Pinchpoint Video Games: Starting up in Palestine.
PinchPoint is a Palestinian video game company based in Ramallah. As the subject of profiles from theBBC and The New Yorker, and recent recipients of investment from Sadara, they have often been credited as spearheading the start-up movement in Palestine.
But given the restrictive atmosphere of their country, how easy is it for a company like theirs to thrive? What chance does it have to compete internationally? We sat down with CEO and founder Khaled Abual Kheir to find out.
Project Pen: Khaled, how and why did you start making video games?
Khaled: As a child, school was shut down during the Infitadas (I was 9 when the first one started), so I had a lot of spare time to play games, but never considered myself worthy to programme them.
When they started teaching computer science in school, I tried making my first “Space Invader” type game in the 8th grade, and I knew I was addicted. I’ve been prototyping games as a hobby ever since.
When Apple released their iOS SDK (software development kit), I jumped on board. I had so much trouble registering because I live in Palestine; it took two months, and I had to send all kinds of documents to Apple to prove my identity, even a water bill.
When did you turn it into a business endeavor?
Within in three months I had created my first game — but then I realised that Apple doesn’t support payments to Palestine. I couldn’t monetise my work.
So during my time with another (non-gaming) start-up, I built a side project game — it started gaining traction, and reached around 30K MAU (monthly active users). It even started monetising, at that point I decided to start something in gaming.
A few days after, a childhood friend of mine, Basel Naser (Co-Founder) called me. He’d just finished his masters degree in animation from UCLA, he wanted to know what we were up to — so we told him about PinchPoint — and that’s how we started!
What influences you as game designers?
Honestly? I’m not sure!
We have a mantra: we never dismiss an idea as a bad idea; instead we discuss them over and over until we are happy, then we put them into production.
Are the challenges a start-up in Ramallah faces different to any other part of the world?
“Actually, most of our challenges are ones that start-ups all over the world face; they are universal across the industry. We still have to find the necessary talent in artwork, game design, online marketing, Business intelligence, etc.”
There is one law unique to Palestine, however. It’s an extremely outdated corporate law — the 1962 Jordanian Law — which is poisonous to investment. Because of that, we were forced to register our company in Delaware, as many companies here are.
What is the gaming culture like in Palestine?
Palestine has a consumer culture; people are sceptical when it comes to making money from game development — not only by Palestinian studios but even regional ones.
“The Palestine tech consumer market is extremely small and cannot sustain a company of any size, it’s a great prototype market but definitely not a target market. Palestine also suffers from the absence of e-payments and low penetration of Credit cards.”
Has the investment from Sadara affected your creative process?
It’s absolutely shaped the company; it changed it from a hobby-studio into a business. But money isn’t the main factor; it’s the guidance, experience, knowledge and connections we received in this investment that really transformed Pinch Point and its team.
Are there aspects of Palestine and Palestinian culture and its people that you’re trying to represent in your games?
That’s a tough question. I can’t say our games are knowingly influenced by our outside culture, because we [the team] brainstorm, evolve, and produce them. It’s not conspicuous.
“But on the other hand, everything a person does is influenced by their culture. We’re not setting out to intentionally show something about Palestinian society, but we might do it occasionally.”
The New Yorker commented that the art and feeling of your game, “Spermania” [a game which involves guiding a sperm to an egg] was reminiscent of Western styles. Is that intentional?
Definitely! We decided very early on in the conception that Spermania would be produced for the US and Europe markets.
Does this mean you’re hoping to tap into the international market?
We don’t hope to tap in the international market; we plan to. The real question is how and when, and that’s what will make or break PinchPoint. That also doesn’t mean that we only build games for the western markets, actually our next game Al Mamlaka is targeting the Arabic-speaking countries.
“There is nothing preventing Palestinian game developers from developing world-class games that can compete and win in the international market, the only restrictions are the ones they put on themselves.”
Thanks, Khaled
For more on PinchPoint games, go to their official website
Article by Chris Yeoh.
