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A few days ago, GamesIndustry.biz had a long conversation with Sony Interactive Entertainment CEO Jim Ryan. The interview discusses Sony’s ambitions with the PlayStation 5 and how Ryan hopes the PlayStation brand and its games can be accessible to “hundreds of millions of people”, just like music and movies.
But Ryan made a seemingly off-the-cuff remark that caused quite a stir among the Middle Eastern gaming community, not only for its remarkable imprecision, but also for the Sony Interactive Entertainment CEO’s ignorance.
Discussing the impact of PlayStation 1 and PlayStation 2 around the world, Jim Ryan said, “One of the things I’m proud of is that we’ve kind of pushed the boundaries. We opened up markets that never had a gaming culture. Middle East … people had never played games before PlayStation in the Middle East.
I mean … huh?
Understandably, this was not well received by players in the region, and they took to Twitter to show how misinformed this statement was.
Wrong, Jim. In the Middle East, we’ve been playing video games since the 1980s. We had Atari, NES, Sega Genesis, and the rest of the game consoles.
To say that “people in the Middle East had never played video games before PlayStation” shows how out of touch these people are https://t.co/bmpB4mYAGy pic.twitter.com/o5XmT0I8I2– Mohamed Mahmoud Al-Sharif (@Mighterb) October 8, 2021
In fact, Ryan’s entire quote reads like a “we are your savior” vibe. He added: “Russia had a small gaming industry before PlayStation. Spain had a very small gaming industry before PlayStation. So we really pushed the boundaries geographically.
There is no doubt that the PlayStation has had a major impact in many parts of the world. The Middle East, in particular, is a predominantly PlayStation market, and its games dating back to the PS1 era are loved and adored by the many fans here. But to say that the region had no gaming culture before PlayStation came along and introduced us to the wonders of the gaming industry is just plain silly.
The image Ryan paints of the Middle East makes it feel like an upside down region, where kids played only with sticks and stones, or scribbled noughts and crosses on torn newspapers before the PlayStation brings glorious video games to the country. This is, in fact, far from the truth.
The region has cultivated a small, passionate gaming culture since the 1980s, with the release of the Atari, Super Nintendo Entertainment System / Famicom, Sega Mega Drive (or Sega Genesis, if Ryan is more familiar with that name) consoles being hugely popular, and that really pushed the boundaries in homes adopting game consoles. I remember when my brothers and I raised money for school lunch for an entire year so we could buy a Sega console and play Sonic and Street Fighter at our house rather than queuing at the arcades.
Oh yeah, we also had arcades – who knew? As we grew and the region matured, there were a ton of local arcades that opened up to cultivate the growing needs of the region’s gaming community. Long lines for King of Fighters or Street Fighter II were commonplace, with excited players holding bags of coins to challenge their friends or take the lead in the local leaderboards. Many arcades have even held tournaments with a little cash prizes not only to support attendance, but to fuel the great appetite for competition in the region.
Gaming Cafes ushered in a new era of gaming, which flourished through LAN gaming for titles such as Warcraft, Starcraft, and Counter Strike, which brought in many new players keen to explore what gaming was all about. It was not uncommon for me to linger in a game cafe after school or on weekends, for hours competing with my friends or partnering with clients to pull a few tricks and demonstrate my skills. Internet cafes are still an integral part of the gaming culture in the region and continue to thrive as they provide a cheap alternative in many parts of the Middle East to play games.
This was all before PlayStation was even known to anyone here. Hell, we weren’t averse to buying the many counterfeit game consoles that featured 100-in-1 games – half of which either didn’t work or were just repeats – just so we could consume whatever we could put on the table. hand at. Pirated Nintendo consoles weren’t uncommon either, as pirated copies of games were easier to find than retail copies that just weren’t sold here. In fact, Nintendo still does not have an official presence in the Middle East, but thanks to retailers offering their games and access to the online store, their games continue to sell. There is an inherent nostalgia associated with it due to what was possible before – a thriving and passionate player following that made it possible, even when options were limited.
I don’t mean to say it’s a hit against Jim Ryan, but we expect better from someone who is the CEO of Sony Interactive Entertainment, and who has had such a long career in the industry. The PlayStation wasn’t the savior it’s about to be, nor has it made home consoles more accessible in the region. He was just another actor among many, and their official presence and regional awards certainly helped him gain more favor.
But something tells me that even if they had completely ignored this region, the gaming community would have thrived regardless and made things possible. Like he always has, like he always does.
Do you have any particular memories of gaming in the Middle East before the arrival of the PlayStation? Let us know about social media!
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