Of all the things Iran could be making it into the news with, the one thing you might not have expected it to be doing is developing computer games. But that’s exactly what’s happening: video games developers from Iran are have taken part in one of the world’s largest games exhibitions – gamescom, held in Cologne, Germany.

Speaking to the BBC, Amir Tarbyatjoui, head of Parsan Business Development Solutions, who managed the Iranian stand said his company was showing their games to the exhibition visitors and other delegates and receiving a “surprised” response, mainly because Iran has never before been associated with computer games.

“We are using this event to promote what is happening in the Iranian games industry,” he said. “We believe we have more potential and we want to promote that potential.” He added that Iran was becoming a leading player in video game development in the Middle East and that the event in Cologne was to show people just what they were capable of.

Surprising though it may seem on a cultural level, on a business level, entering the games market is makes good economic sense. The global games market is estimated to be worth more than $47 billion a year, and is reported to have surpassed Hollywood in its size and scope.

Online gaming is the fastest-growing area of the market, which is why Activision and Blizzard merged two years ago to create a business that even at the time was worth almost $20 billion. And unlike most other sectors of the global economy, which have seen slowdowns in business, the games market keeps on growing. Activision Blizzard own and operate World of Warcraft and Call of Duty, both of which are hugely popular MMORPGs – Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Games.

Computer games – or video games as they were known at some point in the distant past – originated in early cathode ray tube-based missile defence systems in the late 1940s. These programs were later adapted into other simple games during the 1950s. By the late 1950s and through the 1960s, more computer games were developed, mostly on mainframe computers, gradually increasing in sophistication and complexity. Following this period, video games diverged into different platforms: arcade, mainframe, console, personal computer and hand-held devices.

The first commercially viable video game was Computer Space in 1971, which laid the foundation for a new entertainment industry in the late 1970s within the United States, Japan and Europe. The first major games market crash in 1977 occurred when companies were forced to sell their older obsolete systems flooding the market. Six years later a second, greater crash occurred. This crash – brought on largely by a flood of video games coming to the market – resulted in a total collapse of the console gaming industry worldwide, ultimately shifting dominance of the market from North America to Japan.

While the crash killed the console gaming market, the computer gaming market was largely unaffected. Subsequent generations of console video games would continue to be dominated by Japanese corporations. Though several attempts would be made by North American and European companies, their ventures would ultimately fail. Not until recently, when Microsoft released its Xbox would a non-Japanese company release a commercially successful console system.

It’s obviously difficult to predict whether there will be another crash, but for the time being, computer games are becoming increasingly popular. In China, for example, they are so popular that the Government has introduced new regulations to force people to stop playing them, especially if they involve some sort of online gambling. In the US, of course, online gambling has been banned altogether. And there are frequent moral panics about the effects of games on children and the population at large in various countries throughout the world.

Games certainly have power, sometimes turning even grown men into nerdy addicts, but within moderate limits, it’s a truly modern pastime with a bright future. A recent study found the average age of a gamer to be around 34, at which age he or she (although it’s mostly a he) should have a job and a life, much of which would require his attention. And in any case, the TV used to take up as much if not more time in the past, and there were frequent moral panics about that too.

Sony has released a new version of its hugely successful PS3 console, called the PS3 Slim, and Microsoft is planning to revamp its Xbox in response. So there’ll be plenty for gamers to be looking forward to. Old companies like Sega and Amiga have faded away, but the games industry is unlikely to turn off its lights any time soon.

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