IGN Middle East: No, Jim Ryan - Gaming In The Middle East Existed Long Before PlayStation
- Thread starter Canas Renvall
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You realise this is completely impossible to prove and purely anecdotal too? There will be no sales figures, reliable or not, either way.
That was a really dumb thing to say. Even without having the data at hand, the "Middle East" is pretty big, he had to know that statement was going to be factually wrong.
Grew up on Atari, Nintendo, Game Boy and Sega Mega Drive 2 from 1988 - 1997, all in the Middle East.
It's like one of my relatives asked recently when I was talking about Dubai: "Dubai, what's it like? Isn't it all desert?". I just facepalmed
It's like one of my relatives asked recently when I was talking about Dubai: "Dubai, what's it like? Isn't it all desert?". I just facepalmed
I mean, you did say this:
So you're discrediting sales data from a legitimate company and favoring lack of data regarding Famiclones to support your argument that they dominated in Brazil.
I know folks joke about arrogant Sony is back...but yeeesh, this is up there in arrogant comments.
I grew up in Saudi and let me tell you, the gaming scene there has always been FIRE. Back in the late 80's and 90's, our lives as elementary grade schoolers and middle schoolers were no different than kids here in America. We would ride our bikes, listen to music cassettes on Sony Walkman, go with our dad to a movie rental store to rent a VHS, watch cartoons on tv and play videogames. There were arcades too! The difficulty setting on The Art of Fighting arcade was so ridiculous we could never go past the second level lol.
There were some Comic Book nerds too. I had Atari and a version of NES growing up, the same one the author in the IGN article talks about. It's bootleg NES but plays all of the NES games like Donkey Kong, Mario Brothers, Contra, hell even Snake's Revenge. At school we would exchange game cartridges. I very distinctly remember someone stole my cartridge for Super Fighter and World Wrestling at school and I even know the little piece of shit who did it but I was just too scared to confront him. I was so heartbroken the next day and my brothers gave me an earful...Then Genesis came along, and we used to exchange MK Fatality codes at school and more cartridge exchanges. After Genesis, we tried to save enough to buy a 3DO for some goddamn reason but thankfully our dad had the sense to make us get a Personal Computer with a CD-ROM drive instead and that was such an awesome decision. The era of playing videogames on PC started. Doom, Hexen, Monkey Island, King's Quest, etc etc. Gaming magazines like GamePro, EGM, PCZone, Tips n Tricks on the regular.
It was a good life! Then finally Playstation was released. There were two versions: PAL and NTSC/UC. The PAL console was cheaper but it's discs were expensive (like SR100 or $25) whereas the NTSC/UC console was more expensive but cheaper discs. We really wanted to get N64 but the thing that put us off was that each cartridge for N64 was like SR250 whereas each disc of an NTSC/UC PSX was like SR20.
Everyone except some older kids had a PSX in my class. Some kids just weren't into games. But the rest of us, we nerded out like crazy. Game nights, PSX multiplayer parties, everything....So yeah, the gaming scene was really, really STRONG in Saudi Arabia which was probably the most conservative, sealed off country in the Middle East under the strong influence of the theocratic establishment. When PSX came, we just saw it as another evolution in console. We were not unwashed masses or didnt have a gaming culture. We did.
There were some Comic Book nerds too. I had Atari and a version of NES growing up, the same one the author in the IGN article talks about. It's bootleg NES but plays all of the NES games like Donkey Kong, Mario Brothers, Contra, hell even Snake's Revenge. At school we would exchange game cartridges. I very distinctly remember someone stole my cartridge for Super Fighter and World Wrestling at school and I even know the little piece of shit who did it but I was just too scared to confront him. I was so heartbroken the next day and my brothers gave me an earful...Then Genesis came along, and we used to exchange MK Fatality codes at school and more cartridge exchanges. After Genesis, we tried to save enough to buy a 3DO for some goddamn reason but thankfully our dad had the sense to make us get a Personal Computer with a CD-ROM drive instead and that was such an awesome decision. The era of playing videogames on PC started. Doom, Hexen, Monkey Island, King's Quest, etc etc. Gaming magazines like GamePro, EGM, PCZone, Tips n Tricks on the regular.
