Thinking about the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia brings to mind sweet, luscious dates, the heady aroma of freshly roasted Arabica coffee beans and the soft slopes of majestic sand dunes. It could almost be a game world. That idea might not be too far away mind you, because KSA is actually home to a bigger gaming scene than you might imagine.
Take for instance Game Net, Jeddah's biggest gaming cafe in Azziziya, which boasts over 500 gaming PCs and even hosts large gaming events like FIFA championships and the League of Legends Tour . An annual convention, TGXPO, showcases a selection of the newest games. This year, they will also host Super Smash Bros. tournaments and the humorously named Kozbilaa (cosplay) Contest where contestants will have to out dress last year's costume winner. Saudi has it's own home grown gamer champs who sometimes play in groups, like Worst Team SA, who won the League of Legends HyperX Legendary Tour hosted by Game Net and Power League Gaming, a foundation that has partnerships with companies like EA Games, NVIDIA, Samsung and Coca-Cola among others.
For gaming news, the Saudis have their very own Saudigamer.com and Z-pad.net, which are both in Arabic, and offer news, reviews and other game related content in that is just as good and in-depth as any of the websites that have a more European and North American focus. The sites also feature their own podcasts and each have their own communities on Steam .
The game development scene in Saudi Arabia is small, but vibrant and enthusiastic. Local Aliens, an indie development studio headed by Bandar Al Mashari and his friend Sultan Al Shari f, produces casual games for Apple mobile phones and tablets like Fluke HD, an iPad game that is a digital take on the traditional board game and Arrows, a futuristic puzzle game that is free to download.
On the more culturally grounded spectrum of the development scene is Unearthed: The Trail of Ibn Battuta, a third-person action adventure game by Saudi developer Semaphore, which is available on PC, Mac, the PlayStation Network and iOS and Android devices. The game, which has been compared to the Uncharted series, follows the story of explorer Faris Jawad, who travels across continents to unlock the mysteries left behind in the 13th century by Ibn Battuta .
And now we get to the coolest, part of gaming in the Kingdom: the women. Oh, yes. If you've noticed anything about the gaming story in Saudi so far, it is that the arena is male dominated due to culturally enforced gender segregation. That is nothing new. But in 2011, when the leading gamer ladies Tasneem Salim, Felwa Al Suwalim and Najla Al Arifi had had just about enough of their exclusion from Saudi Arabia's gaming conventions, they decided it was time to found their own .
That's right. They called it GCON, AND THEIR WEBSITE AND TWITTER PAGE ARE PINK! The convention is sponsored by major companies including Microsoft, Ubisoft and Nintendo. At GCON 2012, over 3000 gamers and developers - women only please - showed up to participate in Call of Duty tournaments, game deveoper competitions, and also their very own cosplay competition. Co-founder Salim spoke to Nina Curley at Wamda Media about the challenges that not only women developers in Saudi Arabia face, but the men too with the biggest problem being that they have no major successful development company to follow as a role model.
It's apparent from Salim's interview that Saudi Arabian talented developers, designers and gamers face problems moving upward in the industry.
One of the more minor issues gamers have consistently complained about though, is the banning of games. The Grand Theft Auto series, Heavy Rain, and L.A. Noire were all banned due to the presence of nude or sexual scenes . While those are understandable, some, like the ones imposed on Pokemon in 2001, and another in 2012 on a shoe shopping game, are ridiculous. The thing is, these bans are always sparked by uninformed and overly zealous media personalities and are rarely strictly enforced. The best ban of all however, was that of the 2008 release of God of War 2 . All you had to do to get your hands on it apparently, was to buy Winning Eleven 7 . While Saudi Arabia is certainly slowly catching up with the rest of the world, some things remain unchangeable and also, hilarious.