Relevance of Europe to game development *spawn

[Shifty Geezer]

I posted on that in the original thread. American culture being universal to the west makes sense considering it's a melting pot of western ideas from the European immigrants that established the US. And being a very large economy, they've managed to establish the big businesses needed to push forward expensive media empires as technology has progressed. The things that make the basis of 'American culture' - story, characters, production values, expectations of interfaces, etc. - aren't exclusively American and haven't been learnt from them by the rest of the world. I suggested the basic are effectively a common metaculture. If you take that viewpoint, the whole gaming culture thing doesn't have a particular national emphasis (in the West). Traits like a pursuit of shooters seem to me more business driven than anything.

 

[Richard]

If European developers have no identity where are all the football (it's not called soccer damnit) games coming from? Also, where are all the F1 games from? And where do all the incredibly deep, graphically demanding but hopelessly glitched games coming from if not from Eastern Europe (STALKER, Metro, Crysis, Witcher, etc.). A few companies off the top of my head include DICE, Splash Damage, People Can Fly, Crytek, CD Projekt, Lion Head, Rockstar North.

As for inpact on the gaming industry in the last 30 years, how about just two people: Peter Molyneux and Markus Persson.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

If European developers have no identity where are all the football (it's not called soccer damnit) games coming from?

Canada and Japan! Earlier in the other conversation I mentioned Molyneux and the god genre, but Ghostz never responded to that point. The god genre has dwindled considerably though, and Molyneux isn't really pursuing the innovative game styles as he used to, repeating Fable for three iterations. We'll have to see what comes of Milo/Dimitri. That's a significant shortcoming with Ghostz' reference to the top franchises list - Nintendo have recycled Mario a trillion times, whereas many European games have seen new ideas. eg. Bullfrog produced Fusion (shooter), Populous (invented god genre), Flood (platforming shooter), Powermonger (derivate of Populous), Syndicate (realtime strategy with novel crowd mechanics), Magic Carpet (3D shooter with terrain modification), and Theme Park in a period of 6 years. If they had reused the same mascot - Mario Fusion, Mario Populous, Mario Flood - they'd have a much bigger presence on that list of Ghostz'. Thank goodness they didn't!

 

[Richard]

Oooh, Magic Carpet! Those were fun times. And look, EA could remake that as a FPS and no one would complain!

 

[mrcorbo]

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.

Subject material is one thing. After all, we have titles based on fictional worlds with embedded "culture" that is made up out of thin air. I'm thinking more of the perspective from which the ideas are presented. The themes the story or structure of the game exposes to the player or the attitudes of the characters.

How often, when playing a game, does one find oneself thinking how, "Dutch this game is" or French, German or Swedish? Compare that to how often it can easily be seen that a game is Japanese.

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

That is actually the point I was trying to make. I think the premise of the OP is clearly wrong. I was gaming on "home computers" before that became synonymous with PC and the influence of European game development over the last 30 years is clearly evident to me!

 

[Shifty Geezer]

How often, when playing a game, does one find oneself thinking how, "Dutch this game is" or French, German or Swedish? Compare that to how often it can easily be seen that a game is Japanese.

But is Dutch, French, German or Swedish any different from American? If not then how can one tell? I'd say it's exactly the fact that there aren't significant differences that there is huge crossover between games both sides of the Atlantic. Where the culture do deviate to a large degree, like East and West, then it's much hard for a game to cross borders. The only way for a European nation to stand out like Japan does would be to invent a whole new style, which would be an artifical creation. Or to go with outdated traditional costume. COD in Lederhosen, anyone? Morris Dancing Simulator?

 

[tabs]

High Fantasy
A european invention, based on anglo-saxon mythology. Pseudo-medieval european setting. Any game that employs high fantasy is deeply european in nature. That is a practically uncountable amount of games, even japanese ones.


...but.. it's all bollocks really. It doesn't matter who invented it, or even who is making games that use it today. Studios, and people in general are very multicultural nowadays.

Starcraft
A rip off of Games Workshop(europeran)'s 40K, developed in america, a national sport in an asian country. Whose culture is that?

 

[mrcorbo]

But is Dutch, French, German or Swedish any different from American? If not then how can one tell? I'd say it's exactly the fact that there aren't significant differences that there is huge crossover between games both sides of the Atlantic. Where the culture do deviate to a large degree, like East and West, then it's much hard for a game to cross borders. The only way for a European nation to stand out like Japan does would be to invent a whole new style, which would be an artifical creation. Or to go with outdated traditional costume. COD in Lederhosen, anyone? Morris Dancing Simulator?

