Relevance of Europe to game development *spawn

[Ghostz]

Was it Shifty or Robert who said? The goal for Microsoft was to secure Japanese publisher and developer support, in which, they largely have succeeded in doing so. As for Europe, the reason why neither Microsoft or Sony puts as much support as they do in North America and Japan is for the after-mentioned reason of the biggest and best publishers and developers are from these regions.

Lets be real: There is no publisher or developer in Europe that can push either platform holder to pay more attention to that market. I mean, I look at the biggest franchises in this industry and a good 90% of them are American or Japanese. Microsoft will continue to throw away money into the Japanese market because the Japanese publishers are pretty much demanding so, who in Europe has that type of clout? Money talks; bull**** walks.

 

[NavNucST3]

Was it Shifty or Robert who said? The goal for Microsoft was to secure Japanese publisher and developer support, in which they have succeeded in doing so. As for Europe, the reason why neither Microsoft or Sony puts as much support as they do in North America and Japan is for they after-mentioned reason of the biggest and best publishers and developers are from these regions.

Lets be real: There is no publisher or developer in Europe that can push either platform holder to pay more attention to that market. I mean, I look as the biggest franchises in this industry and a good 90% of them are American or Japanese. Microsoft will continue to throw away money into the Japanese market because the Japanese publishers are pretty much demanding so, who in Europe has that type of clout? Money talks; bull**** walks.

Ubisoft

 

[Ghostz]

Ubisoft

...and yet, Ubisoft's best talent is Canadian.

 

[Ghostz]

I don't disagree with that but that wasn't the premise of your statement unless you want to separate their dev arm from their publishing/parent company arm.

Nothing in my premise has changed. Nobody in Europe has the publisher arm and talent to demand either platform holder pay more attention the European market ( like a Japanese publisher can ), I thought I was pretty clear about this. Ubisoft is headquartered in France but all of its talent is in America. One hand needs to wash the other.

 

[KongRudi]

Nothing in my premise has changed. Nobody in Europe has the publisher arm and talent to demand either platform holder pay more attention the European market ( like a Japanese publisher can ), I thought I was pretty clear about this. Ubisoft is headquartered in France but all of its talent is in America. One hand needs to wash the other.

It's not like there isn't talented devs in Europe.

SCEE is a Euro-publisher, with a couple of local studios, Sony London, Liverpool/Evolution, Guerilla Games, Media Molecule, Cambridge Studios, etc.
Funcom is located in Norway, the most expensive place to run a buisness, but they moved alot of the dev-talent to cheap Canada.
DeepSilver, is mostly European publisher, wich publishes mostly European made games.
DICE studio (Battlefield/Mirrors Edge) is swedish, publisher is currently EA.
IO Interactive (Hitman/Deus Ex) is probably the best studio from Eidos, wich Square Enix got. Codemasters is mainly british.
Lot's of smaller studios aswell, like Housemarquee from Finland, Egosoft from Germany.
Remedy is European I believe, same with Quantic Dreams. Crytek is heavily in Europe.
Rockstar has a british studio, and I believe the HQ is still there.
2K Czecia will probably spawn alot of talent.
Also Microsoft's Infamous-like games, where from Europe.
Ninja Theory (Enslaved/Heavenly Sword, Devil May Cry) is also european.
And many other wich I don't recall now.

 

[Ghostz]

I want you to actually make a coherant argument instead of an unsubstantiated, fragmented assertion spread over the discussion followed by dismissing anyone who disagrees as just being biased. Truth is you may have an argument I'd actually agree with but you aren't explaining it very well at all and now refuse to. Try something like, "Over the past 30 years, US and Japanese gaming has had a significant culture develop in those countries leading to many developers and strong publishers. In contrast, although Europe has had a significant number of strong studios, gaming overall hasn't been as important to Europeans resulting is less studios and those generally being taken over by US and Japanese publishers as the industry has progressed. I see gaming as being indigenous to the US and Japan but not Europe. The result is an industry dominated by US and Japanese developers, yadayadayada..."

You could then present a list of games, developers and/or publishers highlighting that and underlining your view with actual facts.

You've presented no actual facts, so you haven't made an argument; only presented an opinion. I haven't been trying to counter that opinions because I haven't even understood that's what you were trying to say!

