Dangerous game with the gaming industry

Mustafa Abdulahi – young people with good ideas and ideas who, after years of effort, have brought the country’s game industry to a favorable point for development and localization, now they themselves are becoming gamers and they can no longer and do not want to produce in order to attract the country’s 34 million gamers. make content

Despite numerous reports, surveys and comments by private sector activists about the irreparable consequences of filtering on knowledge-based and technology-oriented fields, including the computer games industry, the Minister of Communications still refuses to seriously pursue the removal of Google Play filtering and says: “The filtering committee has to make a decision in this regard, and we are only one of the 13 members of the committee.”
Issa Zarepour made this statement on Thursday evening on the sidelines of the visit to the “Innotex” exhibition, and of course he also said that “the opinion of the Ministry of Communications is on removing the Google Play filter”. However, a look at the results of a valid survey, which was published just one day before the minister’s statement and must have reached Mr. Zarepour and his colleagues, shows that the support of the game industry activists It does not heal.

Opinions of the owners of 80% user and market share
The Computer Trade Union Organization of Tehran has recently published the results of the “Impact of Google Play Restrictions on Iranian Games” survey, which clarifies their status after being filtered by Google Play. The audience of this survey was 29 companies, which accounted for 80% of the users and revenue of the country’s gaming industry

have at their disposal. We have published the questions and results of this survey in this report.

A drop of more than 75%
This survey question, “How much was your user churn from Google Play?” It has been associated with these results that according to the announcement of 66% of the participants, they had a drop of more than 75% and 24% of them had a drop between 50 and 75%.

Significant impact on income generation
Another important question is the amount of income generated by these companies from Google Play, which shows that in the first six months of 2011, that is, before filtering, 75% of them generated more than 50% of their income from this route; The issue whose importance is revealed in the next question of the survey, i.e. “the amount of revenue reduction from Google Play”: “more than 50% reduction in revenue for 96% of Iranian game makers.”

100% disagree
I have heard the saying that “Google Play is filtered to support domestic game makers and similar native programs” and strangely enough, some people really believe it; While I wish the opinion of the activists of this industry would be received about this seemingly supportive method. What has been done in this survey and 100% of the participants have declared that: “Bazaar and Myket definitely cannot replace Google Play”, the reason being that at least for now its infrastructure is not available in the country.

Growth that was not achieved
Reviewing these survey results is also important:
– 55% of the audience stated that after Google Play filtering, their revenue growth in domestic platforms such as Bazaar and Miket was less than 10%. This increase in revenue for 21% of users was only between 10 and 25%. The important point is that according to 82% of the audience, this small amount of revenue generation growth in domestic stores

It was not permanent and returned to its original state after a few months. Besides, there is no difference in the way domestic stores support game makers.
– 100% of the audience have declared that the revenue growth in domestic stores has not been able to compensate for the losses caused by Google Play filtering.
– 38% of game companies have announced that they had to reduce their workforce due to the decrease in revenue generation from Google Play.

We don’t make games anymore
But the most bitter result of this survey is the evaluation of the future of these companies based on the current situation and limited access to Google Play; 86% of Iranian game developers have stated that due to this problem, they do not have a plan to create a game specifically for Iranian users.

Making games for other countries
Abolfazl Sadegh, the head of the entertainment software and computer games commission of the computer trade union system, said: “According to the survey, most of our game makers no longer make games for Iranian users, because they cannot cover their costs. Instead, they have to make games for other countries, and with this process, we are losing the greatest tool of culture in today’s era.” The communications and Mr. Wazir himself do not listen to their voices and do not take serious measures to solve their problems. Repeatedly hearing the statement that “filtering is not in the hands of the Ministry of Communications” will not be the answer to this concern, and the reason is stated in simple language in one of the analytical channels in the field of information technology: “Think for a moment that they should ask the Minister of Health why the health situation The country is ruined and he also says that I am useless…”(Khorasan Newspaper)