Digital Games Research Center (DIREC), affiliated to Iran Computer and Video Games Foundation, has recently released a fact sheet on the industry and market of digital games in Iran.
The fact sheet offers data on the industry in the preceding fiscal year that ended in March. According to it, 116 companies were active in game-developing during the period and spent 21 billion rials ($540,000) to produce games.
There are five major hubs in the country for game developers: Tehran, Shiraz, Karaj, Qom and Mashhad, Mehr News Agency reported.
Most of the games produced by Iranian developers were in the genre of action, followed by puzzles and adventure.
A total of 5.2 million copies of non-mobile games were sold, while 134.5 million mobile games were offered in the same period.
Game distribution in Iran is organized by 14 companies, in cooperation with 16,900 stores.
The most popular Iranian mobile games were: ‘Baqlava’ in puzzle genre, motorcycle racing ‘Motori’, puzzle game ‘Aftabeh’, car racing ‘Deal for Speed’, and ‘Jadvalaneh’ with lots of crossword puzzles.
Most popular foreign games in the same period were strategy game Clash of Clans, match-3 puzzle Candy Crush Saga, endless runner Subway Surfer, endless arcade racing game Traffic Racer and 2D racing game Hill Climb Racing.
There are 23 million gamers in Iran, according to the fact sheet and among them 9 million are online gamers. Their playing hours are mostly between sunset and midnight.
A first choice of Iranian gamers is racing games. Platform games, that involve guiding an avatar to jump between suspended platforms or over obstacles, are the next popular genre. Endless runners and puzzle games come in third and fourth place.
Regarding the revenues generated by the game market in Iran, Iranian games had a 5% share of 230 billion rials ($5.9 million).
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