It should be of little surprise that certain games perform better in one country versus another. For example, you can be assured that Madden titles do littles sales in Europe while in the United States, they’ve become a pillar for EA. On the other hand, FIFA games are all the craze throughout the world but enjoy far less success in the US as we’re far less cultured around football soccer.

I would have assumed an exclusive game like God of War would have a more universal appeal but according to Jim Ryan, Sony Computer Entertainment Europe’s president and chief executive, that’s not the case and the reasoning is quite interesting.

 Yeah and it’s a franchise which, historically, we’ve under-performed on in Europe compared to North America. It is a very violent franchise. Typically games with a high level of violence without much else tend to perform better in North America than everywhere else. So seeing that interesting storyline and the clear emotional bond between father and son gives me real hope that we can take this and do better with it than we have in the past. 

So what kind of titles do better in Europe?

 Games that have a greater social component. For example PS2 franchises Singstar and Buzz and PlayStation Move games on PS3. They tended to do better in Europe. And games that appeal to family participation, they tend to do better too. 

There is no doubt that North America, namely the US, is the driver for a lot more violent based titles and genres like FPS. Back in the 90’s and early 2000’s, Japan was still the dominant driver of video games and in turn, the games that we saw routinely on store shelves (RPG’s & action-adventure games) were quite different than what we saw during the PS3/Xbox 360 era. With the fall of country borders, thanks to far more robust digital distribution and a rise in game development cost which, like Hollywood movies, must now rely on international sales, it’s interesting to see games evolve and adapt.

Clearly God of War is being affected by that and it’s for the better as far as I’m concerned. This doesn’t mean the upcoming game is going to be any less brutal or that it’s being catered to Europeans, but that at least the actions on screen will hopefully have a better driver/motivator behind them, other than “Kratos is angry, Kratos must smash.”

Discuss:

What types of games are popular in your country?

[Via TheTelegraph]