It was a good life! Then finally Playstation was released. There were two versions: PAL and NTSC/UC. The PAL console was cheaper but it's discs were expensive (like SR100 or $25) whereas the NTSC/UC console was more expensive but cheaper discs. We really wanted to get N64 but the thing that put us off was that each cartridge for N64 was like SR250 whereas each disc of an NTSC/UC PSX was like SR20.
Everyone except some older kids had a PSX in my class. Some kids just weren't into games. But the rest of us, we nerded out like crazy. Game nights, PSX multiplayer parties, everything....So yeah, the gaming scene was really, really STRONG in Saudi Arabia which was probably the most conservative, sealed off country in the Middle East under the strong influence of the theocratic establishment. When PSX came, we just saw it as another evolution in console. We were not unwashed masses or didnt have a gaming culture. We did.
Was only a matter of time until this fuse was lit lol. Jimbo is truly a walking PR disaster. Even if that's not exactly what he meant, the wording was so off.
Just many people I've met in real life and in retro enthusiast forums over 20+ years. Brazil is huge and it could vary massively by region, so it's purely anecdotal but pretty much all Brazillians have said Famiclones were far more common than Tectoy Master Systems, usually in reaction to clickbait articles about 'Sega beat Nintendo in Brazil' with replies of 'but in reality Gradiente/Dynacom beat Sega'. And it only makes sense when they'd be cheaper from multiple companies on an existing cheap development platform (NOAC) with far more and better games (eg your Marios and Turtles and Contras and Castlevanias) and no royalties to pay.
The sheer number of Brazil only Famiclone models is staggering. From the databases I follow there were:
Dynacom Dynavision 2/3/4
GunBoy
Gradiente Phantom System
CCE Top Game VG-8000 /VG-9000
Dismac BitSystem
Dynacom Handyvision
PC Game
And several variations/sequels of each and many many more. These are just the Famiclones manufactured in Brazil, let alone any Hong Kong imports like the Polystations/Micro Geniuses/Super Boys of eveywhere in the world that made it in.
Good read, thanks for this.
What's the state of arcades in KSA now? How are new-gen consoles, availability and any censorship?
What's a Walkman?
One of these three questions is sarcastic
I moved from Saudi about 20 years ago so not sure to be honest. But I hear the Crown Prince who's running things now is a huge gamer and grew up playing video games. As for censorship, it's lip service mostly, even for movies. I remember hearing that the game Black & White (by Peter Molyneux) for PC was banned because you play as God, but I was able to find it at my regular PC games store.
At the very least he should apologize, and at best he should clarify his comments if he just made some poorly-calculated paraphrasing.
Sometimes it seems like execs constantly think and talk in that high-level business jargon and forget to turn it off when around people (or presenting content to people) that aren't cut from that cloth. If he, hypothetically, meant that gaming in the middle east never rose above a special threshold to signal widespread viability of a home console market in the region until PS came to the scene, and then it suddenly blew up...... then my dude, word things DIFFERENTLY.
Sometimes it seems like execs constantly think and talk in that high-level business jargon and forget to turn it off when around people (or presenting content to people) that aren't cut from that cloth. If he, hypothetically, meant that gaming in the middle east never rose above a special threshold to signal widespread viability of a home console market in the region until PS came to the scene, and then it suddenly blew up...... then my dude, word things DIFFERENTLY.
He could've easily nodded to the grey market and "polystations" ( 😂 I had one as well) and used it as an acknowledgment of the region's desire to play PS games even when it wasn't officially available, then pivot to a humble "so we realize that there used to be gaps in where PlayStation was officially supported, which is why we're excited to now blahblahblahblah"
But nope, this seven figure-earning executive has to effectively say "we brought fire & the wheel to this region" . What a clown.
Every time I think "well, he was probably trying to say x" I go and read the quote and "people had never played games before PlayStation in the Middle East" and "never had any gaming culture ever" are pretty damn definitive statements.
I think it's just ignorance rather than trying to make a point and being clunky with your words. You'd have to believe that PlayStation bought games to the entire ME region to say 'people never played games before' and 'never had any gaming culture'. That's not vague.