European cultural differences (even setting language aside) are expressed in other media. Why not games? I would argue that it's intentional and that the motivation for it is financial.

Video games (at least disc-based console releases) need to cast a wide net in order to be financially successful. As such, they need to appeal to the largest possible group of consumers. Each European country, taken by itself, would be a relatively small group of consumers. So, you don't see games that have strong cultural affinities with those countries.

 

[Prophecy2k]

If there is one thing that i don't believe is relevant it's this notion that Europe's development community have to have anything about their games that differentiates them from US developed releases, just so that can say that they are "European".

Most European developers make games that are acceptable to the largest market, so in practicality that means the US. It just so happens that US games, as well as other forms of entertainment media, are perfectly acceptable in the home territories, and so it just makes sense to target that region when it comes to the cultural aspects a developer would like to include in their games.

My main point is that why should it matter if European games are made with big American style budgets, voice actors and set in US settings? It shouldn't, as it doesn't make those games any less European. In the same way, if an american dev decides to make a game set in another region and time period, Feudal Japan for example, then why should that make the game any less american?

IMHO Europe is relevant to gaming because some of the biggest and best game devs are here. The development community here is strong, and publishers continue to work with and invest in homegrown European talent. I think the OP is actually being ignorant and intentionally so. Europe, the US and Japan are the largest markets for gaming, and will likely remain so for quite a while. It would be silly imho to try to deem Europe irrelevant to the industry regardless of whatever metric you might try to use to assert such a silly oppinion. The reality is clear as day for anyone to see.

To be really honest, if only for the existence of Rockstar North in Scotland, i would argue that they alone maintain Europe's relevance to gaming (well at least the kind of gaming that interests me).

 

[Shifty Geezer]

European cultural differences (even setting language aside) are expressed in other media. Why not games?

Because every other media is based in a long history where the world was more isolated, so ideas didn't spread. Eastern European music will have different tones and patterns to Western European music where it developed independently, but where ideas started to be shared, the style became more unified. Hence modern music that can be broadcast and distributed freely follows the same general styles, and composers all over the world will share cultural aspects same as ever.

Games were universal from day one. People in Spain were playing the same games on their Spectrums as people in Greece and people in the UK. Who were playing the same games at times as people in the US and Japan, although the development of gaming hardware was fairly regional until the 16bit era. You can't have independent cultures form without isolation, and to deliberately manufacture a culture around gaming just to be different would be decidedly unnatural.

 

[Arwin]

Don't have time now but although culture in the West is in a large part 'Western' there are plenty of differences to be found, both currently as reflected by sales of titles and platforms as well as different undertones and graphical styles, all of which can vary significantly from one EU country to another. Note for instance the popularity of Singstar, Buzz, EyeToy and so on during the PS2 days, which still echoes on today in the popularity of the Move controller, or the difference between the very European SingStar and the very American Rockstar and Guitar Hero titled

The difference just doesn't stand out as much as that with Asian culture, but it is there allright. But even harder to see from an Anglo-Saxon perspective I'm sure.

 

[Ghostz]

...still not seeing any relevance to game "design" coming out of Europe. I still don't see many if any ( ok there's one and that's GTA ) cultural sharing of ideas when it pertains to "game design" that Americans take from Europeans but there's a lot going in reverse but most cultural sharing of game design you'll see is between the Japanese and Americans.

....and somebody asked me if I thought the Japanese are making better games than Americans: before this console cycle that was apparent. So you'll get no argument from me on that point. I mean, that's why that list of best selling games ever is like 60% Japanese. The fundamentals are still there for the Japanese, who's better now is much more debatable than a decade ago. I think Monster Hunter is a genius piece of work, it's a shame Americans don't care for it. It's literally affecting every design point of every major Japanese developer since. Who the **** is doing that in Europe? Much in the same way Call of Duty is affecting every design point in every 'Western' game since. Hell, it's even affecting Final Fantasy and Monster Hunter.

Secondly, game design has been regional since day one: that's why you have whole genres invented by one particular region over another. Just because an American thought of an rpg before some Euro doesn't diminish his invention. Why didn't a Euro invent the TPS or FPS? Why is the new Tomb Raider looking like an Uncharted rip-off? Why is the new Hitman looking like a Splinter Cell rip-off? We can clearly see the difference between Splinter Cell and Metal Gear but I can't really tell the difference between the new Splinter Cell and the new Hitman. Don't get mad because the Japanese were more clever than a Euro when they invented the character action game and platformer. Really, I'm not seeing the relevancy at all in top-tier game development. so we can agree to disagree on that point. Though, it's funny really, Europeans have been trying to claim some lost American history, for like, forever, as if they invented. Remember? We kicked you all out of the colonies? This is simply another one of those cases, where you need a swift kick of reality.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

...still not seeing any relevance to game "design" coming out of Europe. I still don't see many if any ( ok there's one and that's GTA ) cultural sharing of ideas when it pertains to "game design" that Americans take from Europeans but there's a lot going in reverse but most cultural sharing of game design you'll see is between the Japanese and Americans.

