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Question for the Euro crowd.

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Comments

  • VultureSkullVultureSkull Member UncommonPosts: 1,774

    The differences between EU and US gamers is so small it is hard to distinguish them (if in fact there are any).

    As it would be hard to distinguish between UK and German gamers.

    Whereas the difference between East and We stark.

     

    More people play MMOs in the US simply due to the larger population and then to get a better service, having said that if GOA managed US servers then i am sure people would give up on MMOs as well.

  • DreamagramDreamagram Member Posts: 798
    Originally posted by Raztor
    Seriously it's pointless trying to find out differences between countries when it comes to gaming. You will find people that prefer certain types of games in all societies and you will also find good/bad/retard players in all countries and games. No point in trying to generalise countries into certain stereotypes.

    I respectfully disagree. While there are definitely all kinds of players in each country, the general mentality concerning games and much more is very different between e.g. Italy and Sweden. Culture, society, economy, climate, etc have an impact on people's spare time habits. subscription gaming acceptance and inclination towards competitive and/or cooperative gaming.

    I think to ignore these differences when dealing with them as customers is not exactly helpful if you aim to be successful in different countries and regions. Knowing your audience is never pointless. ;-)

  • EvasiaEvasia Member Posts: 2,827
    Originally posted by Zorndorf


    There is no Europe.
    There are different markets within Europe.
    A lot can be seen  in buying behaviour on amazon.de and co.uk etc...
    (and of course my biased view )
    The Germans are always the first to be interested in new projects and markets, but they are very harsh when it comes to failures. If you want to see how a particular trend is going off or on, amazon.de is the first to watch. Be it board games, computer games etc.
    Consoles market in Germany is the least developped. They like MMORPG's more than PS3/XBox. Because they have the most money they jump on everything new and massively, but at the same time a German is very demanding and likes to analyse a game to death. Their review magazines aren't as easy as others and PC magazine articles are a kind of nucleair science to the rest of us mortals.
    Edit: I also notice on German servers that they tend to end their sessions sooner in the evening. The german servers are sooner up but their gaming sessions end sooner.
    The British have less money to spend. So they tend to be very conservative and jump ship when it is all too expensive. They like football games and .... well football games. They are the Wii people - even more than the US, but more conservative. Brittain is the home of historical miniatures and .... football of course.
    France, well France is France. Everything with a French title sells 10 times more than an English title. "La Colère du Roi Lich...". Aweful title, but the French like it that way. The French market is always the last one to follow a trend. They still do play many board wargames, I guess because of Napoleon and other "grandeur". They like history games more than others.
    Russia has 13 Wow servers now and they are always on full/locked status for 20 hours a day. I guess they are catching up, coming from 3 servers three months ago. A lot of grow potential there for every gaming branche (not only MMORPG's).
    Biased view of course with awful generalisations, but indeed there is not a "common" games market in EU.
     Edit: More and more nice games are developped in Eastern Europe (most succesful was The Witcher), but also a lot of trash. It's a growing development market in Eastern Europe, but I think the economic depression that is going to hit us will be terrible for these developpers.
     



     

    Germans are not that demanding or quality proof look at god awefull runes of magic man that game sucks.

    But germany is even most dense populated country in world if it comes to pc owners.

    Holland have most user online in europe

    Sweden best internet connections and some good top players in many games.

    Europe enlish speaking, England(offcorse)Holland Belgium and Scandinavian countrys all most can speak english, rest of europe mostly wanne play on servers with there own language, thats main problem in europe they will never be united.

    You will always have language servers

    German

    French

    Spain

    Russia

    Poland

    Italy

    and many more

    English speaking are mainly

    England

    Holland

    Belgium

    Scandinavian countrys

    Europe is to much devided.

    Games played:AC1-Darktide'99-2000-AC2-Darktide/dawnsong2003-2005,Lineage2-2005-2006 and now Darkfall-2009.....
    In between WoW few months AoC few months and some f2p also all very short few weeks.

  • EvasiaEvasia Member Posts: 2,827
    Originally posted by VultureSkull


    The differences between EU and US gamers is so small it is hard to distinguish them (if in fact there are any).
    As it would be hard to distinguish between UK and German gamers.
    Whereas the difference between East and We stark.
     
    More people play MMOs in the US simply due to the larger population and then to get a better service, having said that if GOA managed US servers then i am sure people would give up on MMOs as well.



     

    Europe have more population then US.

     Its just that europe is so damn devided and different language that we allways been a third world gaming continent:P

    Games played:AC1-Darktide'99-2000-AC2-Darktide/dawnsong2003-2005,Lineage2-2005-2006 and now Darkfall-2009.....
    In between WoW few months AoC few months and some f2p also all very short few weeks.

