Video game localisation in Iran. A survey of users’ profile, gaming habits and preferences

Today, an increasing number of people are playing video games, hence the continued growth of the game industry’s annual revenue, surpassing $150 billion in 2019, exceeds those of music and film industries combined. Considering the huge international market, accumulating and analysing information about gamers’ opinions, attitudes and experiences is of necessity for the game localisation market and could supplement and enrich the limited existing research findings. To address this gap, this article presents the results of a survey of Iranian console and computer gamers’ reception. Using quantitative data from over 750 gamers, the study examines the Iranian gamers’ profile, gaming habits, preferences, and perception of the present situation of video game localisation in Iran. The results reveal that the entertainment of playing video games appears to be entirely male-oriented and mostly in their teens and early to mid-20s. The most telling results suggest that Iranian gamers prefer a localisation approach in which the translation maintains the otherness of the original, and that on average, they are dissatisfied with the present state of game localisation into Persian.