Top 5 Iranian video game makers

Around the world, millions of people are active in the young and fledgling entertainment and video game industry, and every year we see hundreds of small and large games for various platforms. It makes no difference what the nationality and race of the game maker are; the goal is something else. It entertains people with art and profession that rewards you more than other arts and crafts, however, Making and publishing the video games in Middle Eastern countries is a complicated and challenging task due to US sanctions and lack of sufficient facilities. Still, many successful people work in this industry. In this article, we are going to list 5 of the best and most successful Iranian game makers.

1. Navid Khonsari

Khonsari was born in Canada and was raised in his homeland Iran, after the Iran revolution he moved to Canada. In 2000 he joined Rockstar Games and well known for his notable works like Grand Theft Auto III and Max Payne. In 2006 he left there and found his own company which name has iNK Stories and released his projects which names are 1979 Revolution: Black Friday in 2016, Hero (Multi-Sensory, Location-Based VR) and Fire Escape (VR Series) in 2018 and all his title was successful until now, and It can be said with certainty that he is the number one person in Iran and also the pioneer of this industry in Iran.

2. Mohammad Alavi

Alavi was born in Tehran, Iran, he immigrated to the United States with his family after the Iran-Iraq war. During his college, he interested in the game industry and started to create mods for Half-Life and Counter-Strike, among his notable works include Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, Titanfall 2, and Apex Legends, and he currently works at Respawn Entertainment. Edge magazine has named him as the creator of the best stages and moments of the Call of Duty series. The first stage of the fourth part of Call of Duty, called Crew Expendable, is one of the most important and famous stages of this series, designed by Mohammad Alavi, and it is interesting that when he proposed this stage, he was opposed due to some technical problems. But in three weeks and 18 hours a day, he solved all the problems ahead so that he could include this stage in the game as it is. Mohammad Alavi’s high enthusiasm for acting has made him a capable person with extraordinary perseverance, which most magazines and authorities now refer to as his best.

3. Bob Rafei

Rafiei is the first Nate Dogg employee hired in 1995 and the company’s classic game concept artist, as well as the first version of Uncharted. Rafei started his game industry career in the early ’90s at Absolute Entertainment; He is the CEO and founder of development studio Big Red Button, During his long career, Rafei has worked on the notable game such as Jak X: Combat Racing, Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune and Sonic Boom: Rise of Lyric as an art director and the director. Rafiei now is working on its own IP in Big Red Button Studio.

4. Mahdi Bahrami

Bahrami was born and raised in Isfahan. From an early age, he was interested in software and programming, until at the age of 11 he won a school-level award for writing a basic math arithmetic program. He released Engare in 2017 and became the indie video game developer, Engare is listed by Gamasutra in the Iran video games timeline and won few awards, he has also created a magnificent and wonderful carpet game that has a lot to say in terms of art. He shone with “Bo” at the Tokyo Game Show, and participated in the IGF2013 student section with “Carpet” and made it to the finals as one of the top games.

5. Habib Alejalil

Alejalil is an indie video game developer, he entered to the game industry in 2014 and released few indie games and before that was active in the software development industry when he was a teenager. One of his notable work is the MADELA, which Alejalil was a programmer, director, and the art designer on that project, he made the games on his own rules and his own IP, as an indie game developer, he has done his job well and found his company which name is A Plus Studio.