Mastercard will power Tamatem’s game web stores, starting in the UAE and Saudi

Mastercard is taking over the payment plumbing behind Tamatem Plus, the commerce platform run by Arabic mobile games publisher Tamatem. According to the joint announcement, Mastercard Gateway, sold through the company’s Mastercard Merchant Cloud, will become the payment gateway for Tamatem Plus in more than 13 markets across the Middle East and Africa, with Saudi Arabia and the UAE first in line.

For players, the change will happen at checkout. Tamatem Plus runs localised web stores and in-game checkouts, and the deal is meant to let people pay with cards, local alternative payment methods or telco wallet balances, with authentication and fraud protection handled in the background. Neither company has given a launch date for the UAE or Saudi rollout, named the games that will use it first, or said whether prices or fees change.

What Tamatem Plus actually is

Tamatem was founded in 2013 by Hussam Hammo, who still runs it as CEO, and has built its business on publishing Arabic-language mobile games. It’s backed by the Abu Dhabi Investment Office (ADIO) and Abu Dhabi Gaming, the same government-linked push behind events such as Abu Dhabi Gaming Connect.

The publisher launched Tamatem Plus in January 2023 to help international developers sell to Arab players who don’t pay with bank cards. At the time, Tamatem said about 70% of the Arab population was underbanked, so the platform relied on carrier billing, e-wallets, and cash top-ups alongside cards. Today, it powers more than 30 localised storefronts and offers more than 50 local payment methods through a single integration, per the companies.

Mastercard Gateway itself is a processing platform for in-store, web and app transactions. As a direct Gateway partner, Tamatem Plus gets round-the-clock technical support, connections to several local and international acquirers, and training from Mastercard.

Why it matters for GCC players

In the UAE, card payments are already widespread, so the headline benefit here is narrower than “easier payments”. The bigger shift is towards web stores. Publishers that sell coins and bundles through their own storefronts keep a direct relationship with players and set their own offers, a model that’s been gaining ground since Fortnite’s return to Apple’s App Store put the fight over app-store payments back in the headlines. The announcement pitches exactly that, describing Tamatem Plus as a direct-to-consumer channel that gives publishers more control over branding and purchases.

Faisal Al Bitar, managing director of Tamatem Plus, framed the problem as fragmentation. “Gaming companies entering MENA face a highly fragmented payments landscape, with different consumer preferences, payment methods and infrastructure requirements across every market,” he said in the release.

Telco wallet support is the part most likely to matter to younger players and anyone without a card. Tamatem has long pitched carrier billing as a way into the region’s underbanked audience, and having it sit alongside Mastercard’s card processing on the same storefront could make web purchases less of a hassle than they are today. For now, that remains a promise: the companies haven’t listed which telcos or wallets each market will support.

The release also cites a recent report putting the MENA gaming market at around $7.1 billion in 2025, up 7.5% year on year, though it doesn’t name the source. As Pocket Gamer.biz notes, Mastercard is supplying the processing, authentication, and fraud tools rather than building its own storefront. The pitch to overseas studios is the same one Abu Dhabi has been making through events such as ChinaJoy’s Abu Dhabi edition: bring your games here, and the local infrastructure will follow.

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