Pakistan has a real game industry. It is mostly mobile, mostly small studios, and mostly unknown outside the country. This guide puts the numbers in one place: how big it is, where the studios are, what they make, what they earn, and how to get started.
Every figure links to its source. Where a number is old or rough, we say so.
How it started
Developers in Pakistan began with mods and maps for games such as Counter-Strike and Unreal Tournament. According to Wikipedia’s history of video games in Pakistan, the first production houses appeared around 2005, and the three major studios of the early years were Trango Interactive and ForkParticle in Islamabad and Wireframe Interactive in Lahore.
The first commercial hit was Mindstorm Studios’ Cricket Revolution in 2009, which became the official online game of the 2011 Cricket World Cup. The same studio’s Whacksy Taxi reached number one on Apple’s App Store in more than 25 countries.
The next wave came with smartphones. we.R.play was founded in Islamabad in 2010. Caramel Tech formed in 2011 and worked with Halfbrick on Fruit Ninja and Jetpack Joyride. The first Games Emerge conference was held in Islamabad in 2016, and an IGDA Pakistan chapter followed in 2018.
How big is it now?
The most-quoted numbers come from P@SHA’s 2022–23 Animation, Gaming and Graphics Ecosystem Report. As reported by TechJuice, the sector had:
| Measure | Figure |
|---|---|
| Revenue | $300 million |
| Exports | $157.9 million |
| Companies | 257 |
| Employees | 12,057 |
Two cautions. These figures cover animation and graphics as well as games, so games alone are smaller. And they are from 2022–23; no newer official count has been published. The Express Tribune’s 2024 overview quotes the same report as “over 240 studios of all sizes”.
On the player side, the same TechJuice report cites more than 34 million online gamers, and Tenjin projects 50.9 million mobile gamers in Pakistan by 2026.
What studios here make
Mobile games, overwhelmingly. Tenjin surveyed 50 Pakistani mobile studios in early 2025 and found:
- 80% focus on simulation games, 52% on casual and 48% on hyper-casual. Studios could pick more than one.
- 66% earn from both ads and in-app purchases.
- 40% have ten people or fewer. 28% have 11 to 50. 32% have more than 50.
The simulation number explains a lot of what you see on Google Play: driving, farming and shop simulators built quickly and funded by ads. The Tribune notes that Game District’s My Supermarket Simulator 3D led the Android store with 17 million downloads in September 2024.
Original PC and console games are rare. A handful of indie teams are trying; we cover them in indie game studios in Pakistan.
What studios here earn
The same Tenjin survey asked about monthly revenue per game:
| Monthly revenue per game | Share of studios |
|---|---|
| Under $1,000 | 40% |
| $1,000 – $10,000 | 40% |
| $10,000 – $50,000 | 12% |
So four in five studios earn under $10,000 a month from a typical game. The studios’ biggest problems were the cost of getting installs (27%) and players not coming back (25%). Making a game is the easy part; getting it played is where the money goes.
That is why so many studios here also do client work. It pays the salaries while their own games find an audience. We do the same; see our Unity game development services.
Where the studios are
Lahore is home to many of the best-known studios, including Mindstorm Studios, Game District and FRAG Games.
Karachi has large software houses that build games alongside other work, such as Cubix and AppsNation, both on Clutch’s list of Unity companies in Pakistan.
Islamabad and Rawalpindi have fewer studios but some of the oldest. We list them in game development companies in Islamabad.
Small teams now work from anywhere. One studio on our indie list is four developers in Sargodha.
Government support: CEGA
The Centres of Excellence in Gaming and Animation are the main public programme. TechJuice reports a budget of PKR 2.5 billion, through the Ignite National Technology Fund and the Ministry of IT and Telecom, with centres in Karachi and Lahore and a target of training 10,000 people over five years.
The centres run with HUM Network as the private partner. In July 2026, ProPakistani reported on CEGA’s first investor summit: 22 startups had joined the first cohort, eight pitched to investors, and incubation was free with no equity taken.
For a new studio that is worth knowing. Free space, mentors and a room of investors are hard to find anywhere else in the country.
Salaries and careers
Pay data is thin. Paylab’s survey puts the middle 80% of game developers between PKR 47,912 and PKR 175,439 a month before tax, and warns that it rests on fewer than 20 responses. Use it as a rough range.
The roles studios hire for most are Unity developers, 3D artists, game designers and people who run user acquisition. Because most work is mobile, Unity and C# are the safest skills to learn first.
A portfolio matters more than a degree. A finished small game on itch.io or Google Play shows a studio more than a transcript does.
How to start in game development in Pakistan
- Pick one engine. Unity is free to start with and is what most local studios use.
- Finish something small. One mechanic, one level, published. Our devlog on how we prototype shows the approach.
- Join a game jam. A weekend deadline teaches scope faster than any course.
- Publish. itch.io costs nothing. Google Play charges $25 once.
- Decide how you will pay for it. A job at a studio, client work, or a programme such as CEGA.
- Show your work. Post progress. It is how players, studios and the press find you.
If you want to start a studio rather than join one, plan the money first. Our guide to game development cost in Pakistan shows what studios charge, which is also what you can expect to earn from client work.
What holds the industry back
- Dependence on ads. Most revenue comes from ad-funded mobile games, where the cost of installs keeps rising.
- Few original games. Client work and quick simulators pay the bills but build no lasting brand.
- Thin data. The last full industry count is from 2022–23.
- Low visibility. Few Pakistani games are known by name abroad.
Where it is going
The direction is up, slowly. The player base is growing, the government has put money into training and incubation, and a first group of funded startups pitched to investors in 2026. An Access Partnership report cited by the Express Tribune projects an extra $6.6 billion a year by 2030, though projections like that deserve caution.
What would change the picture fastest is a few original games from Pakistan that players abroad know by name. That is the part still to be built.
The short version
- The sector had about $300 million in revenue and 257 companies in 2022–23, counting animation and graphics.
- Most studios are small and make ad-funded mobile games in Unity.
- Four in five earn under $10,000 a month from a typical game.
- Lahore and Karachi host the gaming centres; Islamabad has fewer studios, some of them the oldest.
- CEGA offers free incubation in Karachi and Lahore.
We are one of the small studios this guide describes: an indie game studio in Islamabad, Pakistan, building our own game and taking client work. If you want to talk about either, say hello.
