The success of WOLF’s new social gaming proposition is thanks to a dedicated, highly experienced and innovative team that brings our strategy to life.
Our focus on building an engaging, exciting and growing community games offering began with the successful launch of Carrom. Since the launch last summer, we have continued to build on our users’ desire to play games. The average time users spend playing in-app games increases every month, demonstrating that users are playing for the joy of the game, which is exciting and satisfying for us to see.
In February 2026, an incredible 3.66 million games had been played in-app since launch, with the app also acquiring 66,500 new users. A third of these users are playing across the selection of games, showing what a huge pull the Gaming Hub is for our community.
As well as user favourite, Carrom, we have launched Lonoo – a unique variation on the card game UNO – and XO, based on noughts and crosses. And, with the men’s football World Cup taking place in June and July 2026, WOLF will launch Match Day, which draws inspiration from the famous Subbuteo finger-football concept to get users in the football spirit.
Idea to iterations
So, what does it take to take these games from idea to reality? The journey for every new game begins in the same way – listening to what our existing users would like to see, thinking about how we can surprise them, keeping abreast of emerging trends, as well as relying on our own gaming backgrounds to craft the games and experiences that users would love to play.
Sometimes, they want to play their favourite, familiar games within their own communities, hence launching Carrom and Lonoo. However, the really interesting part is when we can take a classic game and give it a unique personality, or introduce a mechanic they’ve never seen before; that’s the DNA of XO. Our team took a game everyone knows, but wrapped it in a presentation style and added fresh mechanics that made it feel brand new.
For WOLF, that’s where the excitement is; we can test our ideas against our users’ appetites, push the boundaries of our own design thinking and, importantly, allow players to discover new experiences.
Getting our valued users and volunteers involved
Once we have a game idea, we try to develop into a basic prototype quickly, to get a feel of the core game mechanics and what the overall look and feel of the game should be. The gaming space is incredibly crowded, with countless versions of every game and genre, so at WOLF, we lead with the user experience.
We like to include our user base as early as possible, so initial prototypes and visuals are often sent to our volunteers to garner their opinions and ideas about the games; the constant loop of development, user feedback and iteration is at the core of what we do.
We work to tap into the emotions players can’t always put into words; creating a game that feels like it was built specifically for them. Luckily, our dedicated network of volunteers and beta testers act as our ‘ear to the ground’ and their feedback is filtered through our Arabic-speaking team to ensure every proposal we green-light hits the mark culturally and emotionally before we move towards a live launch.
Integrating and ongoing profiling of games
The next challenge is how we use the feedback we collate, and make the game the best it can be within the capacity of the app. Our games are integrated directly into the main WOLF app, sharing the system resources with all the existing features that allow users to communicate, socialise and enjoy their time in the app.
The goal is to create gaming and social experiences that complement each other instead of having app offerings battling for the users’ attention. We want users to seamlessly jump back and forth between the games and the chat-based Channels, as well as listening to shows via the audio stages, whilst continuing their gaming experience. This agility takes technological experience and expertise that the gaming team leans on to ensure smooth integration.
Throughout the development process we are constantly striking a balance between the creative experience and the technical constraints. We do this continuously throughout the creation process, as we go through the initial prototype phase, into the development phase and during the final polish and tweaking phase. Our community and volunteers are constantly engaged throughout each step in the cycle, ensuring we’re creating something we know they’ll love.
Gary Knight, CEO of WOLF, says: “We are hugely proud of and excited by the games the team is creating and launching in-app. The games that they have created within the WOLF Qanawat app are already loved and played by our community, and we’re looking forward to more exciting, engaging and rewarding additions in the near future.”