Gaming in Europe vs U.S

[Deleted]

Hey everyone, while I was searching for gaming conventions in Europe, and failing to find one that could interest me and/or could attend to, I began thinking about the differences in gaming mentality between our continents.

From the multitude of video game media I generally check, I'm left with the impression that gaming in the U.S is a real sub-culture, a real hobby, that it doesn't seem very hard to find people with a similar interest in video games in general and form groups to play. Whereas in Europe, or at least where I'm from,I have the feeling it's completely different, I have trouble just trying to find people to play and discuss video games with. Maybe it's an area or city problem, where living outside of big cities is the source of the problem ?
What's your opinion on this? It may just be a personal difficulty or a lack of interest in video games in my area, but I'm interested if this thought ever occurred to you ? Do you European gamers ever had any trouble finding other gamers ? Do you Americans feel there's this real sub-culture ?
Cheers

[Deleted]

Hey everyone, while I was searching for gaming conventions in Europe, and failing to find one that could interest me and/or could attend to, I began thinking about the differences in gaming mentality between our continents.

From the multitude of video game media I generally check, I'm left with the impression that gaming in the U.S is a real sub-culture, a real hobby, that it doesn't seem very hard to find people with a similar interest in video games in general and form groups to play. Whereas in Europe, or at least where I'm from,I have the feeling it's completely different, I have trouble just trying to find people to play and discuss video games with. Maybe it's an area or city problem, where living outside of big cities is the source of the problem ?
What's your opinion on this? It may just be a personal difficulty or a lack of interest in video games in my area, but I'm interested if this thought ever occurred to you ? Do you European gamers ever had any trouble finding other gamers ? Do you Americans feel there's this real sub-culture ?
Cheers

No just no.
In europe we have dreamhack, lots of gamescon, most of the lol top players are from eu, top wow guilds are eu, soo no. eu is just as good. but you're not going to expect countries from eu where the medium wage is 150-200 euro to play competitive games because they just can't afford it.

[Deleted]

Do you European gamers ever had any trouble finding other gamers ?

To be honest, I'm not looking for other gamers as I prefer singleplayer games. It's a shame that today almost all the games are multiplayer though.

[Butler to Baby Sloths]

We don't need to find other gamers because we're all good enough to play multi-player solo.

[OzoAndIndi]

Do you Americans feel there's this real sub-culture ?

I suppose there is, though maybe kinda blurry now with gaming having grown a lot, expanded into different genres/types and found a wider audience than it used to have. I mean when you have middle aged women playing MMOs who may have never touched a video game in their younger years and didn't grow up with such thing... The lines blurring though, I suspect, might be partly, if not largely, behind the debate over who's an actual gamer and who's just latching onto a "trend" for one reason or other - though much of that debate seems to be among the younger set.

[Bakis]

Hey everyone, while I was searching for gaming conventions in Europe, and failing to find one that could interest me and/or could attend to, I began thinking about the differences in gaming mentality between our continents.

From the multitude of video game media I generally check, I'm left with the impression that gaming in the U.S is a real sub-culture, a real hobby, that it doesn't seem very hard to find people with a similar interest in video games in general and form groups to play. Whereas in Europe, or at least where I'm from,I have the feeling it's completely different, I have trouble just trying to find people to play and discuss video games with. Maybe it's an area or city problem, where living outside of big cities is the source of the problem ?
What's your opinion on this? It may just be a personal difficulty or a lack of interest in video games in my area, but I'm interested if this thought ever occurred to you ? Do you European gamers ever had any trouble finding other gamers ? Do you Americans feel there's this real sub-culture ?
Cheers

Bolded part. Do you mean local gaming clubs, conventions or what?

[serenka]

No just no.
In europe we have dreamhack, lots of gamescon, most of the lol top players are from eu, top wow guilds are eu, soo no. eu is just as good. but you're not going to expect countries from eu where the medium wage is 150-200 euro to play competitive games because they just can't afford it.

theres also a big gaming event in UK called I49

[Deleted]

theres also a big gaming event in UK called I49

And also Epic.LAN (So that's two big lan events that happen multiple times a year even just in the UK). Obviously then there's every other country in the EU. I would say I don't know many gamers in real life, but that's mainly because I don't go out of my way to find them. Too busy playing games and working to look for gamers

[Dezerte]

Where are you from OP?