I think it's just ignorance rather than trying to make a point and being clunky with your words. You'd have to believe that PlayStation bought games to the entire ME region to say 'people never played games before' and 'never had any gaming culture'. That's not vague.
Yeah, and this feels pretty gross to me. I think it plays into racist stereotypes of the middle east and other regions. Acting like they've never even heard of games before or something.
It's impressive that Jim Ryan continuously finds new ways to be a moron with every passing year.
People exaggerate and make statements more definite than they sound, that's not now. I could see the argument based on that alone - you could say it's stated poorly but not a bad sentiment. What strikes me as actually damning is this:
How do you say "oh he actually meant this" when he actually said this, but in regards to another party he contrasts with?
Said it before and I'll say it again, if you're appointing a leader in a major company who will be a spokesperson for your brand, make sure they have marketing and pr in their background somewhere, or know enough to have someone with such expertise on them at all times.
Jim is the type of guy who is lucky to escape any media interaction without saying something damaging.
Jim is the type of guy who is lucky to escape any media interaction without saying something damaging.
In the Middle East people who aren't into gaming used to call any console "Atari". As for the majority who played at that time we used to call NES "Family" and the MegaDrive/genesis as "SEGA".
PlayStation did have an impact though. If i go to my parents, grandparents and old relatives and tell them any console name they mostly won't recognize it. But if i told them PlayStation they immediately recognize it. Even in Arabic TV shows and movies when someone wants to say they want to buy a console, they mostly use the name "playstation" cus they know the viewers will recognize the word. In some places we have shops that only sell playstation consoles and games. The Playstation brand is really really strong here in the Middle East it's not even funny.
But like i said we used to know gaming before and we used to go to arcades. The arcade game that had a huge impact was Street Fighter 2. You can go to a small shop or ever a barbershop and you could see a Street Fighter 2 arcade next to it and kids were all over it. Personally I'm one of people who think he made an ignorant statement or used the wrong words. Playstation did make a huge impact that probably no other console ever made. But brought gaming to us? Hell no.
PlayStation did have an impact though. If i go to my parents, grandparents and old relatives and tell them any console name they mostly won't recognize it. But if i told them PlayStation they immediately recognize it. Even in Arabic TV shows and movies when someone wants to say they want to buy a console, they mostly use the name "playstation" cus they know the viewers will recognize the word. In some places we have shops that only sell playstation consoles and games. The Playstation brand is really really strong here in the Middle East it's not even funny.
But like i said we used to know gaming before and we used to go to arcades. The arcade game that had a huge impact was Street Fighter 2. You can go to a small shop or ever a barbershop and you could see a Street Fighter 2 arcade next to it and kids were all over it. Personally I'm one of people who think he made an ignorant statement or used the wrong words. Playstation did make a huge impact that probably no other console ever made. But brought gaming to us? Hell no.
This is true of a lot of countries around the world. PlayStation massively expanded the gaming player base when it released. You wouldn't hear this same thing said about many other markets though.
He is also wrong about the small market in Spain. We just bought games, have magazines, there was tv programs for kids... in Spain, just like France and the UK had. The only thing is that companies didnt want to translate console games to spanish until Ilusion of Time in the Super Nes. Commodore was big here, we even had some spanish studios working on games for it. Atari 2600 came a little late (or at least it survive that much) but nes, master system, megadrive, super nes and gameboy were as big as any other big european country. FFS pokemon was giant here also.
This guy is a fucking idiot.
Also wrong about small market in Russia. Russia even had a market back when it was Soviet, with custom built arcade machines and personal computer dev scenes. Post Soviet era saw these positively boom, especially thriving computer game markets, with platforms like the Speccy and the C64 being standouts. Most of what was at a point the Eastern Bloc still has a pretty big focus on PC games from that era.
This is not even getting into the... suspect contrast between the way that quote differentiates the Middle East (huge region with tonnes of cultures) as having no gaming culture and Spain and Russia as just having small gaming industries.
also from Russia, one of the most famous video games ever made.
Tetris.