ISS 210 Society, the Individual, & Video Games (W4)
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ANewVideoGameDropsPlayersIntotheChaosoftheIranianRevolution_VICENews.pdf
5/3/2018 A New Video Game Drops Players Into the Chaos of the Iranian Revolution | VICE News
https://news.vice.com/article/1979-revolution-black-friday-game-iranian-revolution 1/10
WAR & CONFLICT (/TOPIC/WAR-CONFLICT)
By Ky Henderson (/contributor/ky-henderson)
April 5, 2016 |
A New Video Game Drops Players Into the Chaos of the Iranian Revolution
Reza sits, hands bound, in a dingy interrogation room. A single overhead light illuminates his face, bruised
and bloodied by the soldiers who raided his safe house. On the table in front of him sits a tape recorder
and a folder whose contents may condemn him — and those he loves — to die.
A man with a gravelly voice, the only other person in the room, offers Reza a cup of tea, but it feels less
like an offer than a threat. "Your tea is getting cold," the man says almost as soon as he places it on the
table.
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5/3/2018 A New Video Game Drops Players Into the Chaos of the Iranian Revolution | VICE News
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Will Reza drink from the cup, or knock it to the floor in defiance?
The choice is yours. It's one of many decisions players are forced to make in 1979 Revolution: Black
Friday, a new video game that puts players in the middle of the Iranian Revolution. Using actual events,
people, and places, the game presents an opportunity to explore and experience the complex forces that
drove the revolution, which resulted in the overthrow of US-backed Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlavi and
the rise to power of Ayatollah Khomeini in the new Islamic Republic.
Reza and his interrogator in a screenshot from the game.
Players take on the persona of Reza Shirazi, an aspiring photojournalist who gets swept up in the
unfolding revolution in September 1978. From the day when he first photographs protesters from a
Tehran rooftop until he finds himself imprisoned in 1980, players must make choices that affect the way
the story plays out as the game progresses. Do you drink the tea? Your decision will have consequences.
The interrogation is set in Iran's notorious Evin Prison, long known for holding political prisoners.
(Recently, Jason Rezaian of the Washington Post was held in Evin on trumped-up espionage charges; he
was released earlier this year.) In the aftermath of the revolution, prisoners were regularly tortured and
thousands were put to death, many reportedly at the hands of Asadollah Lajevardi, who served as the
prison's warden for several years in the 1980s.
It is Lajevardi, terrifying even as a video game character, who serves Reza the tea and proceeds to
interrogate him.
5/3/2018 A New Video Game Drops Players Into the Chaos of the Iranian Revolution | VICE News
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Maintaining historical accuracy in the game was important, says director, co-writer, and co-creator Navid
Khonsari. He and his team conducted more than 40 interviews with Iranians who lived through the
revolution — several of the people involved in the making of the game, including Khonsari, lived through
it as well — and Reza's fictional story is based in part on those real-life accounts. Many of the scenes that
players photograph with Reza's camera in the course of the game are inspired by the pictures of French
photojournalist Michel Setboun, who was in Iran at the time of the revolution.
The player's photos — often displayed in a game menu alongside Setboun's — are accompanied by
explanations of what's happening in the pictures. The result is a quick but wide-ranging education on
1970s Iran, touching on everything from Iranian-built Paykan cars to the illicit cassette tapes that were
used to spread the messages of exiled religious leaders and intellectuals.
But for Khonsari, staying true to history was not the most important aspect of 1979 Revolution.
"No one would give a shit about it if you didn't make a great game," he said. "I would love first and
foremost for people to be entertained and engaged.... But hopefully the secondary element of what we
put out there is starting a conversation. We're not looking to create world peace. We're looking to create
some empathy and less judgment so we can actually start working toward a more positive outcome."
1979 Revolution: Black Friday - O�cial Trailer
5/3/2018 A New Video Game Drops Players Into the Chaos of the Iranian Revolution | VICE News
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Related: The UN's Drug Meeting in Vienna: Russian Trolling, Jackie Chan, and Lots of Propaganda
(https://news.vice.com/article/the-uns-drug-meeting-in-vienna-russian-trolling-jackie-chan-and-lots-of-
propaganda)
Though Khonsari was born in Montreal in 1970, he spent the first 10 years of his life in Iran. He talks of his
memories of the revolution in the same breath as his memories of watching Star Wars and enjoying the
pop culture of the time. Khonsari, who calls pop culture "the true international language we all talk,"
infuses the game with it — a revolutionary friend of Reza's jokes about John Travolta and disco, and Reza
has the opportunity to pick up a magazine whose cover features Googoosh, an extremely popular singer
and actress who remained in Iran for two decades after the revolution even though as a woman she was
no longer allowed to perform.
