October 2012

Our main feature this time is a report about the games industry in Malaysia, translated from an original article in the German mag IGM, just in time to tie in with our coverage of Ghoul Patrol, which was partially developed in that country. The article's main focus, however, is the current state of the industry and the developer E-One Studio, who recently had the first episode of its point&click adventure Hoodwink published.

Additionally, we got a photo stretch showing two arcades in Pyongyang, contributed by Mike Koz, as well as a few summaries of 1997 Asian gaming expo coverage by the South Korean industry paper Amuse World with black&white photos, including the AAMA's India Expo and the Taipei Internet & Games Grand Show in Taiwan.

- derboo

June 2012

So this page has been lying bare for a long, long time now, but that doesn't mean we ever stopped documenting gaming tidbits from around the planet. There have been new blog posts every once in a while, like most recently a cool photo from an "arcade" in Thailand, or some time ago the history of video game magazines in Croatia and a bit on 80s/90s home computers in Iraq. And let's not forget our latest podcast, where the inimitable Audun Sorlie educates our head editor in gaming cultures around Europe. We also have a few more external links, while others have unfortunately disappeared since the last update (though some are preserved thanks to the Internet Archive).

But we got some new(ly posted) on-site content as well, reprinting a massive feature on TecToy from Brazil that originally appeared in Retro Gamer (UK), and information about three PS2 games that were produced exclusively for Ireland, though actually programmed by an Australian developer. They're all based on the island's national sports, Gaelic Football and Hurling.

Finally, we gave this very page here a thorough overhaul, with a more easily distinguishable layout and a neat little map, which not only serves as a document of how much of the world we've covered so far, but also contains direct links to the individual countries' sections. Dragging the mouse here zooms in on certain areas, clicking a country zooms in on its shape and reveals the link. You can zoom back out either with the link at the bottom right, or click on the map with the right mouse button and select "Zoom Out!" The downside is that you need to have Flash installed and activated for it to work.

- derboo

November 2010

Apologies for the delay in updating - when starting this section I didn't realise the amount of work needed for coding up all the HTML. Furthermore, the new section didn't seem to generate much interest from readers.

We've only one new on-site addition, which is a 6 page PDF article on gaming in China courtesy of PiQ magazine. I'm sure you'll agree it was worth the wait. The rest of this update is actually linking to other articles found online over the past few months. Most are old, but I wanted GOTW to be a source of reference for all such information. The following are all EXTERNAL. There's Keving Gifford's Mag Weaseling piece on Russian magazines. A fascinating link on the history of Poland's C64 scene during the 80s and 90s. A link to TIGSource's entry on Chinese doujin RPG Rainblood: Town of Death, which I really should have linked to back in June. I'm going to get flak for linking to them, but Kotaku says consoles are banned in China. Also, Vietnam regulates online gaming, which is such an old news report, there's probably been a follow-up since then. As for HG101's blog, we've had numerous Korean entries by our international man of mystery Derboo - far too many to list individually. So instead here's a search of recent Korean entries.

And finally, I want to talk about Tim Hull's website, Global Timoto, which covers not videogames, but games in general from around the world. Tim was formerly of British game developor M4, which developed Resident Evil Gaiden, he was also a co-founder of TIGA. Currently he's riding his motorbike around the world, covering the various games people play in different countries. This is a truly magnificent website full of photos and videos, which I feel is very much in the same spirit as GOTW. Whether it's a board game in Saharan Africa or children building their own bamboo toy cars to race, every entry is fascinating and details with sincerity aspects of life in foreign countries; it does a fine job of documenting human 'play culture' from around the around and is part of a worthwhile registered charity. Although it's not about videogames, I like to think that anyone who enjoys this GOTW page, will find much to marvel at on Tim's website. It really is something quite special.

- John "Sketcz" Szczepaniak

June 2010

Welcome to another update. We can finally unveil the first part of derboo's History of Korea. Although a little daunting, what with so much information and imagery, please take the time to sample some of it. As gaming progresses onwards, this slice of history is in danger of being forgotten.

Next we’ve got a lengthy Q&A session with two gamers from Russia, Alex and Fabien, which gives a fascinating explanation of English-loanwords in Russia. Despite having native words for RPG terms like quest, mage, and so on, which are derived from medieval Russian folklore, localised games continue to use foreign vocabulary - which is now commonly accepted.

I’ve also added a short page on Lithuania, with links to a local developer. Plus there’s the first instalment of stuff on Brazil and Tec Toy (the biggest ever feature on Tec Toy themselves is due for the future). And finally, there’s a brief entry on Scotland -while unbeknownst to many, Scotland has contributed quite a bit to the gaming world. Oh, and I added a Congo gallery page, and an entry for China, linking to our fan-translation article which covers Chinese RPGs.

- John "Sketcz" Szczepaniak

May 2010

I first covered foreign gaming sometime around 2005, when a forum post I made on videogame scenes in Africa and the Middle East caught the interest of GamesTM's then Retro Editor Darran Jones. He asked if I could double the number of entries in order to run it as a printed feature. I did this, which started my long and sometimes arduous journey as a games journalist. When I started freelancing for Retro Gamer, then under Live Publishing, I pitched a regular column called Global Gaming.

Viewing comments from people across the internet, it appears there's still a strong interest in what our cousins in far-flung places of the world are playing. For a long time Insert Credit covered Korean gaming, and there were foreign pieces on websites like WayoftheRodent and people's blogs. But there's never been anything dedicated specifically to Games of the World.

Some of the content here is my leftover notes, some of it is stuff found elsewhere on the internet, and some of it - such as derboo's Korean coverage - has been researched specifically for HG101. With it already being the second decade of the millenium, my big question is: what were a lot of these countries like in the 1980s and 1990s? If we don't document them now, pieces of gaming history will be lost forever.

- John "Sketcz" Szczepaniak