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The gamers of Baghdad:) video games in iraq!!! learning american culture from games :P

0roo0roo

0roo0roo

No Lifer
a few exerpts. you can read the entire thing free here. http://www.salon.com/tech/feature/2004/01/20/baghdad_gamer/index.html

just turn off you add blocker so you can click on the free day pass thing. it doesn't show and doesn't work if u have add blockers on. after u get in, just turn it back on😛

The invasion has been a boon to the country's high-tech consumer market, according to Zeyad. "After the war," he says, "computer and console prices dropped drastically and became available for a larger section of Iraqis. You can get the fastest Pentium IV PC with the best components and accessories at $500, whereas it usually cost $800 before the war ... As to consoles, the cheapest are the Dreamcast at around $80 (or less) and the Playstation at an average of $100. Playstation 2's are more expensive and therefore less common (around $200-$250)."


That the PS2 is openly sold at all is actually another benefit of the war's aftermath, for under U.N. sanctions, units of the Sony console were apparently classified "dual use" devices which Saddam's scientists might bundle up to create a supercomputer, for use in long-range missile guidance. But Zeyad says the PS2 was still available under the dictator's regime, despite that interdiction: "They were smuggled through Jordan and Turkey. Most of these came from Southeast Asia and the United Arab Emirates."
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Zeyad's family had a P.C., and computer games became both a hobby and a cross-cultural conduit out of a rapidly closing society. "When I was 11 or 12," he says, "I started playing Sierra adventure games. I was a huge fan of 'Leisure Suit Larry' and 'Police Quest.' I learned a lot about American culture from these games, and I started to understand some American expressions and their usage of the English language. These games were very educational to me."
:Q
(In "Police Quest: In Pursuit Of The Death Angel", you're a by-the-book cop who must track down a powerful drug dealer, and in "Leisure Suit Larry: In the Land of the Lounge Lizards," you're a virginal would-be swinger who must sex up three EGA babes with '80s hair. (So as an education in Americana, perfect.) Then came the first Gulf War, and suddenly Iraq itself became a setting for U.S.-made P.C. games. "There was a game called 'F-15 Flight Simulator' which was about the first Gulf War," says Zeyad. "I spent a lot of time playing that game and specifically missions in Iraq."
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he Mukhabarat created what must be the strangest assignment in the history of secret police, anywhere.

"They had people," says Zeyad, "whose jobs were to play and finish these games to find out if there was any mention of Iraq or Saddam."

In other words, they employed totalitarian play testers.
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It's cool that things are becomming available to them..

Now, if we could just do something about the ~50% unemployment rate.....
 
Originally posted by: Eli
It's cool that things are becomming available to them..

Now, if we could just do something about the ~50% unemployment rate.....
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Take the games away from them😛
 
Funny... they like western ideas like PC games and such...

but when it comes to separation of church and state... it's blasphemy.
 
Originally posted by: hpkeeper
Funny... they like western ideas like PC games and such...

but when it comes to separation of church and state... it's blasphemy.
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Yeah PC games are such a Western idea.

If you are into PC games, you might as well take up other Western ideas.
 
If they have fast internet and such, we need to do a massive Desert Combat tournament with of course the Iraqi's playing the Iraqi side .. and well you get it.
 
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