(ANSAmed) – TUNIS, AUGUST 11 – A new videogame for android
devices called Knatry (smuggler) has become controversial in
Tunisia. Produced by local developers, it was launched on July
19. It has already been downloaded 1,000 times but it has been
criticized as not educational. The game’s theme is smuggling and
players, who become the smugglers, need to load their
merchandise as quickly as possible, trying not to lose anything
of their precious cargo and to avoid controls by police and
customs officials. The game is a constant chase between
smugglers and police officers with popular music on the
background. The location includes southern regions like Jilma,
Gafsa and Feriana where smuggling is effectively common.
Smuggling is very harmful for the legal economy in Tunisia,
which is currently in a deep crisis. The phenomenon has been
debated by experts for years and economists have been striving
to restore to legality this informal market believed to be worth
at least 30% of the undeclared economy. According to a study
carried out by the statistics company Sigma Conseil in 2016,
fuel smuggling in Tunisia employs some 20,000 people with some
150 ”barons” controlling the market with annual losses in
taxes worth an estimated 400 million Tunisian dinars. Many are
therefore enraged in seeing a Tunisian videogame that hails such
a practice, giving youths the possibility of acting like
smugglers and challenging security forces. However, many claim
it is only a game, which can be improved from a technical
standpoint, and that it represents nothing new as ”violent and
offensive” games are already available on the market.
(ANSAmed)..
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