Comments on: Wizards Productions’ Online Multiplayer Arabic Games Experiences Viral Growth

By: نمرووووو

نمرووووو — Sun, 01 Aug 2010 14:51:21 +0000

اتمنى انى اشارك فى السيرفر الجديد لحياه قاتل مأجور والسبب انى مشهور فى السيرفرين ولى شعبية كبيرة فى اللعبة
ومن اكثر الداعمين فى اللعبة واحس انى راح ان شاء الله انفعكم فى السيرفر الجديدوشكرا لكم
اخوكم نمرووووو

By: Lex

Lex — Fri, 29 Jan 2010 06:51:25 +0000

Thanks for sharing this. I’ll take a note on this

By: Ashnabi expert

Ashnabi expert — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 18:38:32 +0000

It is great to see a title developped in the region finally after lots of bad localizations flooding the markets recently. Still higher quality titles are soon to enter the arabic markets. I am curious if not only the look and feel is great, as the most important part of the games is found in balanced multiplayer gameplay, incentives to play for free and incentives to conversions, good old board community work (very important!), there are many things to learn and it is definetly not about graphics only. Copyrights are passed all over the world especially with free to play games, but for the clones (graphically) it does not pay off. But at Mr. Thiab and Jabbar, thank you for making the next step!

By: Ashnabi expert

Ashnabi expert — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 18:38:32 +0000

By: r4 revolution

r4 revolution — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 08:21:01 +0000

Hi all…
I am playing games on pc and i like to know more about gaming…
I like this article because it's provide lot's of fun and knowledge…

By: Teaching Technology Blog » Using Online Games for Native Speakers in Teaching Language

Sun, 13 Sep 2009 17:13:58 +0000

[...] of Arabic may be interested in a recent posting from The ArabCrunch Blog about Wizards Productions a video game developer based in Jordan, that has launched 4 browser-based [...]

By: Arvind S

Arvind S — Sun, 13 Sep 2009 11:49:44 +0000

Mr. Afif, I do understand that Sa7ara is a completely in house design and development effort. And I must add that it looks fantastic. Unfortunately, this was the reason I found the use of Mafia 2 screenshots that much more disappointing since your company clearly has the talent to produce nice artwork. Even if it was for visual kicks – it is similar to someone using, say Haifa's song in their video and saying "it's just for the effect". Sure, it helps the effect – which is exactly the problem. Your work is benefiting from some one else's effort – and they're not getting the benefit of it. That's the whole point of the copyright law.

I would urge you to look at the situation in reverse. What if some other company were to use the artwork from Sa7ara in their game? The art that your artists have clearly spent hours and hours perfecting? Would you let them go saying "it's ok, they did it only for kicks?"

And regarding Mafia … the screenshots are clearly from Mafia 2, which is to be released in 2010 and not from Mafia 1, which as you mentioned was released 5 years back.

By: Afif Touakn

Afif Touakn — Sun, 13 Sep 2009 09:08:18 +0000

I would like to reply to Mr. Arvind's comment. Wizards Productions as a company either license, translates, markets and manages the community of a game, or develops a game from scratch. In the case of Arabic Mafia, Wizards translated the game, and manages the community. It's very unfortunate that you commented on a translated version of an English game that has been online in the American and European gaming markets for the past 5 years and is essentially a text based game so the visual aspect is just for kicks. Currently the owner company is in the process of changing the visuals so change is coming soon.

I would like to invite you to check out Sa7ara as it's a Wizards idea, design and development, so your judgment on credibility would be based on our products rather than others

By: Arvind S

Arvind S — Sun, 13 Sep 2009 04:05:23 +0000

Those are very interesting statistics. Unfortunately, it's a bit sad that someone who is trying to be a pioneer in this space is completely ignoring copyright issues. The art assets in Arabic Mafia are from the game Mafia 2, and I doubt 2K Games gave them the permission to use these screenshots (esp. since Mafia 2 is set to release only next year).

I believe that if we need to grow the credibility of regional games, we must start by making our own assets, rather than using someone else's assets in "our game"