Video games in Europe

It isn't always easy to be a European video gamer. Many games are getting released first in the USA, and come to Europe either several months later, or not at all. If it is a PC game, you might be able to import it. But for World of Warcraft for example Blizzard won't accept European credit cards to pay for the a subscription on a US server, and importing US WoW involved paying somebody in the US to open an account for you. And console games from the US are protected with regional coding, like DVDs, and you can't simply pop an imported US console game into an European console, you need to either mod the console or buy a US console.

The reason why Europeans get most games later is that publishers are unwilling to distribute the English version before the localized versions in other European languages, and translating the game into German, French, and a couple of other languages takes a while.

But things are getting better for the Europeans. The local video game industry is on the rise, growing faster than the US counterparts. While the "Games Convention" in Leipzig (the 2006 convention starts next week) will be smaller than this years E3, next year the E3 will be much reduced in size, and the Games Convention 2007 is likely to be the biggest video games event worldwide.

And there are even some games which you can get in Europe before you can get them in the US. Especially if you speak German. For example I pre-ordered the Settlers 2: 10th Anniversary Edition, which will come out next month in Europe, but hasn't even got a US release date scheduled. But it is not just German simulation games any more that come from Europe, there is a surprising number of high-quality strategy and shooter games coming out of Europe nowadays, for example Far Cry or the upcoming Crysis. One of the best adventure games in recent years, Runaway, came out of Spain. The MMORPG EVE Online is from Iceland.

But more importantly US publishers are discovering Europe as a potential market. Mythic Entertainment was the first MMORPG company that supported Europe as well as the US, and ended up having more subscribers in Europe than at home. Even World of Warcraft has more European servers than US ones. Before WoW, the overall size of the European market for MMORPGs was thought to be 280,000. Then WoW sold 380,000 copies on the first weekend, and has now over 1 million players in Europe. So game companies noticed that there is money to be made over here. While the European market is smaller than the Asian one, European players pay more money for the same game than Asians, and piracy is less rampant (but higher than in the USA).

It has to be seen how digital distribution will change the availability of games in Europe. Right now many digitally distributed games are still restricted to North America, probably due to deals with publishers. But the more digital distribution becomes prevalent, the less power the publishers have, and the more likely is it that game companies decide that they don't want to miss out on the European market. English being widely spoken in most countries of Europe, just selling the English version of games over the internet without localization would be very cheap and profitable. Good times ahead for the European video gamer.