[heltvild]

Hey everyone, while I was searching for gaming conventions in Europe, and failing to find one that could interest me and/or could attend to, I began thinking about the differences in gaming mentality between our continents.

From the multitude of video game media I generally check, I'm left with the impression that gaming in the U.S is a real sub-culture, a real hobby, that it doesn't seem very hard to find people with a similar interest in video games in general and form groups to play. Whereas in Europe, or at least where I'm from,I have the feeling it's completely different, I have trouble just trying to find people to play and discuss video games with. Maybe it's an area or city problem, where living outside of big cities is the source of the problem ?
What's your opinion on this? It may just be a personal difficulty or a lack of interest in video games in my area, but I'm interested if this thought ever occurred to you ? Do you European gamers ever had any trouble finding other gamers ? Do you Americans feel there's this real sub-culture ?
Cheers

Gamescom, but you just missed it by like 1-2 weeks.

[Jackmoves]

Well I'm not really a gamer so I don't look to attend gaming conventions but we got dreamhack here, which is pretty big.

DreamHack is the world's largest computer festival, a local area network gathering with live concerts and competitions in digital art and gaming. It is arranged twice per year at the Elmia Exhibition and Convention Centre in Jönköping, Sweden. It holds the world record (as recognized by the Guinness Book of Records and Twin Galaxies) for the world's largest LAN party and computer festival, and has held the record for the world's fastest Internet connection, and the record in most generated traffic.The Internet connection record was beaten in 2012 by the second largest computer festival in the world: The Gathering in Norway.

For smaller events I'm sure there are local clubs, I got one on walking distance, but I think they mostly play roleplaying games and board games(e.g warhammer).

[Deleted]

Where are you from OP?

I'm from France, thanks for asking.
Maybe I was wrong, and it's only my own misinterpretation. I think the media and various streamers and blogs I've been watching gave me a wrong sense of how things really are. Unlike some of you I would like, not need to, meet some gamers. I perceive gaming over here as an individual and quick entertainment, those few hours of a sports or fps game before going out with friends, not something to get invested in. (Invested in the sense of really enjoying it, not wasting entire days on them).
Now that I think of it, it only occurred to me after I began watching streamers and the life the lead. True, some of them dedicate their to it, but I feel it would be nice to be surrounded by some friends with the same hobby. Then again, as i mentioned, it may be my own problem and I just have trouble meeting other gamers.

[Jackmoves]

Look for a local association or club. When I was a teenager me and my mates used to run our own, we got economic support from Sverok, which is the Swedish Gaming Federation, they got 135.000 members according to their site, maybe France got something similiar?

It was pretty easy to set up, but you had to do it properly.

[bufferunderrun]

I don't know how it goes in the US but i feel europe is much more divided in northern and southern when talking about gaming; uk, netherland, germany and scandinavian countries are far more into this than the southern one; i think the main reason are the different languages.

[dashflash890]

Why are people act like it is a accomplishment that a whole continent is better than 1 country at something?

[Wikiy]

Wouldn't really say gamers are scarce in Europe. At least not in my country, which probably has a smaller % of gamers compared to more developed, Northern and Western European countries. Like half of my male friends are serious gamers. And there are gaming conventions/tournaments/organizations in my city. It's all a matter of using the Internet and finding out about them.

[Deleted]

Going by "EU" vs US then us is likely bigger in gaming but by country I think UK, the scandinavian countrys and Germany are bigger (my own observation)

[haxartus]

No just no.
In europe we have dreamhack, lots of gamescon, most of the lol top players are from eu, top wow guilds are eu, soo no. eu is just as good. but you're not going to expect countries from eu where the medium wage is 150-200 euro to play competitive games because they just can't afford it.

There are no countries in EU with a medium wage of €150-200. And some of the best players are from the "poor" countries because:
1st the quality of the Internet is vastly superior
2nd they can actually live off the money made from tournaments

[GalacticFloesx]

Cologne, Germany has quite a few gaming conventions, especially those organized by Blizzard (or at least it has in the past), but DreamHack is also another major one that occurs in Sweden.

[Deleted]

Define "gamer".

Out of my 450 Facebook friends i know atleast 250 of them owns a console or a pc and regurarly plays games. It's a guy thing.
Ofcourse your definition of a gamer matters. They aint geeky basement wankers but regular blokes with social lifes that sometimes rather group up and play a fifa13 tournament while enjoying snacks and beer instead of going out.