Communicate

Print

E-mail

RSS Feeds

Add Comment

Once a gamer, always a gamer. That’s one saying game developers like to hear.

The world of gaming is as wide and varying as it is wildly entertaining and scarily addictive, but lately there’s one type of game that’s standing out in the crowd. Collectively, they have won – and still are winning – the hearts and thumbs of millions. They are online games.

The death of dial up – and the corresponding explosion of broadband – has revolutionized the gaming world. Gamers have witnessed a proliferation of online games of all kinds, from basic, e-circulated time-killers like Whack the Penguin, to the world’s most subscribed massively multiplayer online role-playing games (MMORPG), like the intricate, submersive World of Warcraft.

While online gaming is one of the fastest growing video game segments on the planet (forecasted to be a $13 billion industry by 2013 according to Steve Tsao, CEO of UAE-based Tahadi Games), the Middle East has yet to get up to speed. “It’s not really for a lack of Internet users, because there are about 50 million in the Middle East,” says Tsao. “It seems to be more an issue of lack of content, specifically Arabic content.”

GROWING PAINS. The region is definitely paying attention to the gaming world, though – as evidenced by the 2nd Dubai World Game Expo in October 2009. But industry experts say their field in the region is still under-developed.

“I went to the expo last year, and I was a little disappointed,” says Dimitri Metaxas, regional executive director of digital at OmnicomMediaGroup. “It’s a bit of a mixed bag of companies dipping their toes in the industry, so you get a sense that there is no clear industry direction.” Rami El Hussein, managing director of games distributor Pluto, also believes the expo is not up to par, and agrees that the regional gaming industry “needs a lot of coordination.”

But with regional gaming companies such as Tahadi and Vertex from the UAE, Joybox from Syria, and Maysalward from Jordan all at the Dubai Games Expo, there are signs of movement taking place, particularly in the direction of localization and culturalization. Tahadi Games has done that with Ragnarok, a widely popular MMORPG based on Viking myths. With 48 million users worldwide, the game is available in English, French, German, Italian, Russian, Chinese, Korean, and Japanese, and Tahadi Games has now localized it and produced an Arabic version, where references to magic are eliminated and the characters’ dress code is altered to fit cultural norms. Tahadi Games has also localized another popular MMORPG, Runes of Magic, expected to be released early next year, as well as Crazy Kart, a racing game that will have maps of Dubai and Cairo.

Another company following the “culturalization” trend is Gamepower 7, a Dubai-based gaming company. Fadi Mujahid, general manager, says localizing international games is very important. “We recently acquired the license for Rappelz, a game very similar to World of Warcraft,” he says. “We translated the whole game into Arabic, and we had to rewrite major parts of it. There were several things that had to do with Asian mythology, with gods fighting each other; so we changed that and turned it into nations fighting each other. Also, in a lot of these games, you have female characters wearing immodest clothing, which could cause problems in countries like Saudi Arabia, which is a major market. So the clothing is more modest.”

Mujahid draws a comparison between MMORPGs and more basic games like shooting games, and says that, while a gamer might play a shooting game for an hour or two, a MMORPG session could last two years, as gamers build the characters and complete missions.

“Also, in a shooting game, you don’t have to understand much of the story, you just shoot,” says Mujahid. “In an online game, you have to understand the story very well and follow missions in order to advance. If the contents of the game are alien to your culture, you might not enjoy living in that culture as much as if it were close to what you know. Another thing we noticed inside online games is the chats, where players socialize with each other. Some don’t even play the game; they’re just in the chat rooms. When we started our business, we found that players were chatting in Arabic, but using English letters. But with Arabic Rappelz now, gamers can chat in Arabic.”

ORIGINAL THINKING. Original MMORPG content is scarce in the Middle East, but Abu Dhabi Media Company (ADMC) has taken on the challenge and aims to produce content from the UAE. Earlier this year, it announced a joint venture with Gazillion Entertainment, an American developer and publisher of MMOGs.
“One of the first properties is the well-known and popular ADMC-owned character, Majid [of Majid magazine fame],” says Ricky Ghai, executive director of the Digital Media Group, part of ADMC. “In terms of the online world, there isn’t any original Arabic IP properties that have been developed so far. For the time being, games range from simple Web browser games such as Travian, to more sophisticated client-based games such as Ragnarok and Rappelz. But these games are simple localization of online games originating from MMORPG hot spots such as Asia. ADMC is about to change that through its partnership with Gazillion.”

As for the more casual, browser-based, type of games, they are being produced more and more regionally. Spacetoon is a sister company to Gamepower 7, and its Web site (www.spacetoon.com) is rated as one of the most popular Arabic sites for children. “It has 150,000 active registered users,” says Mujahid. “Its content is updated daily. We have about 45 games, such as interactive games that teach kids how to cook, or flash games like tic-tac-toe. We add one or two games per month to the Web site, and all of it is original IP [intellectual property] and content.”

The third type of online game – console games such as Guitar Hero or Counterstrike, which offer the option to compete with other players online using your console – are not being created regionally because it would bring local companies into competition with international giants, say industry experts. “In Europe or the US, it would take millions of dollars to develop a game for a market as big as the universe,” quips El Hussein. “But here, developers would be creating games with a minimal budget for a very small gaming unit.”

Tsao also says that, outside of the UAE, the region is a heavily prone to piracy, which leads to a decrease in revenue. “For every one game that’s sold legitimately, 15 to 20 copies are made illegally,” he says. “So in an environment like that, it’s very difficult for the traditional models of Playstation or Xbox to be sustainable.”

PLAYING CATCH-UP. So why has it taken the regional online gaming industry so long to start developing? With a favorably high percentage of youths in the region and a growing number of Internet users, the Middle East is primed for the development of online games. But Ghai says that the Western world is far more advanced than the Middle East in terms of industry maturity, original content development and infrastructure, not to mention broadband proliferation.

“We believe the talent has to be developed and nurtured for the complex world of online and MMORP games,” says Ghai, “which is why ADMC and the Higher Colleges of Technology (HCT) have formed a partnership to create a targeted curriculum around game development, which will bridge this gap.” Internship and employment schemes for HCT students will begin in 2010.

Education plays a vital role in the emerging gaming industry, and with companies like Tahadi committing themselves to localizing popular games as well the gaming world is set to expand within a few years.

“Infrastructure and connectivity have been a challenge, but it’s a growing market,” says Tsao. “I have built businesses in emerging markets, and year one is not the same as year three in terms of the infrastructure and the capability of the market. So, although there are hindrances now, we fully expect to work with all partners in the region to grow the infrastructure, connectivity and distribution we will need in the times to come.”
 

Print

E-mail

RSS Feeds

Add Comment