Khonsari's recollections of the revolution are what one might expect of a young boy — interest and
excitement at seeing people and military vehicles in the streets. But his father, a surgeon, decided to
move the family back to Canada as the new regime came to power.
"The US hostages were being detained, the revolution was over, schools were shut down for cleansing
from Western influences, and the war with Iraq was brewing," Khonsari recounted. "My father, having
three sons, was kind of like, 'It's time to get the hell out of here.' His concern was not what had happened,
but what would be coming up. The darkest days in Iran came after the revolution."
Khonsari eventually became a game developer, working at Rockstar Games in the early 2000s on several
titles in the Grand Theft Auto (GTA) series. The games are infamous for their violence, but they're also
admired for their creative and engaging storytelling. Though 1979 Revolution features violence, it is an
interactive story-driven game, and Khonsari says the quality of the game's performances is the most
direct link to his work on GTA.
Actors in 1979 Revolution — all are Iranian, most are Iranian-Americans — include Navid Negahban, who
played the terrorist Abu Nazir in the show Homeland, and Farshad Farahat, perhaps best known for his
performance as an Iranian revolutionary in the Oscar-winning 2012 film Argo.
Farahat was born in Iran in November 1978. At the time, the shah had imposed curfews, so his parents
had to navigate checkpoints as his father explained to armed soldiers that his mother needed to get to a
hospital. Farahat's family left Iran in 1986, but he has been able to return, and believes one lesson players
may take away from the game is a lesson Iranians learned thanks to the revolution.
"I was in Iran during the 2009 protests, and one thing the Iranian people have learned is that they will not
have another violent revolution," Farahat said. "The great thing about the game as opposed to a film is it
puts you in the revolution and you get to make decisions and see the results. Do you pick the violent or
5/3/2018 A New Video Game Drops Players Into the Chaos of the Iranian Revolution | VICE News
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non-violent way?"
The game (http://inkstories.com/1979RevolutionGame/), which is being released Tuesday for Mac and PC,
has faced several setbacks. First announced in 2011, it endured a failed 2013 Kickstarter campaign and a
release date that was repeatedly pushed back. Khonsari was labeled a spy by Iranian newspapers, and an
Iranian working on art for the game was forced to flee the country. Nevertheless, Khonsari is optimistic
about how it will be received in his former home.
"In Iran we should be embraced even by the right because we're telling a truthful story," he said. "We're
not demonizing anyone, because we're not pointing fingers at who is a good guy in the political structure
and who's a bad guy. We're not trying to change history. We're telling the history of the people."
Follow Ky Henderson on Twitter: @kyhenderson (https://twitter.com/kyhenderson)
TOPICS: iran (/topic/iran), iranian revolution (/topic/iranian-revolution), 1979 revolution (/topic/1979-revolution), 1979 revolution game (/topic/1979-revolution-game), middle east (/topic/middle-east), video games (/topic/video-games), navid khonsari (/topic/navid-khonsari), farshad farahat (/topic/farshad-farahat), grand theft auto (/topic/grand-theft-auto), 1979 revolution: black friday (/topic/1979-revolution-black-friday), evin prison (/topic/evin-prison), war & conflict (/topic/war-conflict)
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• Reply •
ThisMachineKills • 2 years ago
So this is going to be released on Steam I hope? Looks pretty cool actually. 1 △ ▽
• Reply •
CJ • 2 years ago> ThisMachineKills
Already released △ ▽
• Reply •
Peter Karsten • 2 years ago
All of arabs in pop culture either sort of Gandalf-like wise guys with soozing voice or mad maniacs who want to criple everyone around them. I had an iranian landlord once and he was kind of both. 1 △ ▽
Eric Arvizu • 2 years ago> Peter Karsten
Persians aren't Arabs.
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5/3/2018 A New Video Game Drops Players Into the Chaos of the Iranian Revolution | VICE News
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• Reply •8 △ ▽
• Reply •
Peter Karsten • 2 years ago> Eric Arvizu
Thanks, you are obviously right. Still, last time I checked most of them hate Israel - that's pretty arab to me. 1 △ ▽
• Reply •
dentcj • 2 years ago> Peter Karsten
i Hate it when people so clearly uneducated take a hard line stand on a political issue. you don't even know what race the people are! let me break it down... persian is a race , they call themselves Aryan (it's where the name Iran comes from). arabs are a race too, arab countries are mainly to the west of Iran. islam, sunni or shia, is a religion. most persians are shia. most (but not all) arabs are sunni. now do a bit of your own research before making inflammatory posts. 5 △ ▽
• Reply •
Peter Karsten • 2 years ago> dentcj
Political issue? Uneducated? I told you why I called them arabs. Please, don't think that I'm offended by your words. I bet you can't read Dostoevsky or bloody- boring Tolstoy in Russian - well, I can. Not knowing much about the thirld-world doesn't make you uneducated. It probably makes you a snob, but I could live with that.