Secondly, game design has been regional since day one: that's why you have whole genres invented by one particular region over another.

Way to ignore all the examples given. Did you not play any games in the 80s and 90s? If so, and you never played Tetris or one of the 'God' games, you have lived a very isolated life!

Just because an American thought of an rpg before some Euro doesn't diminish his invention.

Just because a Frenchman invented movies before Hollywood doesn't diminish his invention. Are we to claim Hollywood doesn't produce any decent movies because it started with Frenchman, and Europe can't produce any decent shooters because the first full FPs came from id?

Why didn't a Euro invent the TPS or FPS?

Why are you ignoring the genres that Europeans did invent? Space combat and exploration in Elite, leading to a wealth of flight games. God games with Populous. Indirect control of realtime elements in Lemmings. Realtime puzzle games in Tetris?

Why is the new Tomb Raider looking like an Uncharted rip-off?

Why did Uncharted appear as a Tomb Raider rip-off? (here's a clue - because everyone is building on the kowledge and experiences of prior games, so Uncharted was coloured by Tomb Raider, which in turn will be coloured by Uncharted, each learning from the successes and failures of other games)

Really, I'm not seeing the relevancy at all in top-tier game development. so we can agree to disagree on that point. Though, it's funny really, Europeans have been trying to claim some lost American history, for like, forever, as if they invented. This is simply another one of those cases.

The only person here turning this into a nationalistic thing is yourself. You seem to be selectively interpreting gaming development, hence the fact you repeatedly ignore the examples given to the contrary.

Let's give a couple of more examples for you to ignore. Uncharted that you site Tomb Raider ripping off started out as a Tolkienesque fantasy game. It was the business success of Gears and the like that caused Sony to request more shootyness. That's a business force affecting game development. Those same forces have seen a decline in popularity of the games with stronger roots in the EU, like the God game. That same force also sees Tomb Raider taking cues from a very successful game to captialise on its business success, while that same force sees old style games like platformers famously from Japan disappearing off the gaming radar, then reemerging when it's back in season. That's fasion for you, but that doesn't eradicate the historical successes; it's just natural ebb and flow.

Secondly, as I already said, ideas develop in parallel across nations. Work on microbial science or telecommunications was happening simultaneously across the world and solutions were found in parallel, but history tends to only record the first few significant people. But that doesn't mean everyone who follows with the same idea was copying. So who invented the Realtime Strategy genre? There are evolutionary branches in the US, UK and Japan, all created independently. Idiotic nationalism sees the US claim to have invented the telephone with Bell who had emigrated by then, the English claim to have invented it as Bell was British, the Scots making a claim to have invented the phone because they like to distance themselves from the English, and the Italians making claim they invented it and Bell just stole the idea. All coloured perceptions yet kinda immaterial if you take a more open human perspective - mankind invented the phone around that time, and it would always have happened no matter who got it first. NA and Europe were researching electromagnetism and it was an inevitable consequence. That scientific culture was common to the West.

Where you are going very wrong is seeing Carmack's Wolfenstein and Doom and thinking every game developed since that involves shooting is a copy of US culture. FPS would exist with or without the US. Every genre would. The big picture here is that gaming culture is typically multinational. NA and the EU share common elements such that games from either count as being part of the same larger Western culture. Asia has its own gaming culture. With better communication and sharing of ideas, they are starting to cross-pollinate.

 

[Brad Grenz]

If there is one thing that i don't believe is relevant it's this notion that Europe's development community have to have anything about their games that differentiates them from US developed releases, just so that can say that they are "European".

Most European developers make games that are acceptable to the largest market, so in practicality that means the US. It just so happens that US games, as well as other forms of entertainment media, are perfectly acceptable in the home territories, and so it just makes sense to target that region when it comes to the cultural aspects a developer would like to include in their games.

My main point is that why should it matter if European games are made with big American style budgets, voice actors and set in US settings? It shouldn't, as it doesn't make those games any less European. In the same way, if an american dev decides to make a game set in another region and time period, Feudal Japan for example, then why should that make the game any less american?

