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Forbes: Europe prefers sports, casual gaming

By Emma Boyes, Tom Magrino, GameSpot UKPosted Jun 24, 2008 10:43 am PT

News standard says region's interest in action and FPS dwarfed by that of US; Crytek CEO says EU sees shooters as "evil."

According to Forbes, European gamers prefer racing and soccer games to action adventure and first-person shooters.

To make evidence for this claim, Forbes cites research from the International Development Group, which points out that Bungie's acclaimed sci-fi shooter Halo 3 had sold 900,000 in Europe during 2007. Conversely, Halo 3 was the number-one selling game in the US during 2007, with 4.8 million units sold according to the NPD Group.

As for what sold well in Europe, Nintendo's Brain Training ("Brain Age: Train Your Brain in Minutes a Day" in the US) was the top game in the region for 2007, selling 2.8 million units, and EA's soccer sim FIFA 2008 scored second with 2.3 million copies sold, according to IDG data. Neither game cracked the NPD Group's top 10 list in the US during 2007.

The article goes on to argue that the continent favors older consoles and plays more casual games. "Guns and gore don't sell as well in Europe because Europeans like short, so-called casual games, rather than the long, epic tales that keep gamers pounding on their consoles for hours," notes Forbes. "People can play these short games on trains and subways on their way to work."

Forbes notes that the PlayStation 2 still had a 47 percent market share in 2007, and that the Nintendo DS came in second place with 25 percent, according to the IDG.

Cevat Yerli, CEO of Crytek and director of the 2007 hit FPS Crysis, briefly weighed in with his opinion, suggesting that Europeans believe shooters to be "evil." Although that statement wasn't expounded upon, Yerli has in the past been critical of his government's extreme stance on violence in games. After several members of the German parliament called in 2006 for a ban to all violent games, Yerli indicated that he would consider moving his company out of the country if those games were to be outlawed.

144 Comments

  • Nene33

    Posted Feb 12, 2009 12:50 pm PT

    We love our sports games, and for most Europeans Football(soccer) is their game, if you take the number of NFL/NBA/NHL/MLB games sold, you'd probably get a similar % of sports-games sold in the US.
    Also, I think the European market is more individualistic, and scattered when it comes to Shooters/FPS/RPG's, which means which means you can't really create as much hype, as you can in the US.

  • eestiwe

    Posted Aug 21, 2008 12:47 pm PT

    I agree. I have many sports games. But not only.

  • sammyd90

    Posted Aug 20, 2008 3:32 am PT

    I disagree I live in the uk and ive never owned any sports game at all and the only racer ive played is burnout.

  • Stabby

    Posted Jul 27, 2008 4:14 pm PT

    I don't think Europeans do, but the European media. Many many people scoff at hardcore titles but only Nintendo products are advertised.

  • zero-G1080

    Posted Jul 16, 2008 4:24 am PT

    interesting because im from the UK and ive got halo 3 and ninja gaiden 2. having said that i also have pro evo 08 and burnout.

  • Quadster

    Posted Jul 11, 2008 8:30 am PT

    ok, this is why my gaming interest is fading....because of the lack of variety, UK misses out on some seriously good games, and hardware, and we end up having too many rehashes of crappy racing and sports games, and too many mish mash games.
    Then for these guys to come in and say europeans only play "sports and racing" games.....i dunno about you guys, but these games ultimately..SUCK!!!...it's only the casuals that buy a console and buy a few "sports" games because their mates have them or something dumb like that.
    These freaking Officials really need to look at the bigger picture, not everyone wants to watch TV, there's rarely ANYTHING good to watch(Reality BS, shopping BS...etc etc), not everyone wants to follow the herd and not everyone wants to play these crap games.

  • andrat99

    Posted Jul 10, 2008 7:28 pm PT

    Meh, who cares really, as long as maintstream FPS/Anything else still get to Europe, cencsored or not.
    Oh well, as long as us Canadians don't get anymore idiot officials (I'm looking at YOU Harper) we're good

  • Skybluemad04

    Posted Jul 9, 2008 1:25 pm PT

    One thing, Football, (soccer for you American lot ) is massive in Europe, the Premier League, La Liga and Serie A are amongst some the most watched leagues in the world of any sport. And good for us Europeans, what's wrong with playing socially? To be honest i don't like COD4 because it's way too competitive. However i know many people who play days and days on it. Who cares, we play what we want, and what we enjoy, Halo rules! lol

    Oh, and we dont think FPS's are evil

    Z3R0B4NG - Poor you atleast the UK is more open with it - hopefully one day the German Government will let you play what you want, in all its full glory!