  • icyredicyred Member Posts: 138

    What i find funny is you go too the UK for Example... when a game comes out in North America... then does good it come out in the UK then it does good there but usually UK dont get anything till after North America... yet.... Sci Fi Shows (the good ones anyways) comes out in the UK first and if it does great there then it comes too North America... take Doctor who for example... Or even better... An American show (StarGate  SG1) stargate was an american show made and produced by americans. then after a few seasons... it stayed that way but the episodes started too come out in the UK and after 6 months would finally come out in North America... I used too download all the episodes from the UK torrent sites and 6 months later you saw the episode on North American Channels and it would say NEW lol... So it seems that UK gets the good tv shows first and North America gets the games first... (USUALLY)

  • JupstoJupsto Member UncommonPosts: 2,075

    english tv > rest of world put together.

    saying that its still bad overall ( I blame all the american imports). I don't even own a tv anymore, but I do miss never mind the buzzcocks and mock the week.

    My blog: image

  • polypteruspolypterus Member Posts: 201

     

    Here's a prime example for European playstyle

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HtvIYRrgZ04

    You have probably all heard it, but Its dang funny after the 50th time...

  • ste2000ste2000 Member EpicPosts: 6,194

    Europeans and North Americans share the same culture and values.

    We like the same movies, same music, same games (of course with some localised variations) but overall everything that is succesful in NA is successful in EU and viceversa.

    In fact we are referred as the Western market or Western culture (Western Market is not just NA, like some of you might thing).



    The only thing we are a bit different is sports.

    We will never understand American Football and Baseball and Americans will never like our Football (or Soccer).

    But for the rest there is not too much difference.



    MMO are generally more successful in NA because up until now all MMOs were made in US, which means that US companies like SoE were never been able to market their game appropriately in Europe.

    MMO that are succesful in Europe, are so because they are published by large European publishers.

    WoW is owned by French Vivendi, therefore they have a great distribution and marketing machine in EU, LOTRO is published by Codemasters the second largest publisher in EU, and WAR failed because in Europe is published by a tiny company like GoA.

    So it is not a difference in taste between NA and EU that makes the difference, but the lack of proper marketing in Europe for the majority of US MMOs

  • Calind0rCalind0r Member Posts: 735

    The music is different, European music doesnt suck hard.

  • PraetorianiPraetoriani Member Posts: 1,147
    Originally posted by Calind0r


    The music is different, European music doesnt suck hard.

     

    There are many great rock bands from the US. My music collection wouldn't be the same without it.

  • ElikalElikal Member UncommonPosts: 7,912

    As a German I have preferred to play on US servers most of my MMO life for one simple reason: Americans are much more open to form communities, to integrate you into a guild than Europeans, who much more tend to "do their own stuff". Its something you can also say about people from US and EU in general. In USA, when you move into a neighbourhood you are greeted, integrated, welcomed more often as in Europe. Europeans tend to look more for the differences, the "fences" between people, just as Americans look more for the community. Europe is the land of fences and locked doors. Its unimaginable for a European to not lock his door, as many doors in US are still unlocked or at least used to be. It says something about the mentality.

    When I joined a guild on a US server, mostly ppl take great care to integrate me, while on EU servers guild say "hi" and then you have to see for yourself. So EU ppl seems generally to be much more solo friendly and individual. This individuality also means Europeans tend to seek more individual characters, desire more to express their ideas via the characters look.

    Another thing I noticed is that MMOs with too much combat and too less story and atmosphere often fail in Europe, and WAR is the best example. It feel simplistic, streamlined and shallow, while complex MMOs like EQ2 and LOTRO are highly popular in Europe. You can see similar habits in movies. Americans tend to watch more action movies, while the European movies are often more about character and story.

    You can see it well in what sells in single player games. Some kind of single player game sells in Europe (and especially in Germany) which rarely would have the same hype in US. Things like Settlers (Die Siedler), or Planescape Torment was very successful in Germany with the long dialogues, something thats not so popular in US.

    Its just a generalization, a trend, not an absolute rule, of course.

    People don't ask questions to get answers - they ask questions to show how smart they are. - Dogbert

  • Calind0rCalind0r Member Posts: 735
    Originally posted by Praetoriani

    Originally posted by Calind0r


    The music is different, European music doesnt suck hard.

     

    There are many great rock bands from the US. My music collection wouldn't be the same without it.

     

    I should have added "in the last 10 years" to my post.