That's quite apparent, and where I was thinking I was harsh in my initial reaction to your first post due to confusion over your phrasing, now I'm thinking my initial assessment was pretty accurate. Reading your posts again, trying to understand what you were really meaning, looking up the current state of developers worldwide, I may actually subscribe to that view (though only in the diminishing of the European games industry, and not a lack of an industry for 30 years because in the 80s and 90s half the games I was playing were European), but clearly there's both a communication problem in how you present your argument, and an attitude problem in how you don't engage in a debate but just dismiss those who disagree. If you're ranting because of my original 'ignorant yank' remark then I'm sorry I used that term as I misunderstood you* and you can try again. If you're going to remain thinking I'm biased, nationalistic and irrational just because I've so far disagreed with you, then you were and are being ignorant.

*Extra clarification: I read 'indigenity' as 'identity', which was a mistake, but that's part and parcel of trying to make sense of rapidly written and often not very thoroughly checked posts from various flavours of English. Another example is your use of 'onerous' in this post where you mean 'onus'. This time I read the right meaning among the wrong words because context and alternative were obvious, where 'indigenty' gave me no clues to find the write meaning.

You just want me to say those things in a nicer package. But I haven't been representing no "opinion". You're simply trying to save yourself by discrediting my position. I've outlined the facts such as game genre being made in US and Japan, we can count the genres invented - that's fact 1. I've also outlined franchises that can be counted as defining game design such as Metal Gear and Resident Evil to Gears of War - that's fact 2. Finally, I've outlined not only game design culture but how well those games take to the market seeing as games made by Europeans are practically non-existent - that's fact 3. You've been sidestepping the whole issue. Nothing I'm representing here speaks in an opinion. Yes, I think there's an "ignorant" person here and it sure ain't me.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

A few examples does not make a well reasoned argument. Here's an example of real facts that you can use; there are many others out there to find. How's about the list of exhibitiors at GamesCOM 2011, the largest games convention in the world? Look at all those European games companies that don't exist!
Feel free to explain yourself again when you've learnt suitable communication and discussion skills.

 

[Ghostz]

A few examples does not make a well reasoned argument. Here's an example of real facts that you can use; there are many others out there to find. How's about the list of exhibitiors at GamesCOM 2011, the largest games convention in the world? Look at all those European games companies that don't exist!
Feel free to explain yourself again when you've learnt suitable communication and discussion skills.

That's the problem, you think I'm arguing with you but there's no argument. The facts are this: Americans and Japanese have been making better games than Europeans for a better part of 30 years. If you want me to run down a list of the best selling games ever to embarrass you some more I can? Riddle me this: How many of those games are actually made by Europeans? Out of about 200 franchises maybe I can count how many Europeans have invented on half of my five fingers. I can rattle this stuff off the top of my head because I'm well researched and read.

 

[zed]

The that fact Americans and Japanese are making the best games is well understood.

well best selling perhaps.
though if you use that wiki list as a basis it goes

1. japan
2. japan
3. russia
4. USA
5. UK
6. USA
7. Japan
8. Japan
9. Canada
10. Canada now UK

Are you saying the Japanese make far better games than the americans?

 

[AlphaWolf]

Using that list would suggest the best way would be to just buy Nintendo. Although I'm not sure a lot of that data is relevant in 2011 and forward.

 

[NavNucST3]

That's the problem, you think I'm arguing with you but there's no argument. The facts are this: Americans and Japanese have been making better games than Europeans for a better part of 30 years. If you want me to run down a list of the best selling games ever to embarrass you some more I can? Riddle me this: How many of those games are actually made by Europeans? Out of about 200 franchises maybe I can count how many Europeans have invented on half of my five fingers. I can rattle this stuff off the top of my head because I'm well researched and read.

So now we are back to only the publishers even after you decided that the dev team location was the most relevant, ok. If you were actually well researched and read maybe you could also run down the list of where exactly all the teams are located since that was so important previously. Just give me an idea of when the dev team is more important than the publisher and the reverse as well. Personally, I think the MOST talent is in the EU, hell, if someone told me that PS3 firmware from now on would be handled in Cambridge I would (re-)buy one tomorrow. The US is certainly no slouch in design and coding

Spoiler

and Japan well...I have made my feelings clear on their skills a couple times before part of me would argue that their "design" and "culture" and "quirkiness" that is ascribed to them is not intentional but how shit their coding skills are.

