Hekmati "admitted" this while he was in Iranian custody - as reported by the Tehran Times. Given the history of the Iranian regime (they seem to arrest people for spying for Israel or the US every couple of weeks) I think we should take this with a grain of salt. Considering that making video games and infiltrating a foreign country require completely different skill sets, I find it hard to believe that the CIA would send their video game developer deep into Iranian territory. (According to the NY Times, he was visiting his Iranian grandparents.)

My grandfather was an aerospace engineer and a lifelong New Deal Democrat. He grew up poor in the depression, worked in the tobacco fields when he was about 13, put himself through college by selling blood, etc. He understood that government had helped him and a lot of people of his generation to become middle class.

On the other hand I know a lot of engineers who grew up under Soviet communism and are super right-wing. They had a very bad experience with government persecution and they tend to view all government activity through the lens of restricting their rights.