Well, that’s a real sad thing to say but that’s true. The game development state in the middle east countries is really in the bottom. Yes there are many great minds in this region but the environment is sick, when you live in a place that doesn’t appreciate the art of making games and software and complexity of this field.
I’ve recently made a survey through SurveyMonkey targeting Middle Eastern games audience, and was really shocked by the results, because when I analyzed the results I found that people are interested in games no matter was the platform, whether it’s on iPhone, Android or even PC, and some them are really willing to spend some decent amount of cash on original games. It all went good at first, but I was shocked again when I found that people normally look for a pirated version of the games they want to have before thinking of buying the original and that really sucks. Another reason for under appreciating software is that governments here don’t enforce a lot rules on piracy to stop it.
Games are not that cheap – speaking about decent games, but you got to understand that a single game is a combination of huge contributions from several talents. Programming, Art, Music, Scripts and the list really go on! When you buy a game you not only get to play game but you get to have access to a lot of things, additional content like extra scenes or music and other valuable stuff, you get to play online if the game supports that and most games nowadays do.
I really wish the audience of games in this region to give more credit to the guys who make games and appreciate them by buying original copies because this way you’re supporting their work and talent and you give them more motivation to set the bar high.