The Last Melon said:
This is just a random thought of mine, but it occurs to me that the gaming industry is oriented almost entirely around male Americans, at least in terms of its protagonists. I don't think I need to list examples, but the going theory seems to be that the average consumer would be scared off by a game that wasn't focused on the United States in some way or another.
I have to wonder: is there actually such a real demand for America-oriented products? Is your average Massachusetts twenty-something committed to playing only Navy SEALS, or would he be willing to try something like a game about the French Foreign Legion or Joint Task Force 2 (the Canadian special forces)?
Part two! I remember that games in the Call of Duty series have a reasonably good record of branching out a bit to other nations in a way that I particularly appreciate. I enjoyed the Canadian and Polish sections of CoD 3 considerably (the former largely due to rampant patriotism on my part). Are there any other games that do anything interesting like this, or is it all Americans or space marines with American accents out there?
[EDIT: Wow, did I get drowned in titles here. I was referring largely to military shooters in this context, and was thinking specifically of some of the hoo-rah of the Modern Warfare games.]
It's because the world can associate itself with America, and we are the dominant world power, at least for the moment. The issue isn't just one of America being the biggest market and Americans only wanting to play games involving or about America, but because of the way the rest of the world views itself and the other nations in it.
To put it into perspective, some typical guy in say Korea, and some typical guy in say Portugal probably have no real knowlege of each other's cultures, never mind say Canada or Poland or wherever else, however BOTH of them know the US. What's more while not popular everyone knows that the USA could roflstomp pretty much anyone else on the planet if we really wanted to (our losses are mostly caused by our own morality and lack of appropriate action, we basically don't do the things you see us do in most video games even if we could in many cases). Both have heard of the Navy SEALS and are going to respect that as an incredibly dangerous special forces unit that has been known to be active all over the planet, and what it could potentially do if we ever actually used it to it's full capacity. In comparison you mention Task Force 2, and it's doubtful either of them will have heard of it, they are not going to have any respect for it, and will probably scratch their heads going "WTF Canada".
Likewise when it comes to locations, most people recognize major US cities like New York, LA, Seattle, and others and can respect and associate with those locations to an extent. The same doesn't much apply to cities in other countries, for example your typical guy from Thailand would probably boggle at the mention of Alberta Canada, yet they would recognize "New York City" and it's importance. There are a FEW other cities that are used to similar effect outside of the US such as Paris, Moscow, Tokyo, London, and others but in general that recognition only comes from a couple of very specific landmarks which almost always have to be present in any feature involving them for the sake of the international audience.
When your releasing a game internationally America is a "safe" bet for the widest possible audience being familiar with the material. Despite criticisms we're also the most tolerant people on the planet, and probably the most tolerated despite our "arrogance". In general America isn't involved in the same kinds of blood feuds a lot of other nations are. If you say had a game protaganist from India, you have to worry about slotting off Muslims a lot more than you do with the US despite "The War On Terror". We've been at it for a decade or so, India and Pakistan have been at a nuclear deadlock and low scale warfare even longer, and the Hindus are #2 on the Muslim hit list right under the Jews. You pick a British guy, and you have some issues with Asia because it was the Brits that invaded and were involved in the Opium wars and so on. China still goes off on the UK for the trivialization of eastern culture up to this point due to the supreme arse kicking throughout the region, yeah the Brits were forced to fall back, but it took this long for Asia to recover. There are dozens of other little slap fights out there that can affect marketing of a global product, to which America is safe. The "hate" of America isn't the same kind of burn you see for a lot of other ongoing conflicts, and honestly part of the reason why we're hated is that we have prevented people from continueing a lot of these grudge matches... "how dare you step in and stop our ethnic cleansing you bloody yank cowboys"
Despite comments about American ignorance, Americans are actually the most well informed people on the planet when you get down to it, something that doesn't always make us popular, especially seeing as we tend to be pretty honest about telling things as they are (or we were, the left wing is kind of ruining that). In the US chances are you know more about the rest of the world, and stuff going on in other countries as far as military units, geography, cities, and other assorted things than people in other countries do about the rest of the world. In the US you could probably make a decent number of correct (if very basic) comments about say Korea, Poland, Canada, Japan, China, and numerous other countries. Ask someone from Ukraine about those places and odds are they would know less about them than you do from a video game perspective.
To an American or Canadian saying that a game about "Task Force 2" for example might work, makes sense from the perspective of knowing something about it, but to someone on the other side of the planet, or even your average European?
It might sound like I'm blowing the USA's horn here, and I guess I am, but I'm pointing this out mostly as a marketing reality. America sells.
