Hundreds of thousands of games are released each year. These games are made available on different platforms; PS4, XBOX, PC – you name it. Steam, one of PC’s gaming marketplaces, reported that in 2019 alone, more than 8,000 games were released. Amongst these games, some are specific to certain regions. North Americans and Europeans usually receive all the games, while other regions like SEA (Southeast Asia), MENA (Middle East and North America), and OCE (Oceania) regions are deprived of playing those games.

Valorant

A very recent example of this is Riot’s new FPS (First-Person Shooter) game Valorant. Riot announced a closed beta for Valorant which started on the 7^th of April. Initially, it was only available to Europe and North America. Riot, later, added other regions to its closed beta, including South Korea, Latin America, and Brazil. The majority of the eastern part of the world still lacks entry into its beta. Executive producer Valorant, Anna Donlan said: “Our plan was to bring the VALORANT Closed Beta to as many players around the world as quickly as possible, but the COVID-19 pandemic has impacted those plans, compromising a wider global rollout. For now, we have to focus on the regions where we feel most ready, with more regions following in the months to come. We want to engage with players as globally as possible as quickly as possible, and so we’ll ramp up our player count as much as we can to test our infrastructure, but we won’t be letting everyone playtest VALORANT until we’re absolutely sure we can handle it in this newly uncertain environment.” Valorant will be available to more regions such as Oceania and MENA at its launch on the 2^nd of June. While COVID-19 is a valid justification for the delay in the access of closed beta in some regions, other games unavailable to MENA, SEA, and OCE regions have other potential causes:

1.Infrastructure (developing vs developed):

Nearly every game is produced in the developed world. There are several constraints on the development of games in the global south — Technical, educational, and financial. Support from software developers beyond their main markets is limited. The world's largest online gaming streaming program, Steam, for example, is difficult to access due to local bandwidth constraints.

2. Mobile games being more popular than PC games:

As growth in first-tier mobile markets slows, emerging markets have become the land of opportunity for mobile games. Amongst these, Asia retains the most potential of all the regions of the planet. The Asia-Pacific area, which encompasses the wealthier East Asian economies, is currently the fastest-growing smartphone sector in the world, ahead of North and South America. China has risen on its own, with smartphone gaming sales almost twice that of the West. Sadly, international players see just a portion of that; almost 70% of the market share is held by two companies, NetEase and Tencent. RPGs particularly interest Japanese players and make a majority of their gaming market. In Southeast Asia, players have always been willing to play, just not pay. Yet in-app transactions are becoming more and more popular. The Philippines is currently the third fastest-growing internet shopping sector in Google Play. One of the most noteworthy reasons Southeast Asians choose to play on mobile is that they are cheaper than computers.

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Accessibility to the internet in India has risen is the last couple of years by a huge amount, and with smartphones being the cheapest, they are the "optimal" choice. An example to support my theory is PUBG Mobile. It is currently one of the most downloaded and played games in the world, with the majority of people from Asia. The fame of these fundamental mobile games signals a stronger infrastructure in the region and a diverse appetite for mobile games. Gamers in Asia are more inclined than their Western counterparts to spend time and hard-earned cash.

3. Exposure:

On top of this, the barriers on the existing platforms to create games are high: access to the advanced hardware and licenses offered by console manufacturers is costly and not easily granted. If a game developer is spending a boatload of money on acquiring licenses, they expect that they will be able to recoup that cost alongside a sizable profit. America itself spent $35,510M on video games. In the list for the most spent on video games, after America, most countries that follow are European countries. Countries such as these are likely to spend on games due to a higher standard of living compared to other countries around the globe. However, China still tops the list. It has thrice the population and stands at only a million greater generated in revenue. Apart from the money spent by players, a larger playerbase attracts companies looking to market their products and services. A larger crowd will require a higher amount being paid to the game companies for marketing, AKA better CPM rates.

4. Banned Games:

When it comes to any form of electronic media, many countries have some policy and set of rules the content must adhere to in order to be distributed in that region. There is no international default standard per se for the rules and every country has its own protocol. Some games are magnets of moral indignation, whether they promote violence or touch on controversial issues. Since we have touched the issue of games being banned, a noteworthy mention would be Australia. Initially, video games could only be graded to MA15 + in Australia. Around the time, films could be given the R18+ classification code, but a video game with material considered suitable for the R18+ code will be 'Refused Classification' because the medium do not have an acceptable classification. Although the R18+ classification was instated for video games, some games still fell under refused classification and were, as a result, banned – especially those that contained depictions of sexual assault. Nudity and sexual intercourse scenes found in games are among the key reasons why Saudi Arabia, a prominent country in the MENA region, puts a stop to video games. So gamers don't have access to Heavy Rain, L.A. Noire, God of War, and Grand Theft Auto. Sale of Red Dead Redemption was outlawed because of violence. Saudi Arabia also thinks that it is appropriate to ban games depicting violence against Muslims or to display them in a bad light. All in all, there's a plethora of reasons as to why regional choices are made with a variety of contexts. Sure, it does often come down to the almighty dollar, but different regions mean different cultures, and different cultures demand different expectations. Hopefully we've helped elucidate some of the key reasons for priorities and bias from developers to specific regions.

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Image courtesy of JustWatch