Gaming Around the World: Estonia
Thanks to Vahur Teller for taking the time to write this up. Here's a look at gaming in Estonia.First, being in Soviet Union, where everything was probably so ancient compared to western countries when it came to electronics (although we had some things, probably mostly copied stuff), then after the independence (around 1990) the economy was quite stressed, I remember my dad losing a lot of weight due to the hard times, not concentration camp style but enough to thin his face (and body).
The fact that our economy is ok now doesn't help, as it’s still quite a short time, everyone is trying to have a place to live above all things (property just made a nice rollercoaster (up) and just now stopped rising, everyone went nuts with bank loans, but I guess that’s similar in US anyway).
A while ago you asked on gaming status in different countries. I am not exactly the right person to comment on it. But I will tell you how I've handled it so far.
I started using computers more than 20 years ago. I was 6 and the computers were not something you used for games. But they had games anyway. And they only existed in universities, where my father worked. So text based Tetris, Tank (multiplayer!), Python (snake), Rally. They were awesome games, they actually should be very playable even today. One roomful of computer had several consoles, and I achieved the top score in Rally because someone else was printing at the same time so the game ran at a slower pace.
Anyway, then, after some years, Internet arrived. And PC’s. A class full of 286, and even a few 386’s. No one sold games in Estonia. There was no market and there were no dealers. So what I did was download demos, shareware was big back then so I played a lot of "first episodes"-Commander Keen, Wolfenstein, Doom. I pretty much played every game there was. 1992 might have been the year, or maybe one later, when I discovered a huge repository of games in one Finland universities server. They were probably acting as a proxy to have the huge files closer so everyone did not have to download from far away. I believe they had a couple of gigabytes and I downloaded it all. And also played.
Then I believe we received our first computer at home, I think the 486 had just come out and we got an XT at home, a Finnish colleague donated it to us. With 2 boxes full of 5 inch floppies full of games.
Certain ones you had to boot to, I mean, stick the floppy in, restart computer, and the game would run. Alley Cat, Paratrooper, Leisure Suit Larry 1. There were all sorts of gems. But as we had no arcade culture (still don't, not that I know of, we have some lone games in supermarkets, but usually so lousy no one plays them anyway). And I believe still no games were sold. Maybe they were, but I believe the economy was such that who could afford, probably went to other countries and bought games from there. There would have been no selection here anyway.
Anyway, we had Internet, and on Internet by that time everything was acceptable. For many years we downloaded, pirated to be exact. Not demo versions any more but full games. Usually available before they were in shops. I got to be quite good at it anyway, spent a few years on IRC, was probably in high school by then if not university (around 2000?). I don't think I spent my time on the warez channels for software though, it was a really nice group of people I could chat with, quite close, and friendly, and you could see that the software was not the reason they were there.
Anyway, I have had certain jobs since I was 16 I believe, computer science teacher at a sight impaired school, IT specialist at different places. Nothing full job though, but I made OK by my own standards, as I was still in school then. But if you think that I would buy a game for half, or even a third of my income you have to be nuts, as that's what it was.
I was hired in 2001 to my current company, I made around 500$ by today's rate. But a new game cost around 80, and arrived months after it was available on the Internet. Plus, you'd still think if you want to pay a fifth for a game that might last 5 hours... It was only a few years ago that ANY real selection appeared. When you could go to a shop and see the latest games for different platforms next to value packs or certain "best of" reprints that cost as low as 15. The price that I actually started buying games for. It's still quite a lousy selection actually. One of the biggest electronics chain we have has currently around 300 PC games on sale on their Internet pages, I really don't think that's a lot, and the more expensive ones are around 65$ (Oblivion is 57$). Still, I make currently around 1300$, which is quite a bit, the average income I believe might be around 600-700.
A family who's doing well probably can buy Sims for their children, or themselves. But I do know that pirating is quite widespread. Just a few months ago I talked to my neighbours, they have a son of 9 who talked about a game he was downloading, turned out the game was GTA San Andreas, and when i asked his parents about it they were like "hey, we already told you to delete it", not "stop downloading". but that's the way it is.
There is no advertisement in papers or TV for any of the games. None, zero. Yes there are some speciality magazines but there is no mainstream coverage. And, a couple of days ago I realised that although a video rental with decent collection is 5 minutes from my home, i have no idea where to go for game rentals. I believe there is nowhere to go...
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