Meet the man leading the charge in levelling up the region’s gaming industry by getting the younger generation involved and proving that gaming is a legitimate career choice

In 2002, Yannick Theller, managing director of gaming company Ubisoft Abu Dhabi, found himself deep in conversation with an avid video game buyer in Switzerland who told him that one day everything would be digital. He was right.

Born and raised in the mountainous province of Valais in Switzerland, Yannick graduated with a degree in finance before working as a financial controller. He then joined Ubisoft Switzerland as product manager — that was more than 15 years ago.

After almost five years establishing Ubisoft in Switzerland, Yannick moved to China to study the market there. Then in 2011, Yannick moved to Abu Dhabi to establish Ubisoft’s office in the UAE.

“The UAE was not a new market. There were a lot of gamers here even then. The difference was that some companies are localising the games by putting Arabic subtitles. So that was the next step for us,” says Yannick.

“Our first game was called CSI: Hidden Crimes. We’ve had more than 21 million downloads for that game.”

On the future of gaming: “Now we’re looking at VR, AR and artificial intelligence. Gaming will be more immersive as we incorporate all these elements. eSports is growing — industry insiders are hoping that video games will be included in the line-up of games in the 2024 Paris Olympics.”

“You don’t need to be a hardcore gamer, but you need to like gaming to make it in this field. There are a lot of job choices in this industry, from programming and designing to data analyst or mathematician. The industry is amazing because it’s always reinventing itself. Never stop learning.”

WORDS Ferdinand Godinez