Are there are good articles in English about gaming in the Middle East in the '70s/'80s/'90s? I would love to read more about that stuff.
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IGN Middle East: No, Jim Ryan - Gaming In The Middle East Existed Long Before PlayStation
- Thread starter Canas Renvall
- Start date
- News Sony
If he wanted to make a different statement then he could have worded it differently like he did with Russia or spain. If Jim Ryan didn't meant it the way he said it than it's his own fault if can't restrain himself being so hyperbolic to make playstation and himself look super imoprtant and influential.
I know supporters of a different person, who always said to not take him literally when he said something clearly ignorant and stupid.
I know supporters of a different person, who always said to not take him literally when he said something clearly ignorant and stupid.
He made a point to differentiate markets that were small because they had no licensed distributor (like mine growing up) and the middle east where no one "NEVER" touched a gaming thing.
"Never" feels pretty definitive and i'm concerned how people that speak English as a first language consider as a defense that there is wiggle room in the word "never".
"Never" feels pretty definitive and i'm concerned how people that speak English as a first language consider as a defense that there is wiggle room in the word "never".
Like I come from a time when all gaming devices connected to the TV were simply called Atari. Everything including the NES, SNES etc
He didn't say pioneered, he said solely created. And he actually drew a direct contrast there with (majority) white nations like Spain and Russia where he talked about PS growing the market and culture. It's not exactly a leap to see the casual racism in the overall statement, and I don't think it's malicious.
People playing pirate versions of games that nobody ever wanted to sell to them?
How dare they!
What next, playing Metroid Dread when it's not sold to you?
If you can't go out of your way to play games and spend hundreds or thousands for them, you don't deserve it and piracy is always bad... or does that only apply in specific situations? Getting mixed messages from some.
How dare they!
What next, playing Metroid Dread when it's not sold to you?
If you can't go out of your way to play games and spend hundreds or thousands for them, you don't deserve it and piracy is always bad... or does that only apply in specific situations? Getting mixed messages from some.
Jim Ryan always seemed like a guy who doesn't know what he's talking about. It's like he managed to stumble into his current position by pure coincidence and is just winging it whenever he has to talk about games.
OP
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Also, something I just thought of now that the thread is reopened... You never see Shuntaro Furukawa or Phil Spencer in the headlines every other month for saying something rude, disrespectful or out-of-touch. It's pretty much only Jim Ryan that keeps cropping up with some nonsense-at-best, insulting-at-worst comments. If it were a one-time thing, sure, it happens, we say one thing and mean another. But it's a constantly recurring theme with Jim.
Just a thought for the people who say that we should know what he "meant" when he said such comments. If he means one thing, he should say that and not something else. The other Big 3 CEOs seem to have figured out basic PR.
Just a thought for the people who say that we should know what he "meant" when he said such comments. If he means one thing, he should say that and not something else. The other Big 3 CEOs seem to have figured out basic PR.
User banned (3 days) and threadbanned: Thread derailment, trolling, junior account
Nah.
Middle Eastern players do what they can to play games, and historically that includes a lot of bootlegs, romhacks and piracy.
Is it just as bad as the evil Metroid Dread pirates or not?
Do we need to go deeper in how and when it is justified? Maybe based on your revenue or something?
My question is: when is piracy morally acceptable? Because we have two threads next to one another that end up in complete contradiction.
When are we supposed to defend the corporations and when do we do defend the players?
Read Jim quote again, when he talked about Spain, he said gaming was not big before Playstation. But when he talked about Middle East? he clearly said gaming wasn't a thing before Playstation.
Can you elaborate on how the gaming culture is there, and does Khamenei place any restrictions on gaming? Sorry if off-topic but while I know many gamers in the ME, I know none in Iran.
User Banned (1 week): Dismissive commentary in a sensitive thread
When it comes to Jim Ryan, one sentence (13 words very exactly, I counted !) from a 20 minutes chat is all it takes for the good cultured people of Era to suddently forget the meaning of the word "hyperbolic".
But it's not just Era. It's ME people online and on Era. Does being hyperbolic somehow excuse ignorance from Ryan?
How did he get this so wrong. Sony might have introduced gaming to masses but people have been gaming long before PlayStation was a thing in the ME and South Asian countries.
Arcades ruled the scene, or so I'm told.
Arcades ruled the scene, or so I'm told.
Like Jim Ryan, the people popping in to make drivebys against Era probably don't care enough about people in the Middle East to consider that they might have opinions.
They may not be actively hateful, but they're racist enough to promote the invisibility of other cultures and experiences for their own convenience.
What does this rant actually have to do with the main point of this thread?
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You understand this is about tweets from ME people on Twitter, and an actual news article on IGN right? Not just Era?
Nothing, it's just a new defense angle. The most tortured and pathetic one yet too.
I think the mod post doesn't make it really clear how bad the figure of speech defense is.
