I have a question for the U.S. lot out there.

I think we both have in common that we associate Japanese games (as a matter of stereotyping) with cutesy platform games, animé-styled slashers and the eponymous Japanese RPG.

Stereotypically speaking, the US gaming industry as perceived by Europeans has always been associated with medieval-styled RPGs (Dungeons & Dragons mostly), military first-person shooters like CoD and RTS titles like C&C.

Of course, you could pick apart these stereotypes in an instant (not least by the fact that the Battlefield series is Swedish and neither two of the best medieval-styled RPGs of recent years is not American, but Polish and Canadian respectively) but what is the American stereotype of European games?

I believe the proper myopic response would be "there are European games?"

From my own perspective, I always think of medieval games. I am colored indelibly by Gothic and RoA. Isn't M&B from over there? I am struggling to think of non-medieval games...

edit: after a moment's head-scratching, I remember the X series by Egosoft. I on'y recently picked that up at GG and haven't had a chance to play.

When I lived in the US, I knew that Germany and a lot of Eastern Euro countries were heavy into RPGs along with Russia. Just mention the name "Fallout" anywhere and see how many Russian, German, Eastern EU posters pop up. Another thing, in the US there isn't a "foreign games" section since the games aren't labeled with the country of origin. If you wanted to find out which country the game came from you had to do the research.

Why would I look at these things? I kid, I kid! I guess I am still amazed by Oh Land when I met her at a show recently. /drool

=D

Is it any one "famous" you are referring to or are you just amazed in general?.....
If You want a name on a well known Danish actress that I find goodloking then it would be "Connie Nielsen" , but she is hooked up with Metallica band member Lars Ulrich and even got a kid with him....

You're probably right, actually. When I think about it, the European approach to designing games has been to take existing, established concepts and make steroid-powered versions of them as opposed to having some kind of continent-specific genre.

The space flight sim was more or less American all the way. Two of the space sim greats - Wing Commander and Freespace - are American. Ironic it is though that the granddaddy of all space flight sims - Elite - was British. I notice that all the American ones tend to focus on having a consistent narrative, while all the major European titles (the X series, the Elite series, EVE Online) tend to add an open-world slant (or should that be "open-space slant").

M&B is Turkish. Whether you could count that as "European" is quite a different thing, but M&B really quite unlike anything I've ever played.

Which European country has the shortest work week, best pay and the longest vacation?

There are a ton of European games out there, and plenty of big name games outside that theme:

Donkey Kong 64, Tomb Raider and GTA are all from UK-based developers.
Mirror's Edge and Minecraft are both from Sweden.
The Hitman series is from Denmark.
Tetris is from Russia (Pajitnov worked in Moscow at the time, which is on the European continent).
Giana Sisters is from Germany.
Angry Birds is from Finland.
Anarchy Online is from Norway.
EVE Online (already mentioned, but what the hey) is from Iceland.
Heavy Rain is from France.
Killzone is from the Netherlands.

I could go on here, but I'm sure you see where this is going. :)

If there's something like a typical European genre, it has to be strategy games, often with city building elements and historical, real-world settings. Like the Total War and Stronghold games (UK), Commandos and Praetorians (Spain), Anno, Settlers, The Guild and Patrician (Germany) and many others.

I've got one, random one about which I have my own ideas, still for the sake of discourse:

If you had to raise a special needs child by yourself, where in the world would you pick to do it?

Yes, obviously, this is applicable to me. I'm just curious if any people from places that I would consider a relative panacea would feel totally different.

Speaking about Denmark... I have a question for our resident Danes. How is movie director Lars von Trier viewed in your country? Is he very present in the public consciousness and the media? Are people proud of him or is he very controversial?

Just asking because I love the guy.

I have more of his movies on DVD though he is not on top of my list so to speak....
I personally think that Lars von Trier is a controversial figure , but I also think that he is known by most people that "likes movies" not necessarily because that they like all his work but because it would be hard to be interested in movies and then not to have been fed information about him one way or the other.
I think that he must be some kind of weirdo , not necessarily meaning that as all in a bad sense but just generally, but in many ways he is probably also a both skilled and "interesting" person.....
You can find a fairly detailed description of Lars von Trier on Wikipedia.

All of Paradox's games are from Europe-located developers, I think.

France is pretty well renowned for not exactly overexerting its workforce.

As far as pay is concerned, keep in mind that a high minimum wage goes hand in hand with high taxes. That is after all the only reason why there is a minimum wage.

"Old nummbers" - not saying that any of them are valid anymore but best I could do within time frame and on short notice...

Lenght of "work week" :
http://www.sneijers.net/718/netherlands-has-shortest-working-week/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Working_time

Vacation :
Minimum Vacation Time Around The World Vacation statistics
http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/lab_vac_min_vac_tim_aro_the_wor_leg_req-time-around-world-legally-required

LONGEST VACATIONS IN BRAZIL, FINLAND AND FRANCE « Exploring the Globe
http://www.exploringtheglobe.com/?p=1618

Wages
The Best Minimum Wages In Europe - Forbes_com
http://www.forbes.com/2009/08/31/europe-minimum-wage-lifestyle-wages.html

List of minimum wages by country
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_minimum_wages_by_country


BUT PLEASE REMEMBER that the relevance of a lot of these numbers may be disputeable as you simply can not just measure living conditions , work , holidays , and wages as simple as that if you want TRUE understanding, as you then also had to begin to look on culture , general prices , general living conditions , work enviroment and a lot of other factors that I haven't even had the time to take in to account yet.....