Not all smartphone games enjoy the success of the Angry Birds series, which has attracted more than 700 million downloads.
Thousands of titles compete for the attention of gaming fans on platforms such as the Apple App Store and Google Play.
Games such as Angry Birds and Draw Something have been so popular they have spawned their own TV series. One company based in Dubai has just released its second smartphone title.
Piranha Byte this month launched a word-guessing game called Peek!, which it hopes will attract at least of some of the popularity of big-names titles.
Waleed Kharma, the chief executive of Piranha Byte, acknowledges the market for smartphone games is crowded.
"It's very cluttered. The challenge is about coming out with a great idea, developing it with a very high-quality approach and being able to market it," he says.
After downloading Peek! for free, users can challenge their Facebook friends or choose to play a stranger. The first player in a game takes a picture using their smartphone camera, or chooses one from their image library, and tags it with a secret word. Their opponent then receives the image, part obscured by tiles, and must guess the word. 'Peeks' can be used to remove a tile, which can be exchanged for coins earned by completing levels, or purchased through the app.
Peek! proved to be a fun game when tested by The National, although its interface is not as slick as that of rival titles such as Draw Something. Mr Kharma says updates of the game are in the pipeline, while an Arabic version is under consideration.
"We're planning to take [the interface] into five or six languages, like Italian, French, Spanish and German.
"Arabic we're still debating at this stage ... we will be looking at that. But really, the number one language is English," he says.
