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PlayStation (Games) Entertainment Games

Gaming Life In Iraq 61

Posted by simoniker from the business-as-usual dept.
Thanks to GameGirlAdvance for pointing to a Healing Iraq weblog entry about the state of gaming life in Iraq. The Baghdad-based author says: "Videogames are a huge part of our society. Almost everyone I know, regardless of their socioeconomic status, either owns a console or has regular access to one", and goes on to note that "The most popular console in Iraq is the Sony Playstation. Dreamcast and the PS2 also have their devoted fans. The Xbox and Gamecube aren't very popular here." The games industry may not be raking in much money from Iraq, though: "We have a special gamers district at Bab Al-Sharji at the heart of the city where you can find hundreds of videogame vendors. Of course all the games we get are copies and we rarely find originals."
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Gaming Life In Iraq More

Gaming Life In Iraq

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  • ...they should start playing Desert Combat.

    IMHO, shooting up virtual Iraqis is better than the real thing.
  • 1.Create "Saddam Hunter" game.
    2.Sell to the people of Iraq.
    3.???
    4.PROFIT!!!
    • I dunno how far that would get since well into the 90th percentile of iraq's population felt he was a good ruler. He certainly had a higher popularity rating than any ruler in the US ever did.
      • Where are you getting your numbers? And, just as important, when were these numbers collected?
        • He's just basing it on the elections they held for Saddam! I mean, the guy didn't get a single vote against him! The people must have loved him.

          Leave it to a liberal to make a statement that a leader who gassed his own people was loved.

      • I dunno how far that would get since well into the 90th percentile of iraq's population felt he was a good ruler.

        More likely 90% of the Iraq's population felt it was safest to say they felt he was a good ruler. The reason US leaders have such low popularity ratings, comparatively, is because US leaders don't as a rule have dissident citizens shot.

      • It is easy to be popular when you are the only choice.

      • Do you have any basis in fact for those numbers, or are you just talking out your ass?

  • OH NO!! (Score:5, Funny)

    by arrow ( 9545 ) <mike.damm@com> on Thursday October 30, 2003 @01:57AM (#7345002) Homepage Journal
    They can't find originals? That means their games are... pirated.

    Now we know the real reason as to why we invaded them. Weapons of mass Infringement. Maybe the MPAA, RIAA, and BSA can help foot the bill too.
  • but I recall there being an article (on PBS-TV, maybe?) about how few Iraqis, outside of the Baath party members, had TVs.

    If you don't have a TV, how can you play a console? Or, perhaps, this only addresses former (current?) Baath party members?
    • I believe you're thinking of Afganistan (s/Baath/Taliban). Iraq was actually one of the most modern countries in the middle east until its economic downturn in the 1990s. Many people there have consumer electronics and the government didn't ban them.

    • Re:Maybe I missed something (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 30, 2003 @02:51AM (#7345236)
      The Iraqi middle class in the major cities live in townhouses or apartments and have air conditioning, mains electricity, televisions and cars. They go to school and university, watch the news, play video games and surf the internet (typically in cafes because internet access is still relatively expensive). There are computer shops, malls, gyms (one of which even renamed itself the The Arnold Classic after he won the California recall). It's quite suburban in fact.

      Or at least, they did have all of this until the US bombed the crap out of the infrastructure and power plants prior to invading - and now extremists keep blowing up all the power lines whenever they get them repaired.

      Of course, much of the country is desert, and there are still uneducated country peasants (the lower class) who want to shoot rocket launchers at anything that moves because Saddam told them to. Kind of like the redneck US stereotype, but without beer to pacify. Sure, there are some people like that, but by no means everyone.

      (Uneducated armchair statements from somebody who's been paying attention to the news outlets that report things about Iraq other than "stuff blows up").
      • Or at least, they did have all of this until the US bombed the crap out of the infrastructure and power plants prior to invading - and now extremists keep blowing up all the power lines whenever they get them repaired.

        Actually, power in Iraq is back to pre-war levels [yahoo.com].
        • power maybe back but theres barely anything left to be able to use the power, let alone the infrastructure to distrobute it...

          going back to the original poster, he is correct. pre-desertstorm iraq was doing well, but it goes back further; pre-gulfwar (iraq vs iran) iraq had THE best schools and one of the highest standards of living of any middle eastern nation. its easy to understand why these people were (and are) fed up with USA and Hussein.

          • actually the original poster was incorrect and that skewed my response to the linked article about power... i thought the original poster was talking about pre-desertstorm iraq. he was not. he is incorrect, post-desertstorm iraq was still a pretty shitty place to live. the linked article says that power is back to above pre-USAinvasion levels... which is good news, but it is NOWHERE near pre-desertstorm levels. blame it on USA, blame it on Hussein; its both of their faults and Iraqis are suffering the conse
      • No, that's how it was thirty years ago before Saddam ruined the nation.

        The only place in Iraq before March 20 like what you describe was Baghdad, where the palaces of Saddam's family stood. Much of the rest of Iraq didn't even have electricity, potable water, or paved roads.

        The U.S. made careful plans to destroy as little of Iraq's infrastructure as possible. The U.S. is rebuilding Iraq's infrastructure. Not rebuilding what we destroyed, but what Saddam let fall into disrepair over the last 30 years. Th

        • Re:Maybe I missed something (Score:4, Insightful)

          by 0x0d0a ( 568518 ) on Thursday October 30, 2003 @11:14AM (#7347349) Journal
          I hate to say it, but you're more than a little rattling off US-based media output, which carries a very heavy US slant.

          Yes, after the severe PR issues in the original Gulf War where the US deliberately wiped out as much civilian infrastructure as possible, they were much more careful in the last round of bombing.

          The mainstream Iraqis are on our side.

