BAGHDAD — Bashar Abo Khalil’s PUBG character dashes around a wall in a pink dress and samurai helmet, thwacking an enemy with a frying pan — standard fare in the mobile game that is a mega-sensation in Iraq.
اضافة اعلان
The online star, known as G2G, is one of many Iraqis hooked on PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds — a battle royale first-person shooter game that’s reminiscent of the book and film series “The Hunger Games”.
The mobile version of the game has become so popular in Iraq, where 60 percent of the 40-million-strong population is under 25, that the country’s youth have been dubbed the “PUBG generation”.
Iraqis across the country are spending hours every day on the game’s virtual battleground, socializing via its live chat, playing competitively or even falling in love.
Abo Khalil, 31, said he used to play for hours to “stop thinking about problems”.
“When you’re playing the game you can become closed off to the rest of the world. It can be like a drug,” he added.
Now based in Turkey, he earns a living streaming games and making videos.
Fan Dalya Waheed said she plays PUBG for an hour or two a day with friends she met on the game, and has even set up a gaming hub at the electronics reseller where she works.
“It’s really easy to meet people on PUBG,” said the woman in her thirties, who lives in Iraq’s autonomous
Kurdish region.
Better internet, better opportunities
Some Iraqi parents have criticized the game as time-sucking or have expressed worry about the
violence it portrays, with guns-a-plenty and explosives sending up blood spatter.
But Reshar Ibrahim, who plays PUBG Mobile competitively, said the game would never be as bad as what many Iraqis had experienced in real life over the decades of conflicts that have devastated the country.
“It’s just a game,” said the 19-year-old Iraqi Kurd, who has lived in Sweden for the past three years.
In 2019, the country’s parliament banned PUBG amid local reports it was leading to bankruptcy, suicide, and divorce.
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