When you think about it, It only serves to make Ryan look worse.
With the statement taken literally your best defense is that he was ignorant. With it taken as a figure of speech it comes across at the bare minimum as arrogance.
Hopefully Ryan is made aware of the mistake he made so he doesn't make it or something similar with a different region.
It certainly does feel like that.
When you think about it, It only serves to make Ryan look worse.
With the statement taken literally your best defense is that he was ignorant. With it taken as a figure of speech it comes across at the bare minimum as arrogance.
Hopefully Ryan is made aware of the mistake he made so he doesn't make it or something similar with a different region.
It certainly does feel like that.
Next he is going to say we Mexicans didn't know what a videogame is until they release the PS2....
Hyperbole and everything.
Hyperbole and everything.
LMAO Jim needs to stop doing interviews cause he always ends up looking like a goober
just stick with being a boring CEO type guy and people wouldn't really care. Just show up at the start of a PS showcase to say some generic shit like "I'm proud to present all these wonderful games"
just stick with being a boring CEO type guy and people wouldn't really care. Just show up at the start of a PS showcase to say some generic shit like "I'm proud to present all these wonderful games"
This was interesting, thank you.
I moved to the Middle East five years ago, and it has been interesting to learn how different the videogame scene is in some important respects.
On the one hand, it was nice to actually see some arcades again, in lots of places. On the other, it sucks to be back of the queue for new developments in general; Xbox cloud gaming springs to mind.
Harder to see - but I think more wide-reaching - are the more subtle restrictions around things like censorship, and protectionist economic policies. I couldn't work out for some time why TLOU2 wasn't showing on the PS storefront; no-one says it officially, but I have to assume it was due to some of the LGBTQ themes in the game. My physical copy had to be imported from outside.
I can see some of these issues reflected in the article you've posted. Honestly, it feels a little reminiscent of reading how the Soviet state screwed themselves (and Alexey Pajitnov) from making the most out of the Tetris phenomenon. Putting all other questions aside; to be purely businesslike, I'm sure it's stifling what might otherwise be a healthy local industry:
Honor? I just find it very off putting when you have execs who can't help themselves to sound like execs 24/7. Loosen up Jim.
That's what I understood from the countries he talked about right after, since he mentions them having small industries before PlayStation arrived, but he straight up said that the Middle East didn't have ANY at all.
Gaming is pretty huge here. There are restrictions on specific games (GTA, Pokemon go, Splinter cell blacklist, etc and BF3 which i had to buy in a black plastic bag so the seller wouldn't get caught, like the whole transaction felt like a drug deal.) but at the end of the day, nobody really cares. Its usually kind of a hassle for the game retailers and they have to watch out so they don't get caught. Not a single company officially launches anything here and we don't have a firm copy right law for products made outside of Iran so that might be part of the reason. While a lot of consoles sell here there are no official numbers because usually they are imported from neighboring countries or even EU and on rarer occasions even the US. Playstation has been the most popular console here since the 360 (but if i had to guess a lot of people would switch to xbox series s because of the price point and gamepass.). Nintendo is the most niche between the three but the success of BOTW and the appeal of the switch has made a popularity spike in here.
Regarding buying games, while you can still walk into a shop and buy pirated versions of the games a lot have changed since 2012 or even a little before that. with the rise of digital games people don't have get imported games with huge inflated prices(even though prices are still pretty inflated since our currency is so shit. more than 5x the amount it was before in less than 6 years, the sanctions hit the people pretty hard.). Steam is really popular and the regional pricing is fantastic for people that would just pirate the game, now they just buy them off of steam as its more convenient but piracy is still going strong here regardless of the platform and specially on older consoles since older games are very rare.
Regarding buying console games, there are now better prices for imported games (still higher than the MSRP) but mostly people rent game accounts for a smaller fee and just play the games that way(or simply via gamepass). Nintendo games are EXTREMELY rare and EXTREMELY expensive though. Like even Nintendo gift cards are more expensive here lol. Since not many people buy them they are usually pretty hard to exchange or even rent.
Oh how could i forget, btw Xbox doesn't work here without use of a DNS server because of the sanctions.
If i had to guess popular games here are basically the usual suspects, CS go, Dota 2, GTA, Fortnite, Cod, Mortal kombat etc. Just cross out the nintendo stuff lol.
Fun fact: Most retailers here have PS5s and XSXs ready for sale but they are as expected asking for way more than MSRP.
Before PlayStation Atari, famiclones and sega genesis were popular af.
There are many more things to say about the gaming culture in iran, if you want to ask about anything specific I'm here!
Lmao, no one releasing games officially in your region and all you're getting is pirated copies of them in pre-internet days is not the same as an under shipped game that you can buy digitally where ever you lived.
I think people have the capability to understand what be meant but what he meant wasn't what he actually said.
And what he actually said sounds literally colonial.
And what he actually said sounds literally colonial.