  • saint4Godsaint4God Member Posts: 699

    On Navy Field I apparently joined the Euro version (the link for mmorpg.com goes to there).  It wasn't until playing for a little while that I realized, "wow, there's a lot of bilingual people in this game!"  After realizing it was European, it made sense because we the people of the U.S. aren't even lingual   (just kidding, but I'm sure my friend in England would agree).  I'm picking up a lot of German, very cool sounding language.  My favorite German word is officially "Funker" because it reminds me of George Clinton:

    Shot online and Voyage Century have a large international community.  I've met more people from South America from these than any other games.  I'd tried speaking what little Spanish I remember from college to someone in Venezuela, the rest I used www.freetranslation.com/ .  It worked pretty well at first, but must've gotten overambitious with a long sentence because after I said something there was a long pause, then he said, "Dude...I have no idea what you just said."  Hehe, good times, good times.

    During my trip to England, I stood at this sign for hours:

    Still didn't see any humped zebras.

  • EkibiogamiEkibiogami Member UncommonPosts: 2,154

    Lots of intresting info. Thanks for all the Reply's.

    If ye love wealth greater than liberty, the tranquility of servitude; greater than the animating contest for freedom, go home from us in peace. We seek not your counsel, nor your arms. Crouch down and lick the hand that feeds you; May your chains set lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that ye were our countrymen.
    —Samuel Adams

  • markoraosmarkoraos Member Posts: 1,593

    Hmm I'd say that differences between Euro and US tastes are pretty slight, given the common cultural heritage.. however IMO EU players slightly prefer teamplay while US are more into competition. This is not to say that there is no teamplay in US or that Euros are not competetive - it is just that the motivation for playing tends to be slightly different. For example Euros dig a well executed "play" regardless whether it is winning or not. US players tend to be more pragmatic in that regard - mostly they play to win with the game itself a sideline and Euros tend to enjoy the game with "winning" being just a part of that enjoyment.

    The most telling thing is the difference in American football and soccer. Football is all about a series of short bursts of action with clear winners "who's going to win?!"- soccer is watched more for the enjoyment of the game itself "wow did you see that move!", that's why its not boring even though you can get 0-0 scores after 90 minutes of play.

    But these are very slight differences I'd say.. Whatever goes in US goes in EU too - and vice versa. I absolutely loathe the "localized" re-edited films, books, games and media in general... I find that attitude insultingly condescending and completely pointless.

    Me 2 cents.

  • TeflonEddieTeflonEddie Member Posts: 270
    Originally posted by Ekibiogami


    Asians seem to prefer Grinders.
    Americans seem to prefer Action and Reward now.
    What are European's In to? Every MMO it seams like fails in the Euro market (According to the fourms. the worst place to get data :P)
    And everyone else feel free to correct my Blatent Disregard for your playstile.
    Im intrested in What you and you think your Nationality Like to play.



    Can't really speak for an entire continent, but I prefer an MMO with an immersive storyline and depth.

    Most fail (to impress me, at least) 'cos they don't have that and focus on endlessly repetitive grinds or item-ladders.

  • AragoniAragoni Member UncommonPosts: 384

    I cannot speak for my countrymen (Swedes), let alone a whole continent. Still I can say this: From what I've seen from my friends they want a sandbox games (most of them are anticipating Darkfall) and PvP with consequences.

  • saint4Godsaint4God Member Posts: 699
    Originally posted by markoraos


    Hmm I'd say that differences between Euro and US tastes are pretty slight, given the common cultural heritage..
    The most telling thing is the difference in American football and soccer. Football is all about a series of short bursts of action with clear winners "who's going to win?!"- soccer is watched more for the enjoyment of the game itself "wow did you see that move!", that's why its not boring even though you can get 0-0 scores after 90 minutes of play.
    But these are very slight differences I'd say.. Whatever goes in US goes in EU too - and vice versa. I absolutely loathe the "localized" re-edited films, books, games and media in general... I find that attitude insultingly condescending and completely pointless.
    Me 2 cents.



     

    I liked this post, thanks for that.  In addition, even though there may have been a culture-split a few hundred years ago (or thousand if we're talking about Asia), by the very nature of the internet and especially online gaming, those divisions will soon disappear.  What's funny in Korea is likely to be funny in South Africa (judging by Youtube commercials) so even people half-way around the world will be telling the same jokes soon enough.  It won't be "I live in the United States" for much longer, rather, "I play for Blizzard"

  • zylon0zylon0 Member Posts: 36

    What European people want from an MMORPG in general is hard to say. I' would go with the majority and say its a divided market. Different countries seem to like different things.

    What i have noticed is that they tend to stick to their own kind (mostly) and speak their own language.

    Yeah im a Euro too and hearing people talk my national language in a MMORPG thats entirely in English breaks immersion for me. For that reason i only join guilds / make friends with English speaking people.