 

[KongRudi]

What isn't this stupid, ignorant yankee doodle explaining what's good enough for you? Tell me what you want me to say that'll make you feel better about Europeans being pretty damn irrelevant in game design? You have no counter-argument for why, like, 99% of biggest IPs in gaming over the last 30 years aren't from Europe. You have an axe to grind simply because somebody came out and said: Americans and Japanese are simply better at making games than Europeans and it shows in the platform holder's support. The onerous is on your to prove otherwise; the onerous is on you to prove European talent is worth investing in. So of course this one-way discussion I'm having with you won't go anywhere. I mean, I really don't give a **** about Europe. Microsoft, Sony and Nintendo are always going to support America because that's where the talent and money is.

Not including titles like GTA, Battlefield, Tetris, when you speak about big video-game titles shows that you have no clue on what happened the last 30 years, and yes you're pretty ignorant.

Activision/Blizzard is mainly owned by french Vivendi.
As for games, Tetris is from Russia.

First really big space-adventure simulator 'Elite/frontier' is English it spawned a genre.
Current space-sim 'X franchise' is German.
The best Space MMO, Eve, is from Iceland.
Singstar is English.
Syndicate, Populous, Flood, Theme Park, Dungeon Keeper, Fable, Black & White is English.
Lemmings, Grand Theft Auto, Red Dead Redemption, Manhunt is English.
The most scary horror-game is Finnish, called Amnesia.
Max Payne, Alan Wake - English.
Battlefield is Swedish,
Age of Conan, Anarchy Online, Dreamfall, Longest Journey - Norwegian.

etc.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Activision/Blizzard is mainly owned by french Vivendi.

But only via a French media giant buying US studios, so they can hardly be called a French power in gaming.

Of course, as you say, and as I said, there have been substantial developments in Europe, and there is a very strong game development industry in Europe. Looking at top-selling titles as Ghostz has done, or even more slanted top selling franchisese that have been reused over and over again, doesn't give an accurate picture. It also doesn't convey the history of gaming. A lot of the European-style genres have given way to FPSes. Well, a lot of genres have given way to shooters (Syndicate and XCOM as examples of genre annhiliation) and so if you look at the culture that's defining gaming nowadays, you could see that it's the US leading. I wouldn't attribute the whole sea-change in gaming to a US invention though. iD may have made the first person shooter but that doesn't make the US the powerhouse of shooter gameplay, just as a Frenchman inventing moving pictures doesn't make France the powerhouse of movies. The 3D shooter was only a variation on existing 2D shooters and tile-based 3D games (Dungeon Master from Japan, Captive from the UK). It was also made possible via progress in technology, and had iD not made it, someone else would have. I see Ghostz drawing lines in a progressive evolution that don't exist in reality.

I'll recap some of the links for those who have missed them from the previous conversation:
Best selling game franchises (ranks developers by millions of sales of an IP)
100 Top Developers (ranked by Develop 100)
European GamesCOM exhibitors (lists many devs most people will never have heard of, giving a better picture of the number of developers in Europe)

I also found a map of game developers here, although it appears to be a hobbiest endeavour, but it simply accumulates public data and looks pretty thorough if not exacting. Provides a nice overview anyhow.

Finally, for those who love their wikipedia data, a list of game developers by country. North America has 698; Japan has 309; Europe has 504, half of which ar in the UK! This is an incomplete list as ever with Wikipedia, as they don't list Seed Studios as a Portugese developer. But again, just one alternative look at the game development industry.

 

[KongRudi]

It still makes them relevant, and it shows that the money isn't only in US and Japan like Ghost claimed.. :-/

It's like saying that US Electronic Arts isn't really relevant on the Facebook-platform since the Playfish-studio is in Norway, offcourse they are relevant, the money is in US, talent in Norway
And the biggest(?) cell-phone game is from Finland, Angry Birds has sold 375 million now, I think. :-/

Ghostz speak about the last 30 years, but there is no way he were a gamer when we were playing Infogrames text-adventures when the graphical hotness were green ascii-letters, on a black background. :-/
And when you see the big franchises today, imagine how different it were in Europe back when it were much harder to get games and news from the other side of the world. :-/

 

[function]

Ghostz seems to be confusing many things, seemingly at will depending on the point he's trying to make in a sentence.