Ryan's uniquely bad PR has evolved from embarrassing to offensive. This has been a problem for years and i don't know why Sony continues to put him in front of microphones.
This reminds me of all the net cafes in basements and random locations. I remember when I lived in the middle east and central asia back then, there was a net cafe I would go to whenever I had collected enough pocket change. It had a few Sega consoles and everyone was playing Mortal Kombat. The owner of one of the local net cafes I lived near in Iran got the first PS1 I ever saw. It was constantly in use until he was slowly able to get more. Most folks played football/soccer on it. It was years until I got one myself, but that's where my love for final fantasy started. The owner was a close friend of mine and would get bootleg copies of games, and in many cases stuff he hadn't even requested. So one day early morning I was there chilling with him and we put in the disc for FF8. It changed my life. I had taught myself english from watching bootleg cartoons and movies, so he would let me come in and play FF8 during off hours in return for me helping him get through the resident evil games as I tried to translate the dialogue for him and help him with the puzzles etc. Then a friend got a PS1 and we played and finished FF8 together.
God this is making me nostalgic.
God this is making me nostalgic.
Ty for this insightful post and the others like it that have cropped up in this thread.
It's not even that, gaming was already big(not as big as it is now of course) just not officially supported and that was largely thanks to them already having local Sony distributers in the Middle East. Also, I think the "Arcades ruled the scene" apply to South East Asia mainly, Arcades in the middle east weren't different from the west, relatively big in the 90s but started dying by early to mid 2000s.
Im not from the middle east but north african and let me tell you back in the ps1 ps2 days youd have streets over streets filled with games, all pirated of course.
For nintendo stuff it was hard to pirate so it was usually white people or rich people who owned N64 and never saw it in the streets.
For nintendo stuff it was hard to pirate so it was usually white people or rich people who owned N64 and never saw it in the streets.
Yep.
The first is unarguably true.
The second is hilarious.
Defending the statement Jim made by saying he meant the former while explicitly saying the latter is clownshoes behaviour.
It's downright offensive.
True. I think almost anyone of my generation can easily distinguish the Mario Bros theme from the Famicom game. main thing PS did is not introduce games to the masses, we were already introduced to gaming with NES/Atari/MSX/Arcades and even PCs, main thing it did was attracting older players to the hobby, plus it helped making games more socially accepted.
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Yeah, Ryan either comes off as truly ignorant when it comes to video game history or maybe feels that he has to spin the hell out of things to make PlayStation look like the shining light of those markets.He was trying to convey his diet-racism and othering, that's it.
(See, for example, this article about Iran: https://www.gamedeveloper.com/disciplines/iran-video-games-timeline-from-1970-to-2019)
The "small/tiny markets" remark isn't better when, for example, not only Spain always has had an important base of players, but also a long history in game development:
Historia de los videojuegos en EspaƱa | DƩcada de los 80s y 90s
De āLa pulgaā a āCommandosā la irregular andanza del videojuego espaƱol entre los 80 y los 90. Origen, historia de los videojuegos en EspaƱa y evoluciĆ³n.www.intothegames.com
Although what he said about the Middle East was far more ignorant and offensive, he is also painfully ignorant when it comes to Spain. Similarly to other European countries like the UK, Spain had a thriving market and bedroom coder based development culture in the 1980s and early 90s. Unlike the US and Japan, gaming was overwhelmingly about micro computers, mostly ZX Spectrum, Commodore 64, MSX and Amstrad and later PC, Commodore Amiga and Atari ST. While the Master System was decently popular, the NES was not a thing in Spain at all. But in the early 90s, both main 16bit console systems (Mega Drive and SNES) were super popular in Spain and heavily marketed. So no, Spain didn't have "a very small gaming industry before Playstation". In fact, many consider the period from the mid-80s to the early 90s as the golden age of Spanish video game development.
Happy to help people understand what its actually like to game in iran :)
Very interesting read, thank you.
This is an absolute goldmine of information for someone that loves video games and studies Iran. Thank you for this!
It's clear that they meant us had never 'never culture' before being introduced by PlayStation's Jim Ryan in our languages.
We should be grateful the white rich guy expanded our comprehension of nuance, into our tiny-small-reduced-petite vocabularies š„ŗ
And even there, he uses diminutive adjectives for the markets of not English-speaking countries, when what he describes it's far from reality.
He has a very US-centric view of the world, and it shows.
Poor Jimbo always misunderstood /s
But yeah that was such an ignorant comment. Most Saudi gamers above 30 know and played on Sega and Nintendo systems before PS1. Even Atari.
That also goes for casuals who don't game anymore who experienced a Mario or Sonic in their childhood.
But yeah that was such an ignorant comment. Most Saudi gamers above 30 know and played on Sega and Nintendo systems before PS1. Even Atari.
That also goes for casuals who don't game anymore who experienced a Mario or Sonic in their childhood.