And Islam sucks. You know that, and everybody else knows that, or at least start to realize it. △ ▽
• Reply •
Max Rockatansky • 2 years ago> Peter Karsten
"I bet you can't read Dostoevsky or bloody-boring Tolstoy in Russian - well, I can" lol what are you, like 5? Who cares if you you can read Russian jerk offs in Russian. It's completely irrelevant. You remind me of that ponytailed goofball in the bar scene from Good Will Hunting. dentcj didn't mean you were uneducated in the sense that you are a moron (although I think you are), he meant you are uneducated about the topic on which you were speaking. So you further displayed your ignorance by braying like a jackass with your last comment. 2 △ ▽
J.D. • 2 years ago> Peter Karsten
" Still, last time I checked most of them hate Israel - that's pretty arab to me." "Political issue? Uneducated? I told you why I called them arabs."
Er, what?
"I bet you can't read Dostoevsky or bloody-boring Tolstoy in Russian - well, I can."
Oh, ok. What?
"Not knowing much about the thirld-world doesn't make you uneducated. It probably makes you a snob..."
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• Reply • How does, wait, what? 1 △ ▽
• Reply •
Peter Karsten • 2 years ago> J.D.
Is that too smart? I bet you don't think it is, but anyway. All of that talk was about the portraying muslims and people from Islamic countries either as savages or very brave and wise dudes like Gandalf. Instead of saying "muslims" I said "arabs", probably because I kind of a stupid guy that forgets things (obviously Iranians not Arabs, as well as Pakistanis). I don't consider myself uneducated, and I tried to prove that by saying that I actually read pretty big books. I wasn't trying to offend anyone. If it looked so, don't be frightened. I'm not trying to win every battle on the internet. Also, I'm not trying to be politically correct all the time. △ ▽
• Reply •
Amir Tayari • 2 years ago> Peter Karsten
Peter, so you judge 80 million people just by your bad experience with your landlord? And you think all Iranians hate Israel and because of that they are Arabs? Really?!!? Just one suggestion: search about Iran-Israel relation before the revolution, and the difference between Iranians and Arabs and current rivalry between the two form centuries ago. And maybe travel to Iran sometime in the future, bet you meet so many ppl better than your landlord :) △ ▽
• Reply •
TecumsehUnfaced • 2 years ago> Peter Karsten
ZioNazi thuggery sucks much worse. They attacked Arab Christians and Jews too. △ ▽
• Reply •
CJ • 2 years ago> Peter Karsten
hahaha, So anybody who hates Israel is arab. which means half the population of earth 2 △ ▽
• Reply •
Peter Karsten • 2 years ago> CJ
Probably, depending on your definition of "arab". △ ▽
• Reply •
Forp • 2 years ago> Peter Karsten
The Persians are more relevant to the history of mankind than whatever irrelevant European nation that birthed you. The Persians where conquering central Asia and duking it out with Ancient Greece back when your ancestors were inferior pagans playing around in the dirt. 2 △ ▽
• Reply •
Peter Karsten • 2 years ago> Forp
🕌🙄🍼
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• Reply •△ ▽
• Reply •
jay jenkins • 2 years ago> Peter Karsten
I hate Israel and I'm not Arab. △ ▽
• Reply •
Peter Karsten • 2 years ago> jay jenkins
Probably just a moron. That happens, there's a lot of people like you all over the world. △ ▽
• Reply •
TecumsehUnfaced • 2 years ago> Peter Karsten
No, hating thuggery is what causes antagonism toward the European ZioNazi thugs that assaulted Palestine. △ ▽
• Reply •
george plutarch • 2 years ago> Eric Arvizu
oh they are either sunni or shia muslims Muslims or jews now which is it ? △ ▽
• Reply •
Peter Karsten • 2 years ago> george plutarch
Persians are definitely Jews. △ ▽
• Reply •
z41216 • 2 years ago> Peter Karsten
So do u hate the Persians or Israeli... SNOB!!! △ ▽
• Reply •
TecumsehUnfaced • 2 years ago
Much better would be a game about the overthrow of the democratically elected Mosaddegh government of Iran by the CIA. △ ▽
• Reply •
george plutarch • 2 years ago
Hopefully the game has a real nuke going off in the hidden nuclear bomb factory setting off the 20 nukes already fitted to missiles ending that pack of wolves △ ▽
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george plutarch • 2 years ago> Guest
I was just envisioning the next years events and I can dream cant I ?
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