An Interesting article I found on Gameslatest.
"As an experienced British gamer, I have found that there are huge differences between gaming in the UK and the UAE. Everything, including the games played, console played on, and the legislation is different from what I’m used to. Over two articles, I will talk about the diverse gaming culture in these two countries and how it affects the life of a gamer.
After browsing the shops and sales charts, I’ve found that people in UAE are into different sorts of games from what I’ve come to expect in the UK. The gamers in this region prefer sports games on their PS3, whereas the UK gamers prefer online Xbox360 frag-ups. The UAE sells a lot of sports games like ‘Pro Evo 2010’, which is in fact the top selling game here, whereas the UK sales charts are more skewed towards action centered games such as ‘Mass Effect 2′ and ‘Modern Warfare 2′, which take first and third spots. This is something I’m just not used to.
You see, the UK games do play sports games, but they only play a couple rounds of football to loosen up their fingers for a few more hours of killing. Sports games tend to be considered ‘half games’ by the majority of UK gamers, and something that they buy if they really love the sport, or just want something to play while they take a break from gunning down other players. But we still do have a hardcore sports game fan base, but its very small in comparison with the FPS fan base. I get the impression it’s the other way around here.
I also noticed that the difference isn’t just in the games played, but the consoles the games are played on. The UK sales charts are dominated by the Xbox 360, whereas its rival, the PS3, is the top console over here with 5 games in the charts and only one for Xbox 360. The UK is the complete opposite, where the Xbox 360 takes the lead with four games and the PS3 only taking two. The PS3 is considered to be the expensive luxury gaming console in the UK, so many of us chose to get the Xbox360 which is considerably cheaper. ‘Halo 3’ is also a massive influence in console choice because we love our FPS games, and this ‘Halo 3’ is one of the best and an Xbox360 exclusive.
The gamers of the Middle East region also enjoy more single player story based games where as the Europeans love their online slaying sessions. Several of the games in the European charts are heavily based around multiplayer, whereas the Middle East charts don’t even have a handful of such titles. UK gamers enjoy their action, but when it’s against other real players, it’s just that much more satisfying.
The reasons gamers here prefer single player to multiplayer may not be taste, it is most likely because game developers and console manufacturers don’t fully support online service for their games and consoles because the Middle Eastern market just isn’t big enough yet. Microsoft’s Xbox Live online service is not officially supported yet, although I have been able to get online with my X360. Still, the quality is not so good since lag can be a huge issue, and sometimes it just isn’t worth it, especially since I have to pay for the service.
As gaming becomes bigger and more popular, I expect official support will be given to Middle East. Microsoft has already stated that they are impressed with how the gaming market is growing in this region, and will be ‘looking into’ officially supporting online services. Then again, the single player addiction may be due to taste because this region is dominated by the PlayStation brand, Sony’s PSN service has been working here from the launch of PS3, and still the majority of games in the charts are mainly single player.
The differences in the sales charts are influenced by the UAE’s ban-hammer. A game being banned is something that UK gamers don’t even have to consider, since nearly everything gets through, and only two games have ever been banned. ‘Carmagenddon’ and ‘Man Hunt 2’ both felt the wrath of the Ban-Hammer, but the bans later got lifted, so nothing is officially banned in the UK. The UAE’s National Media Council has swung the ban-hammer at several popular games. The NMC says that they only ban games which contradict the religious and cultural values of this region, although they often fail to give any specific reasons as to why a certain game is banned. A recent example of this would be Mass Effect 2, where the NMC didn’t provide any reasoning for the ban, although if I were to guess, it would be because of the sex scenes.
Despite being officially banned, many games can be acquired over the counter fairly easily in the grey market because the gamers demand for it is high, and everybody’s willing to pay to play. The UK’s list of banned games however hasn’t been added to in almost 13 years. So I’ve found that both countries have very different stances on what can and can’t be played by its gamers. Personally I believe that the NMC are holding back the gaming industry with their legislation.
Many expats who’ve just moved into the country don’t know about the grey market games, so they aren’t be able to buy them. The whole situation simply leads to less money being spent on video games, creating a negative atmosphere for the industry. I’ve even found myself getting worried about some upcoming games getting banned so I purchase them online, only to find the game isn’t banned, and that’s one less sale for the retailers here, which again damages the market’s expansion.
In the next article I will look at the many differences between how games are distributed in the UK and UAE.
Josh Brindley is our guest feature writer, he is enjoying the warm weather of UAE at the moment, and getting accustomed to gaming in the Middle East. He describes himself by say: “My first memories are of owning cheese balls with Pacman, and saving animals with Sonic, and I’ve been gaming ever since. I’ll play anything and everything, but I prefer online multiplayer games. I did try going outside once, the graphics where great, but the game play sucked! Reading and writing are also parts of my life, but gaming takes priority.”
So, what do you guys think?
