network.”

The Killer Prioritization Engine (KPE)

The WRT32X utilizes the Killer Prioritization Engine (KPE) to determine which devices are connected to the router that are enabled with and using Killer Networking hardware. This hardware can be found in gaming and performance PCs and motherboards from companies like Dell® (Both Alienware and XPS models), Gigabyte, MSI, or Razer, as well as Acer®, Lenovo®, and more.

The KPE works in tandem with Killer-enabled computers to prioritize important gaming and video networking traffic above other devices in the home. When a user starts a game, the Killer hardware on the PC communicates with the router and tells the router to treat the gaming packets special and with high priority. If the network is bogged down from other users, the WRT32X is able to keep the gameplay fast and smooth because it prioritizes the Killer game traffic above other traffic in the home. Conversely, the PC also communicates to the router when a less important activity is taking place (like a download) so that the router won’t let the download impact the Internet experience of other users in the home.

Since network priorities are fully customizable on Killer-Enabled PCs, the KPE on the WRT32X is able to honor those priorities. So if the user configures the Killer Control Center to make streaming videos their top priority, the WRT32X will treat those packets like gold and ensure nothing in the home slows down those streaming video networking packets.