Qatar’s Global Gaming Industry: Strategic Debut in World Esports

Qatar’s attempt to glob­al­ize its gam­ing indus­try is the lat­est fron­tier in Doha’s ambi­tious soft pow­er strat­e­gy. On 4 Sep­tem­ber 2025, MEMRI report­ed that Qatar had made a strate­gic entry into the glob­al gam­ing sec­tor, posi­tion­ing itself as a key play­er in esports and dig­i­tal enter­tain­ment as part of its broad­er efforts to enhance inter­na­tion­al influ­ence. The arti­cle begins:

Last month, Qatar exhib­it­ed at the world’s largest gam­ing trade show, Gamescom 2025, held in Cologne, Ger­many August 20–24, reflect­ing Doha’s aim to pro­mote itself as a nexus in the glob­al cre­ative econ­o­my. The Qatari pavil­ion was orga­nized joint­ly by the Invest­ment Pro­mo­tion Agency of Qatar, known as Invest Qatar and Media City Qatar (MCQ). Both are state-spon­sored insti­tu­tions that are key to Doha’s strat­e­gy of posi­tion­ing itself as a lead­ing force in the media land­scape. Togeth­er, they form Doha’s eco­nom­ic and cul­tur­al out­reach, com­bin­ing finan­cial incen­tives with sec­tor-spe­cif­ic exper­tise. Invest Qatar, estab­lished 2019, is Doha’s prin­ci­pal chan­nel for secur­ing for­eign direct invest­ment, assist­ing inter­na­tion­al enter­pris­es with adher­ence to reg­u­la­tions and licens­ing pro­ce­dures, as well as with part­ner­ships with inter­na­tion­al companies.

Read more: https://www.memri.org/reports/dohas-strategic-debut-global-gaming-industry-%E2%80%93-new-front-qatars-expanding-soft-power

Key Points

• Qatar has strate­gi­cal­ly entered the glob­al gam­ing indus­try, host­ing esports events and sup­port­ing gam­ing star­tups as part of its soft pow­er expan­sion beyond tra­di­tion­al sports and media.

• The ini­tia­tive is sup­port­ed by state-backed invest­ments and aims to posi­tion Doha as a region­al hub for gam­ing, attract­ing inter­na­tion­al tal­ent and increas­ing tourism.

• This move aligns with Qatar’s Vision 2030 objec­tives, focus­ing on eco­nom­ic diver­si­fi­ca­tion, youth engage­ment, and enhanc­ing the country’s glob­al tech profile.

• Ana­lysts inter­pret Qatar’s gam­ing indus­try push as an effort to shape inter­na­tion­al per­cep­tions, par­tic­u­lar­ly among younger demo­graph­ics, and to com­ple­ment exist­ing soft pow­er assets like Al Jazeera and major sports events.

Crisis Diplomacy, Education, Mosques: How Qatar Leverages Soft Power to Improve its Global Standing

Qatar has sys­tem­at­i­cal­ly cul­ti­vat­ed a mul­ti­di­men­sion­al soft pow­er port­fo­lio that spans cri­sis diplomacy—brokering talks in glob­al con­flicts; edu­ca­tion—fund­ing elite uni­ver­si­ties and research cen­ters; and religion—leveraging its wealth as a prin­ci­pal financier of Euro­pean mosques, Islam­ic cen­ters, and cul­tur­al projects, sup­port­ing over 140 such ini­tia­tives with sub­stan­tial fund­ing. In Europe, Qatar Char­i­ty chan­nels fund­ing into Islam­ic cen­ters and youth orga­ni­za­tions, as seen in Ger­many, where Qatari fund­ing of mosques has drawn scruti­ny, and in Brus­sels, where Euro­pean Mus­lim Broth­er­hood youth groups sought Qatari back­ing.

In the US, Pres­i­dent Trump’s 2024 elec­tion vic­to­ry has led to dra­mat­i­cal­ly increased Qatari out­reach to right-wing out­lets. Com­ple­ment­ing these efforts, Qatar’s new Media City project part­ners with inter­na­tion­al news agen­cies to project a mod­ern, open image—though crit­ics warn of media influ­ence risks—while elite uni­ver­si­ties like Edu­ca­tion City in Doha attract glob­al tal­ent and fos­ter aca­d­e­m­ic diplo­ma­cy. Qatar’s approach is not lim­it­ed to the West: reli­gious del­e­ga­tions such as the IUMS schol­ars’ meet­ings with Tal­iban min­is­ters reflect Doha’s bid for a role in host­ing influ­en­tial region­al and reli­gious actors.

This blend of cul­tur­al out­reach, eco­nom­ic state­craft, and strate­gic media invest­ments enables the tiny nation of Qatar to punch above way its weight in glob­al affairs, even as scruti­ny of its over­seas fund­ing and ide­o­log­i­cal ties grows.

Exter­nal References:

• Qatar said to be lead­ing fun­der of mosques in Europe
• Qatari involve­ment in US high­er education
• New round of Gaza cease­fire talks in Doha: Where do Hamas, Israel stand?

Dis­claimer

The Glob­al Influ­ence Oper­a­tions Report (GIOR) employs AI through­out the post­ing process, includ­ing gen­er­at­ing sum­maries of news items, the intro­duc­tion, key points, and often the “con­text” sec­tion. We rec­om­mend ver­i­fy­ing all infor­ma­tion before use. Addi­tion­al­ly, images are AI-gen­er­at­ed and intend­ed sole­ly for illus­tra­tive pur­pos­es. While they rep­re­sent the events or indi­vid­u­als dis­cussed, they should not be inter­pret­ed as real-world photography.