I don't know. Quantic Dream games sure feel French to me. An Lion Head games are pretty English. The common cultural ancestry, dominance of Hollywood in global pop culture and global marketing decisions make teasing out "country of origin" difficult in some cases, but it's not impossible. I've never even been to Finland, but Alan Wake has an ineffable Finnish quality to me, for example.

 

[NotTarts]

Though, it's funny really, Europeans have been trying to claim some lost American history, for like, forever, as if they invented. Remember? We kicked you all out of the colonies? This is simply another one of those cases, where you need a swift kick of reality.

So this all it comes down to? Nationalistic bullshit? Christ.

 

[KongRudi]

I think the most likely scenraio in this discussion is that the mods will spawn a thread out of this one, i.e. why the US console games-industry seems to be stagnating.

Why don't they join the european, Japaneese and australian gamestudios who make high-budget adventure games the last 10 years, like Heavy Rain, Longest Journey, Dreamfall, Fahrenheir, Ico. :-/
I can't recall one..
Why didn't americans invent high budget, play, create, share? etc.
Why is everything out of the states, RPG, Sports, or Shooters?

Why don't we save american presidents, and japaneese empresses? Why is it allways the princess, darn euro monarchy-culture.

Then we complain about studios all over the world in this forum, and everyone will know we're not racists.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Don't have time now but although culture in the West is in a large part 'Western' there are plenty of differences to be found, both currently as reflected by sales of titles and platforms as well as different undertones and graphical styles, all of which can vary significantly from one EU country to another. Note for instance the popularity of Singstar, Buzz, EyeToy and so on during the PS2 days, which still echoes on today in the popularity of the Move controller, or the difference between the very European SingStar and the very American Rockstar and Guitar Hero titled

The difference just doesn't stand out as much as that with Asian culture, but it is there allright. But even harder to see from an Anglo-Saxon perspective I'm sure.

That's true, but different from gameplay culture. What you're talking about is more flavour. Ghostz's argument is that game design is a US thing and Europeans just copy it. My argument is that game design follows common principles to both Europe and NA. eg. In a Japanese game you'll either encounter a huge mech or be able to summon some bizarro creature. That's something unique to Eastern culture that a Western game developer wouldn't think to add (even the Japanese 70's version of the Spiderman TV series added a mech I recently found out!). In a Western game we have our own standards which are common to the US and Europe. Where Japan will have O for select and X for cancel, for the West we expect the opposite. There isn't a difference in how Americans and Europeans perceive the symbols on a controller. Everything about our thought processes are the same as they've built up around the same languages and experiences. Hence our games will run, shoot, jump, use items, change weapons, regardless of where those games are made. Within those game designs there'll be various flavours in choice of music, art, characters (US characters are typically artificially superhuman, whereas European designs tend to prefer more realism and flawed characters, as a rough generalisation), but the underlying game mechanics are the same.

Where I differ from Ghostz is I don't see those mechanics as being American, but Gaming, as an international culture that doesn't respect national boundaries. The idea of Europe having to invent some game mechanics like the Japanese have, so, say, in every European FPS game you should be able to invoke some Divine Entitiy to cast spells or buff you character, is abnormal to basic human sociology. We don't invent variations just to be different! Variations only exist where populations are segregated.

 

[Sigfried1977]

But is Dutch, French, German or Swedish any different from American? If not then how can one tell? I'd say it's exactly the fact that there aren't significant differences that there is huge crossover between games both sides of the Atlantic. Where the culture do deviate to a large degree, like East and West, then it's much hard for a game to cross borders. The only way for a European nation to stand out like Japan does would be to invent a whole new style, which would be an artifical creation. Or to go with outdated traditional costume. COD in Lederhosen, anyone? Morris Dancing Simulator?

Heavy Rain is French as hell, so are most Ubisoft titles besides the ones made in Canada (Rayman and the Rabbids in particular). Then there's games like Gothic or Sacred, which are incredibly German (Sacred in particular, with its absurd love for statistics that all relate to one another in rather nebulous ways.) Even Killzone (at least the second game) , while I wouldn't go as far as calling it very Dutch, has a very European feel. Definitely more Paul Verhoeven than Michael Bay. Another decidedly European title that came out this year was The Witcher 2.

 

[Ghostz]

I can quote mine too......

Way to ignore all the examples given. Did you not play any games in the 80s and 90s? If so, and you never played Tetris or one of the 'God' games, you have lived a very isolated life!

You are missing the point completely, once again. How many top-tier US or Japanese developers are making God games? How many European developers are making Call of Duty and Dungeons & Dragons rip offs?

