Malek Teffaha: I have been in the company for the last four years. I started off as a community manager in Ubisoft Abu Dhabi which is a mobile development studio where I started handling the Arab community. The people there are creating amazing games but when I started, it was also planned to manage the retail business for the whole region.
After a while, things changed and priorities shifted within the company. So I effectively sprang off with Ubisoft Middle East under a new leadership with my boss Gareth Evans who came from the UK. We effectively established Ubisoft Middle East into a separate business office entity in Dubai.
Ubisoft Middle East handles the retail business across 18 different Arab countries plus Iran and Pakistan. We function as a part of the bigger UK unit, which is handling the emerging markets. Almost two and a half years ago, I was promoted to PR and Digital Media Manager. I started to be more involved with press and communication related topics. In addition to that I established a firm grip on partnerships with content creators on YouTube, Instagram and Twitter.
More and more we started to become involved when it came to localization of our video games and the censorship process.
This year, I was officially promoted to Head of Localization and Communication due to my caretaking of the region and localization for such a while. We now have a dedicated localization manager, Mohammed Alemam, which is amazing because our team is so small, yet matches the work of other bigger business offices within Ubisoft. In general, the company has always been particularly keen about the Middle East. They started off with Arabic localization with Assassin’s Creed Black Flag, which was even before I joined in. Furthermore, Ubisoft has always been interested in expanding and breaking barriers between potential gamers and the games themselves, so that as many people as possible can play the game. Although the English language seems to be very prolific in the Middle East, it is not in the Gulf region or other Arab states. Arabic is primarily the main language spoken in key territories like Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Bahrain and Qatar. Meanwhile, the UAE is very expat-based and with the local population mainly speaking Arabic, the expat population is mostly speaking English.