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Gamers in Iran

Among the 80 million citizens, approximately 23 million are gamers (IRCG Report 2016, 7). Of these gamers, 37% are women. Iranian interest in gaming can be linked to internet user population in Iran at an 82% penetration rate, which, according to the IRCG, is the biggest in the Middle East (Ibid, 4). However, studies tend to focus on reception of localized console and computer games among men. Through the use of specialized channels on Telegram, the most popular social media application in Iran, the most recent study on Iranian gamers found that demographically they are made up of 97.6% male, with less than 3% female. The discrepancy in these findings between scholarly work and the IRCG provides a unique context to examine questions of gender within the affective infrastructure of gaming.