Why are you ignoring the genres that Europeans did invent? Space combat and exploration in Elite, leading to a wealth of flight games. God games with Populous. Indirect control of realtime elements in Lemmings. Realtime puzzle games in Tetris?

...because they are largely irrelevant to modern game design? How many times have I said I don't see the relevancy? Perhaps you should just admit you can't sway my mind on the relevancy Europeans are having on game design these days?

Why did Uncharted appear as a Tomb Raider rip-off? (here's a clue - because everyone is building on the kowledge and experiences of prior games, so Uncharted was coloured by Tomb Raider, which in turn will be coloured by Uncharted, each learning from the successes and failures of other games)

If Uncharted is a rip-off of anything, it rips off Gears of War in design, not Tomb Raider. They are fresh out of ideas with that series, that's why they are ripping off Uncharted - from design, to narrative presentation. It's quite shameless really but that's what businesses do, if you want that investment.

The only person here turning this into a nationalistic thing is yourself. You seem to be selectively interpreting gaming development, hence the fact you repeatedly ignore the examples given to the contrary.

You were the one who called me some ignorant yank and I've debunked your 'claims' repeatedly. I don't see the relevance Europeans have on modern game design and you haven't proved otherwise. No, you simply can't convince me that Europeans making games that inspire developers in and outside of Europe

Let's give a couple of more examples for you to ignore. Uncharted that you site Tomb Raider ripping off started out as a Tolkienesque fantasy game. It was the business success of Gears and the like that caused Sony to request more shootyness. That's a business force affecting game development. Those same forces have seen a decline in popularity of the games with stronger roots in the EU, like the God game. That same force also sees Tomb Raider taking cues from a very successful game to captialise on its business success, while that same force sees old style games like platformers famously from Japan disappearing off the gaming radar, then reemerging when it's back in season. That's fasion for you, but that doesn't eradicate the historical successes; it's just natural ebb and flow.

Secondly, as I already said, ideas develop in parallel across nations. Work on microbial science or telecommunications was happening simultaneously across the world and solutions were found in parallel, but history tends to only record the first few significant people. But that doesn't mean everyone who follows with the same idea was copying. So who invented the Realtime Strategy genre? There are evolutionary branches in the US, UK and Japan, all created independently. Idiotic nationalism sees the US claim to have invented the telephone with Bell who had emigrated by then, the English claim to have invented it as Bell was British, the Scots making a claim to have invented the phone because they like to distance themselves from the English, and the Italians making claim they invented it and Bell just stole the idea. All coloured perceptions yet kinda immaterial if you take a more open human perspective - mankind invented the phone around that time, and it would always have happened no matter who got it first. NA and Europe were researching electromagnetism and it was an inevitable consequence. That scientific culture was common to the West.

Except no European gets credit for creating the FPS. But I get it, you want to say there's an international "meta"-culture to game design but the reality is: there's really very little to any design points in modern game design that's distinctly European and all you're doing is trying to diminish real creativity and I have a bone to pick with that. If I was to say "all man, the European soul and individuality is properly expressed in game design and so many developers are getting inspired by it" you'll trumpet that crap right along with me because that's your bias.

But you simply lack perspective. There's no science to creativity, not even Carmack would argue there is. You see, in scientific theorem, you can test and falsify results until you reach a truism and any person with enough scientific curiosity can do that. Art, is, what it is, it's different to creating a scientific invention so your comparison falls flat on death ears. At game design, Europeans simply aren't very good at it. By the way, since you are obviously ignoring it, I've given much kudos to Japanese developers, once upon a time they reigned supreme over game design. So I don't even have any bias here unlike you.

....and by the way I got an infraction because a bunch of bias European mods disagree with me and don't like what I have to say about their development community, so I won't be commenting any further on this thread. Y'all killed my buzz....

 

[Shifty Geezer]

You are missing the point completely, once again. How many top-tier US or Japanese developers are making God games? How many European developers are making Call of Duty and Dungeons & Dragons rip offs?

...because they are largely irrelevant to modern game design? How many times have I said I don't see the relevancy? Perhaps you should just admit you can't sway my mind on the relevancy Europeans are having on game design these days?

Um, let's revisit your point as you appear to have forgotten it:

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.

You weren't talking about influence on modern game design alone. You said Europe hadn't contributed anything worthwhile for 30 years. and when confronted with questions about your reference materaial (top franchises) you've ignored them. But then your argument has changed from post to post as you've avoided actually debating anything and just made noise. Hence the infraction from a non-European mod.