So why does the Video Game Industry Hate Europe so much?

Cut and pasted from my Dtoid blog:

Thoughts?

 

It's because PAL was that terrible. They must suffer... FOREVER!!!

I'm sure alot of it is just legal/management bullshit and localization.

 

We have it bad, the Aussies have it worse, the bastard offspring of PAL that nobody cares about.

 

australia?never heard of it

 

US Americans have it lucky. Except that EBGames/Gamestop monopolizes the used games market.

The problem is a fragmented market compared to the US and Japan. It is simply easier to publish games in those markets. What I find disgraceful is that a lot of decent games are made in the UK and Europe and yet they usually see a US release first. These days it is not so bad, but it used to be terrible.

 

The real question is, why are you starting so many threads?

 

you forget Africa!

 

I have alot to talk about and it"s time I contribute rather than be an asshole

 

1) Pal Format. Not doing an NTSC Vs Pal thing but Japan and US are both NTSC so you guys are the odd mans out.

2) Taxes

3) Localization issues. How many languages are they supposed to translate to?

 

Why would any collector in their right mind buy PAL games anyway?

 

Less bad credit culture?

 

the point is that they doesn't have yet recognized the market potential. a big success in europe could have even saved saturn and dreamcast.

when they'll figure out things will change, trust me.

 

but PAL in a technical of view was the best we ever had in pre-HD times.

a shame the american and japanese didn't jump on it back then, when it was developed in europa.

 

Because companies are idiotic, I mean, every freaking TV does accecpt NTSC signals nowdays here, I bought once a famiclone in a trip to Benidorm for 5€ some chinese bazaar and it did output 60Hz NTSC and it worked in the horribly crappy TV in the hotel room! Unless you're still using a First Line 1991 20" TV I don't know why the video standard should be a problem now.

Localising? Cannot they just release the US English version in ALL Europe and give the translation job to some company in each local country? Why there're games which are translated to US English to UK English? Fucking dog bollocks, is like, why south america does get games in plain Spanish and UK dudes need games in UK English? Shit, it's the same stupid language, get over the accent! >: (

Importing taxes? Import shops here do charge 10€ more than the retail RSMP price, and I just can go ebay and buy it as a gift, what is the problem with that? Censorship? The only game that I've seen censored here is Manhunt 2. Censorship is mainly in Germany or so I've heard.

The only reason which game distributors do treat europeans like shit is because they want to.

There isn't any reason anymore.

BULLSHIT.

 

no more heroes PAL is also censored, bad pie!

 

It's got nothing to do with taxes. It's localization requirements (yes, some countries require native language at least in the manual) and different regulatory laws in each country. Hopefully the EU will be useful for once and the laws are not so segmented in Europe any more.

Andoba: I don't know what games you've played, but almost all UK releases use the American English translation. Ones that don't have usually been coded in the UK.

 

Nintendo has recently been doing this retranslation for their uk releases.

I know trace memory (another code in all non na territories) and I think paper mario story used a uk specific translation for their released there.

 

The game industry hates whatever locality that you* happen to live in.

*"you" refers to anyone that plays games, not just you

 

Europe gets the bad side of the deal in other markets too, IMO becos companies think that whatever they charge for stuff people will bitch about it but ultimately they'll buy it.

Just look at cars: I was talking to this guy from munich, and he told me how he could save almost $20 grand buying a BMW in the US and shipping it to Germany, rather than buying it there, where is actually made.

Is right next to germany;-)

He forgot his medication