ALAX
ALAX
Nov 5 · 3 min read

Studio Highlight : The Stories Studio

The gaming industry is rapidly growing and according to Newzoo - a market research company that has over 11 years of experience in forecasting, the market share for gaming devices in 2019 has increased by around 9.6% from last year’s $138 billion in revenue to about $152.1 billion.

With smartphones having the largest share at 36% amongst the console gaming market, more and more game developers are eyeing for opportunities to earn money. While most game developers are concentrating on their passion to create captivating games to satisfy their fans, there are those who create games for a cause and The Stories Studio is one of them.

The Stories Studio was established last February, 2018 and founded by both Saba Saleem and Sajad Hameed. Having grown up playing video games, their passion did not end there, but grew into self-learning game development with a cause. Their studio is a means for games to raise awareness on social impact causes with a twist of simultaneously bringing a fun and interactive video games to the masses.

Backed by their passion and talent, they were able to achieve notable awards.

On April 2018 they joined a pitching event named Pitch@Palace founded by the Duke of York, a platform for entrepreneurs to accelerate and amplify their work by putting them in the limelight. Their project won 3rd place, even being pitched in front of the Duke of York and Crown Prince of Bahrain together with other prestigious guests. It was also later advanced to the GCC version of the event.

They were selected as National Winners in the Creative Business Cup and represented Bahrain for the finals held at Copenhagen on November 2018. They won the first Women’s Power Pitch Competition at the Women Power Summit held in Bahrain on April 2018. They were also selected as part of the Arab World delegation for a trip to Silicon Valley from the MITEF Arab and Tamkeen on October 2018.

With the help of Flat6lab an Egyptian based accelerator who invests in opening branches in Bahrain, both Saba and Sajad was able to quit their full time jobs and concentrated on the studio exclusively. This resulted in the creation of their first self-published game Deep Blue Dump which was nominated in the Peoples Choice for the IMGA awards MENA in 2018.

Deep Blue Dump not only includes the typical gaming worlds set in fantasy or futuristic themes it also sets a precedence of a real present problem found in plastic pollution of the seas.

As a player you will need to look after Torty - a baby turtle on its first ocean journey in a very polluted water, your goal is to protect it and get the best distance by pushing away plastic trash from little Torty's path.

There are other features that makes the game fun and exciting but what makes it worth playing is not only uncovering facts about plastic pollution as you progress but the fact that you ACT in real life problems about plastic pollution as you play the game!

How? Well, Stories Studio has partnered with several environmental organizations such as Greenpeace, OceanCleanup and Plastic Bank wherein 2.5% of the revenue will be donated to help them, thus becoming a partner in real time action against plastic pollution.

Although the gaming industry is a big market, funding is one of the difficulties facing developers in Bahrain as they are one of the first gaming studios in the country and most investors are not aware of the gaming business model.

Having ALAX Store at hand with its innovative platform powered by blockchain technology, it will hopefully help expand their reach into other countries that are not readily available on other game distribution platform.

Game developers such as Stories Studio are indeed worth supporting, not only for creating games for our satisfaction but creating awareness for real life problems we face.

So why not play with a cause? Let's have fun while being a partner of environmental organizations to fight against pollution.

Visit Stories Studio and keep updated:
https://www.thestoriesstudio.com/
https://www.facebook.com/TheStoriesStudio/

Download their games on ALAX Store : bit.ly/ALAXStore

    ALAX

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    ALAX

    ALAX intends to bring fresh air to the Gaming Industry worldwide. The purpose is to develop & support Mobile Games Distribution Platform in emerging markets.