A publisher can be based in one continent and have developers in another. A publisher or developer can be located in one continent and have an important market in another. This way, an American console vendor (e.g. MS) may want support from a Japanese publisher (e.g. Square) because a game they publish, which is also a game they develop (e.g. FFXIII) is important in many countries that are located in Europe. Similarly, a Japanese console vendor (e.g. Sony) can use European talent to develop a game (e.g. Killzone) and push the game all over the world, including heavily in America.

For some reason, it seems important to point the truly global nature of the games industry in this thread. I think anyone actually interested in game design would find any claim about Europe as contributing nothing to "game design culture" (if we assume for a moment there is such a thing) would find his comments humorous.

 

[liolio]

I would not deemed the European market as relevant, it is relevant in regard to volume for sure but it has no cultural specificities. I would put NA and European editors under the same flag as occidental editors. Any distinction would be arbitrary either way you may consider French, Germans, British etc. as single entities.

And to push Further as Bismark stated a long while "anybody that ever looked at a map knows that there is not such a thing as Europe".

 

[Shifty Geezer]

I would not deemed the European market as relevant, it is relevant in regard to volume for sure but it has no cultural specificities.

That European games and NA games share common design principles doesn't mean Europe is copying NA. Gaming developed concurrently across the globe. Ideas were shared, and developed in parallel. Developers as individuals move freely from country to country, resulting in very multicultural studios. So the whole 'culture' thing is, IMO, impossible to pin down. It is also irrelevant regards the continuing indistry. the fact Russia was the birthplace of the modern puzzle game (Tetris) doesn't mean Russia remains the home of puzzle-creating talent exclusively. What we can say is Europe has a thriving community of developers making games for all sorts, and have been for as long as gaming has been around.

 

[mrcorbo]

Cultural and genre preference similarities make for much easier crossover between EU and NA development and the consumers in those two markets. Japan's market OTOH seems much more unique. It seems to me that it is relatively easy to create a game that would sell well in Japan and only in Japan or create a game that sells well everywhere but Japan compared to creating a game that would sell well only in NA or the EU (excepting sports games that deal with leagues particular to those regions).

Further, the EU itself doesn't seem to contain the large monolithic cultural identities that NA and Japan do. It could be hard for a European developer (maybe with the exception of UK developers) to infuse a game with a strong cultural identity from their home country and risk alienating not just the US market, but even the markets in countries they share a border with!

It seems to me this would minimize how much influence developers from those countries appear to have in the market. It may in fact be that the influence is present, but subtle.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

It depends what you mean by culture, which is a very big word. A fantasy title built around Germanic fairytales would be steeped in European culture but wouldn't need to alienate any gamers. A game built around the Geordie dialect would only work in Newcastle in the UK and be lost to everyone else. Or a game based on Cockney rhyming slang. You can find various cultural quirks in any nation that will be pretty impenetrable to outsiders, but that doesn't mean other aspects of their culture and history can't be incorporated. The rudiments of pressing buttons to control the actions of an avatar in a world derived from ours isn't anything special to any peoples, so those themes will be ever present.

Anyone looking for European games that appear odd to Americans as proof that Europe has a cultural influence or presence in gaming will likely not find any. It also doesn't impact the importance of Europe in game development.

Another interesting reference is Metacritic. If you list the best rated titles by platform, the upper eschelons are dominated with US games, except PS2 which has a much stronger Japanesse presence, and PS3 has a few more european games that are exclusive. It would be beneficial if someone went through all these and listed results alongside developers region...

 

[function]

I'll cop out of trying to define what "culture" means here (or anywhere, I'm not up to the task) but I'll use the word regardless (risky) in an attempt to say what I think:

"American" (or a superficial version of it) is the only culture that's global. Games seem to ride on the back of American movies, tv shows and music that have penetrated every Western market (and some Asian) thanks to high production values, language (English is everywhere thanks to the former British empire) and the highly visible, global presence of the US military. Crysis uses American characters and the American military, GTA is set in New York, and even GoldenEye had the very Americanised James Bond thing going on.

As already pointed out, "Europe" has vast cultural diversity: greater than America and certainly greater than Japan. Even within Europe, "American" is a comfortable "neutral" face to put on a product. The PC is the place to go if you want to escape this, but consoles not so much.

Fable is a surprisingly unique, big budget, "British" feeling game actually. Wouldn't have expected MS to stick with it but I'm glad they have.