New Technology 2011 Gadgets, Best Gadgets, Desktop Gadgets

(For PC World Pakistan)

There’s a gaming competition on in December at the Tribal Gaming Cafe in Karachi (near Avari Towers). The competition will start from Dec 24, 2011 and last into February, ending on February 6, 2011. So here’s the chance for you to spend every weekend at Tribal now. The competition will feature the Fifa’10 on PS3 and PC the first weekend. This will be followed by Need for Speed Most Wanted, Defence of the Ancients, Tekken 5, and Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare and end with Counter Strike 1.6 from February 4 to 6.

But why mention this here? Both locally and internationally, as one of the most popular of activities on any device, Gaming and related gaming news has just as much right of being talked about as any other development in the tech industry. As per the norm, come Christmas season and all industries across the world; come up with great deals for you to avail from. And naturally those absolutely fabulous deals include many in the gaming sector also.

The news is full of them… Remember Super Mario… that ‘30 odd years old Italian’ avatar with the moustache and re workday clothes? Well, with Nintendo 3DS, Mario Kart 7 headed the list of Nintendo games bought this Christmas season. Bravo Mario! Generation of us, have locally, as well as in the international gamers’ world, enjoyed Mario and his many adventures. And the editions only seem to be getting more fascinating.

Nintendo is not the only one to churn out new games or offer awesome deals in various games. Kinect and Xbox 360, Play Station… you name it, and they have all released games and seasonal discount offers on said games that will truly impress users. Either that or they have updated and released newer, faster and easier to play with, versions of their devices and updated games to play on those.

And then we also have the whole arena of online games. Popular war craft games such as Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3, Elder Scrolls vs. Skyrim and Battlefield 3 are just a few of the many games that have been making it to the top of most popular games’ lists this season. Role-play games are just one genre of games though. You still have online casino games or the Zynga category sort which a number of players love and continue to play with enthusiasm.

So like it or lump it, at the international level, games are definitely one of the best things to happen to most of us and a large percentage of our time is spent online playing various online games. But while this is the sort of response that you get at the international level, what is the sort of scenario existing at the local level in Pakistan? Does the Pakistani community have gamers? Are they really serious gamers? What sort of games appeal to them? These questions and more come to mind as soon as you think of the local gamer industry.

At the local level, we do have a lot of gamers and a very active and thriving local gaming community, as is proved by the fact that we do have a lot of gaming zones such as Tribal in Karachi and Rawalpindi (near Cineplex Cinemas, Jinnah Park), and even the numerous, smaller gaming cafes that you may find in any neighborhood across Pakistan. The competition details stated above also indicates the level of interest the local population has in gaming.

Then again, a number of gaming consoles have also been launched here and these include the Dell Intel Alienware laptops, the Nintendo 3DS and Play Stations’ numerous editions. The more serious of gamers regularly visit these gaming zones, or they own their own dedicated gaming laptops. Either ways, we have a very devoted and blooming gaming audience available locally.

However, really getting down to the grass root level, most people in Pakistan love games. However, there is also the drawback that with finances being as low as they are at present for most Pakistanis, people prefer to play games on their own PCs rather than get a gaming console solely for the purpose of playing games.

To this effect, one gamer, Adeel Hashmi stated that, he does not even usually get the new editions of games, but rather prefers playing the old versions. When asked why he does so, he told us that “Those who can afford it switch to newer versions of their favorite games. Because the updated versions require high end PCs or expensive equipment installed before they can run properly. So the ‘normal’ people amongst us stick to the old versions until we can afford the new ones!” To back this up, another gamer, Sheikh Owais, informed us that he is, “a huge fan of King of Fighters, but the 98 version is the only one that I really seem to like, so I love playing every chance that I get!”

Besides that, while online gaming does enjoy a certain level of popularity in Pakistan (think Zynga and Facebook here!), it does not still have the sort of popularity that this particular area of gaming enjoys the world over. Zynga and Facebook in face, have to a very large extent helped to popularize the idea of online gaming in the country. Before that while you could on some websites, play with other gamers online, the idea never really gained mass appeal.

So what else are we left with? Gaming zones. And those small-scale gaming zones that you may find everywhere across the city are the ones that are most popular. Most people there come from the middle and lower strata of the local community and are there solely to share the mutual love and enjoyment of games with other like-minded gamers. Others, more especially female gamers, in the local community are largely cut off from the local gaming sector for the simple reason that the gender discrimination prevalent in our society does not allow the concept of ‘female-gamers’ to sit very well with us, and because most gaming haunts are thought to be unsuitable places for girls to frequent. Hence interested girls stay at home and, if they really are into gaming, go either for PC or online games.

The culture is slowly changing however. With Smartphones and tablets invading the local market, and with the number of applications, both free and paid available on them, more and more people are looking to play games. Eventually, we’ll probably breed a generation of gamers in the country. Meantime, wouldn’t the local gaming industry like to step up and try and develop (and sell) games for the local Pakistani gamer society? Isn’t it high time they become more active? Meantime, who’s going to Tribal???

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