Games for an Indian Market II

Hi guys,
I'm sorry to disturb the serene pre-Christmas atmosphere on this blog with petty issues of money-making :) but I'd like to hear your thoughts about some insights, Asif, my Pakistani suite mate shared with me tonight about the media market in (t)his area.
I don't know how we arrived at that topic but since he told me earlier that movies and Playstation games are available in high-quality pirated versions in Karachi for $1 apiece, I was seriously wondering how it was possible to develop a healthy market out of this and even intervene with ideas like commercial quality games in that market. That's what he told me:

fact 1) there are copyright laws in Pakistan/India but only regional companies seem to enforce them. EA doesn't enforce these laws for their games but apparently makes money otherwise. On the contrary, Aamir Khan released Lagaan in India/Pakistan under a strict no-piracy policy and got away with it!!

fact 2) There are usually no copies of Pakistani (and Indian?) media properties on the respective market except some bad-quality MP3s of Pakistani music. The only pirated media available are foreign properties; something like a national 'code of honor' for media consumption - a very interesting concept!

fact 3) Big foreign companies even seem to encourage the pirating of their properties in the region and have 'secret' agreements with the multipliers to get a *very* small percentage of the money back (multiplied by a huge number of consumers!!!). That would explain why in Germany basically only pirated versions of Bollywood movies are available in Indian stores (for 5€ or so); maybe Eros & Co. have agreements with those stores, too, about pirating their movies?

I.e. a property like Ashoka, produced by an Indian company with an Indian theme, is bound to do well because the hardware installed base (PS2 consoles available) seems to be enormous because of the low game prices, will fall under a potentially similar Indian 'code of honor' and will not excessively be pirated, and can sell for a proportionally higher price than pirated foreign games.

Does this seem totally out of the blue for you? It sounds pretty far-fetched but as an outsider to the regional media industry of India, Pakistan etc., I can believe that the main hurdle for companies to enter that market is the ignorance of regional, often unspoken culturally specific market rules. In that light it would make perfect sense for EA to partner with Indiagames as they recently did to circumvent the entry barrier they would have as a foreign company.

I would really like to hear your thoughts on those 'facts'. I wonder how much 'market ethnography' has really been conducted outside of huge companies like EA... :)

Anyway, have yourself a merry little christmas and let it not be spoiled by this brief capitalistic interlude ;-) I'm myself looking forward to a nice christmas dinner with friends tomorrow (you hear that, Parmesh? ;)) and I'm even planning to go to Trinity church on christmas eve!

-Stefan