          No. The mainstream Iraqis don't necessarily want a harsh dictator running things, but neither do they want to be occupied by the same country that's been blockading them, restricting their air service, and bombing them for years. It's not an either/or proposition.

          Heck, one of them married an American soldier.

          You *definitely* go for the whole American media thing, don't you?

          The *only* poll (loudly trumpeted) that I've seen that vaguely supported the US was one put out by the occupational authority (and how would *you* vote if soldiers from an occupying nation showed up at your door and asked you to fill out a form about them, eh?) that claimed that a majority of residents of Baghdad felt that they were better off after Saddam's overthrow than before. Sure as hell doesn't mean that they want continuing occupation.

          Now, foreign Saddam-loving terrorists have come in and keep blowing up Iraq's infrastructure while the United States is trying to fix it... at its own expense, paid with American blood and money.

          American blood tends to be armed and behind guarded barriers. Remember that the first set of obstacles into the occupational authority's compound is through a checkpoint manned by hired unarmed Iraqis -- ironically enough, the US uses human shields just as much as Saddam did.

          As for American money, Iraqi oil was supposed to be taken and used to pay for reconstruction, giving the US control of a lucrative nation with little cost. As it happened, massive damage to national infrastructure caused by a combination of a decade of war and blocked trade (by the US), in addition to imperfect management by the Hussein regime, has meant that oil won't begin to cover the costs for years to come.

          The US occupation in Iraq was not the freedom-bringing thing that many American citizens think it is, bringing glorious democracy to the Iraqi people. The occupational authority does not allow the basic rights that the American people enjoy, such as that of free press. Arabic media that criticized the occupational authority was banned from operating. US soldiers enforce curfews with assault weapons.

          To be fair, this is not all a particularly US trait. Invading and occupying an unwilling country and then blitzing your own citizens with happy propaganda about it has happened for many, many, many years, with other countries taking the US's role (think of Nazi Germany, for instance). Brutal treatment of the people of that country is not unheard of, either. And sabotage (not terrorism -- terrorism is defined as controlling civilians through terror, which if anything the US is doing more than Iraqi car bombers) of the occupying country's military installations and attacks on collaborators is not unusual either (again, see World War II).

          Hell, I remember going back and watching WWII propaganda material (on both sides -- the US and England certainly had as much bogus material as Germany did) and wondering how amazingly gullible people had to be to buy into it back then. Well...now I'm seeing it in action, and it still amazes me.
      • Kind of like the redneck US stereotype, but without beer to pacify.

        Beer to pacify?

        Maybe _I_ missed something...
    • If I remember correctly, TV's were allowed and actually pretty cheap and well available. What could be a better way to spread propaganda anyway. The thing that was banned was satellite receiver because you would get channels that had 'something' that the regime didn't want you to see. However, many people simply had an extra 'air conditioning' box on their roofs which contained the hidden receiver.

  • Fodder for Dubya's next speech... (Score:4, Funny)

    by wrinkledshirt ( 228541 ) on Thursday October 30, 2003 @02:38AM (#7345177) Homepage
    Of course all the games we get are copies and we rarely find originals.

    Well, at least the White House can now prove SOMETHING illegal has been going on in Iraq.
    • Since there were/are no copyrights, it's not illegal.

      Actually, under Saddam, many things weren't illegal. Like feeding people feet-first into shredders, and developing strains of Congo Crimean Hemmoragic Fever.

      So technically you are right, the Baathist regime committed no crimes in Iraq, since they defined the law and were legally immune to it anyway.
  • playing fifa soccer 2002 in a small house, except that they don't play the english premier, they play france.. eh?
  • So you guys wanna tell me that even if thy did have the originals they are gonna buy them. They are gonna actually gonna spend money on games instead of food, shelter, medicine...

    besides, the whole idea of such a survey is obssured, can you tell me how many sick kid is in Iraq without medication, how many elder is threatened to die beucase of lack of medicine/food????
    No instead we go and see how many of them pay games, on what stations, of what type....

    PLease give me a break..
    • There's plenty of kids in the U.S that are sick and dying because of lack of food or healthcare, but that doesn't stop the priveleged from buying video games with their spare money. People are all the same, regardless of the country. This article was just an attempt to highlight that aspect of Iraqi life and show they aren't much different than us, except for the whole no alcohol thing.

      sweet, sweet alcohol
    • Actually, you might not believe me, but I know a guy in Pakistan who faces the same problem: Damn near everything he can find is pirated media, for only a few rupees each title. Finding original software is hard for him.
      BUT
      what he does find, he does buy. Which is really quite amazing.
  • Pirate video games in Iraq!!!

    I bet they pirate CDs and DVDs also.

    Now I know why we invaded, be beware the long arm of the MPAA, RIAA, etc

  • Back a few years ago the Feds released a report that PS2s were being shipped to Iraq to build a military supercomputer. [ananova.com] They were able to double-demonize Saddam, since they claimed that not only were the consoles being used to power weapons systems, but they also were adding to the scarcity of the systems.
  • To think... Maybe one of those gaming caffe's have Red Alert 2? Then Iraqies can play as themselves in a war game!
    But to their disappointment, they're on the bad side! [planetcnc.com] :-)

  • Gaming in Afghanistan (Score:3, Funny)

    by Hecubas ( 21451 ) on Thursday October 30, 2003 @02:29PM (#7349805)
    Well if this story [slashdot.org] is any indicator of the situation of gaming in the Middle East, it doesn't look good. I'm suprised we haven't heard any more updates from Junis. Wonder if he's anxious to play Halflife 2?

    --
    hecubas
    • Well, based on all the legitimate games they're playing in Iraq right now... he's probably already playing Half-Life 2?

      What? And you thought the source code was stolen by some domestic kids?? Pfft.

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