Iran's video games industry sees the potential for sales growth in the Middle East despite executives saying the market is held back by a dearth of local publishers and widespread piracy.
Sales of games are growing by 15 per cent to 20 per cent a year in Iran, says Behrouz Minaei, the managing director of Iran's National Foundation of Computer Games (NFCG), a not-for-profit organisation set up in 2007 with the purpose of promoting the industry.
"There is a huge game market in Iran. In 2009, 45 million games were sold inside Iran … mostly foreign games. About half of them are console games and half were PC games," says Mr Minaei. "This is very fast-growing. Gaming is very popular and attractive with young people."
Despite foreign games still being the most popular, Mr Minaei says the local development scene is also expanding. There are about 40 games developers in Iran, half of which are "very active", he says.
These developers are looking for international sales but Mr Minaei says that is sometimes hampered by sanctions against the Islamic republic. In the Middle East, a lack of local games publishers is holding back domestic growth, he says.
"Most of the Iranian games are based on Iranian history or Islamic characteristics," he says.
"We believe that our products can be sold in MENA countries because there is a lot in common between Iran and the Gulf countries and the north African countries."
The NFCG is also trying to seek game publishers outside of the Middle East, Mr Minaei says.
"We are looking for publishers in the Gulf countries but at this time we have talked to guys in Russia, Germany and France."
RAS Games is one of Iran's most prominent developers and has sold copies of its adventure game Mithra internationally.
Bahram Borgheai, the head of RAS Games, says Iranian games "can work in the Middle East" because of the shared Islamic concepts and also because Iran's history is "familiar" to the potential audience.
But he says sales are currently low because "the Gulf market has piracy problems and also a [low] population".
He points towards an opportunity in the online gaming field, however. "I see a very good growth of online gaming, social gaming and mobile gaming in the Middle East, especially in Saudi Arabia, Iran and Iraq," he says.
bflanagan@thenational.ae
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