     

    What I'm looking for myself in a MMORPG is immersion, exploration, community and let me decide what i want to do for fun when i log on. Could be exploring, crafting, treasurehunting, pvping, decorating my house, telling overexagerated stories in the inn while drinking beer or whatever.

    Yes indeed sandbox kind of games like UO.  I have to admit the themepark WOW was fun, but after a certain time it gets repetitive. Any other themepark games you play after that start to get repetitive even faster. The been there done that feeling.

    Oh and yes... stop treating us Europeans with the 2ndclass citizens approach. We got internet and can see and read how Americans get a much better service.

  • LondonMagusLondonMagus Member Posts: 700

    Hmm, I'm British & must confess that I love drinking Tea but prefer it hot, but when it comes to Beer I prefer it to be warm & flat in a glass rather than ice cold from a bottle. I have always hated Football/Soccer though & find it almost as boring as Tennis, which is a shame as I actually live In Wimbledon.

    Discussing cultural differences is always a tricky subject, even in the same country as I live in the South but was born in the North where I hope to return in the next couple of years. On the whole though I would say that the British are potentially more cautious & sceptical. If someone suggests, "Try this it great but also very cheap", we are probably more likely to ask what the catch is.

    In games I think we try to be polite but get easily pissed off when people are rude or take advantage. I think the British are more likely to prefer games where you can enjoy the RP atmosphere & tend to dislike things like 'Dude Speak' or people that pointlessly jump up & down spoiling our enjoyment.

    To get back to the original question though, I think the main differences are in playing style rather than the actual games themselves. As far as 'Grinders' vs 'Subscriptions' go, we don't mind paying out money as long as we can see that we get good value for it.

    Just my opinion though, no offence meant anyone inside or outside the UK.

    If you can't "Have your cake & eat it too", then how can "The proof of the pudding be in the eating"?

  • saint4Godsaint4God Member Posts: 699
    Originally posted by LondonMagus


    In games I think we try to be polite but get easily pissed off when people are rude or take advantage. I think the British are more likely to prefer games where you can enjoy the RP atmosphere & tend to dislike things like 'Dude Speak' or people that pointlessly jump up & down spoiling our enjoyment.
    To get back to the original question though, I think the main differences are in playing style rather than the actual games themselves. As far as 'Grinders' vs 'Subscriptions' go, we don't mind paying out money as long as we can see that we get good value for it.
    Just my opinion though, no offence meant anyone inside or outside the UK.



     

    I think this has more to do with maturity than nationality...else I need to apply for dual citizenship.  Works for me though, I love Twinings elderflower tea, Cadbury chocolate, Twenty20 Cricket, houses made of something stronger than wood, Red Dwarf, Avebury, Dr. Who, Picnics at Chatsworth, V&A Museum, etc.

  • DarwaDarwa Member UncommonPosts: 2,181
    Originally posted by saint4God





     

    I think this has more to do with maturity than nationality...else I need to apply for dual citizenship.  Works for me though, I love Twinings elderflower tea, Cadbury chocolate, 20 Cricket, houses made of something stronger than wood, Red Dwarf, Avebury, Dr. Who, Picnics at Chatsworth, V&A Museum, etc.

     

    You won't find many Brits with the same sentiments (apart from the houses)

  • saint4Godsaint4God Member Posts: 699
    Originally posted by darwa


    You won't find many Brits with the same sentiments (apart from the houses)



     

    I think I was forunate with the friends I stayed with, we had similar tastes...but, how can you NOT love Avebury? O_o  Such a wonderful place for a walk or picnic:

  • NikopolNikopol Member UncommonPosts: 626
    Originally posted by Blodpls

    Originally posted by saint4God

    Originally posted by Blodpls


    There is an american football game as you well know and it doesn't sell in the UK in significant numbers.

    I like tea and drink it daily, my friend in England doesn't.  Perhaps by some cosmic accident we were switched at birth.  I love Chinese food, my Chinese friend can't stand it.  Maybe I could apply for dual Chinese-English citizenship.

     

    en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_tea_consumption_per_capita

    That's all I got to say to about this.  Not worth arguing about.

     

    I just saw this. Such an ironic example that goes to show stereotyping has misses as much as hits, which makes the whole system a bit redundant.

    You see, according to that chart, people in Turkey consume more tea than people in the United Kingdom, which is known for its tea culture. The thing is, Turkey is not known as widely for tea as for coffee. Then it's rather funny that when you go to en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_coffee_consumption_per_capita you'll see it ranks way down on that list.

    Stereotypes are for lazy minds. And as for the topic, yes, I've seen many Euros that were deep into EVE and other sandboxy stuff, but I've seen many many more that were into WoW.

    One thing you can say about them though, is that they're not getting any younger

     

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