According to an article published on VentureBeat, a recent study of Iran’s video game market shows an approximate $140 million revenue in 2015. Iran’s PC and console games revenue is expected to reach $167 million in 2016, according to a study which has been based on the data conducted by Newzoo research firm.
Gameguise, a Dubai-based publisher of online games in the Middle East ran a triple-A gamer study recently to clarify the video games market in Iran. “Between January 25 and January 28, 743 respondents completed the survey on our channel on Line, the popular messaging app in Iran,” wrote Amir-Esmaeil Bozorgzadeh, co-founder of Gamerguise on a guest post on VentureBeat.
“They all qualified as owning a game console, while 70 percent of the sample, or 1,875 respondents, disqualified. Over 80 percent accessed the survey via a VPN partly due to the fact that the survey platform we’re using, Survey Gizmo, is blocked by some ISPs,” said on the article.
According to this study, with 42 percent, Xbox 360 is still the most popular video game console in Iran. One main reason for this matter could be the availability of pirated games for the Xbox 360. Due to copyright infringements in Iran, pirated Xbox 360 and PS3 games are available in local stores for as low as 1.5 dollars. Unlike the current generation video game consoles, PS3 and Xbox 360 could be modded in order to run pirated games. This has led to high sales number of previous generation video game consoles in Iran, and a higher price than the PS4 and Xbox One as a result. PS3, PS4, Xbox One and Nintendo Wii also have a market share of 33%, 31%, 14% and 8 percent respectively in Iran.
According to this study, 27 percent said they spend playing online video games at least once a day. 15 percent said they play online games several times a day and 30 percent of which said they purchase in-game features on console games while 70 percent of them said they spend less than $30 per month for the in-game purchases.
Steam, the Internet-based digital distribution platform which provides a marketplace for PC gamers is also popular in Iran, even though the majority of the country’s population don’t have access to credit cards and have to buy gift cards from third-party sellers to make purchases on the platform. According to this study 35 percent of the respondents to the survey play PC games, while 35 percent of them play on Steam.
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