  • puppiemaster

    Posted Jun 26, 2008 5:37 pm PT

    No one I know plays sport games, we are all on COD4, but then again we are all adults and not kids.

  • GodLike500

    Posted Jun 26, 2008 1:12 pm PT

    This statisitcal analysis column sucks. It left out the most important information. How much did FIFA 2008 (or for a better comparison Madden 08 combined with NCAA Football 08 ) sell in the U.S., and what are the totals for casual games in both EU and the U.S.? What the comparison on available casual games in the EU and U.S. markets? if the U.S. has 20 times more casual games available than the EU, the casual games will sell 20 times better in the EU, and the same thing goes with sports games, the U.S. has a big sell on football (american) basketball, and baseball, typically with both professional and college teams. What sports games are available in the EU? Soccer (football) and cricket? I have never even heard of any recent cricket games! This is not a good example of neutral journalism!

    To Further my point about how much BS this article is, I'd like to site a different news article found on gamespot.com: http://www.gamespot.com/news/6192163.html. This article contains the top 10 video games sold in the U.S. for all time (as of Apr 08 ). It contains 4 sports games (Madden) and only 2 FPS's (COD 4 & Halo 2), so how can they say American's prefer shooters over sports games?

  • BikerPunk

    Posted Jun 26, 2008 8:46 am PT

    interesting. who cares. as long as i dont loose my right to choose if i want to play an epic shooter, i dont care. i understand that other countries may not have the demand that the north americans have in certain genres, but as long as i get to enjoy the games i enjoy, more power to those who may like other ones. we dont all have to play the same games.....variety is a good thing.

  • Sandrock323

    Posted Jun 26, 2008 8:21 am PT

    @monty_4256
    If you knew anything about gamers it's that they are very competitive. That said, most US gamers don't care were it is from. If anything it would be that US companies , big surprise..., know how to market their games to gamers in their own country versus gamers in other countries they don't know much about. I know for a fact there are many US gamers who won't play US games because they like Japanese games more. Plus, patriotism only goes as far as supporting the military. Please try not to talk about people you have never met, 5 minutes online dose not count.

  • salamancecool

    Posted Jun 26, 2008 7:40 am PT

    Im Irish and I hate sport games and causual games! Sport games are the worst genre!

  • Z3R0B4NG

    Posted Jun 26, 2008 5:13 am PT

    I am german and i loved every single drop of blood in Gears of War!

    But its true our Government and the Media allready established the name "Killergames" (!) instead of Ego Shooters or First / Third Person Shooter... and they dont know sh1t about it!

    Everything is censored, there are FSK18 Versions of Paper Mags!
    We dont get to download the MAP PACKs for Army of Two or Gears of War from the German Xbox Live market place and hey our IPs are banned from US and AT marketplaces too, but only on FSK18 stuff...

    But on Television they show how peoples Balls get operated, women get raped or just the usual pack of Plasticboobs while my Family sits down to Dinner!

    The stupid thing about that is i CAN decide what i want to play on MY PC / Console, but i cant decide what runs in Television.

    I hate the government, i hate the stupid people who vote for them, i hate TV and for a matter of fact i hate children! Without children we could play what we want, how we want, without having to set up VPN Networks in AT to get the stupid GoW Maps!

  • Z3R0B4NG

    Posted Jun 26, 2008 5:12 am PT

    I am german and i loved every single drop of blood in Gears of War!

    But its true our Government and the Media allready established the name "Killergames" (!) instead of Ego Shooters or First / Third Person Shooter... and they dont know sh1t about it!

    Everything is censored, there are FSK18 Versions of Paper Mags!
    We dont get to download the MAP PACKs for Army of Two or Gears of War from the German Xbox Live market place and hey our IPs are banned from US and AT marketplaces too, but only on FSK18 stuff...

    But on Television they show how peoples Balls get operated, women get raped or just the usual pack of Plasticboobs while my Family sits down to Dinner!

    The stupid thing about that is i CAN decide what i want to play on MY PC / Console, but i cant decide what runs in Television.

    I hate the government, i hate the stupid people who vote for them, i hate TV and for a matter of fact i hate children! Without children we could play what we want, how we want, without having to set up VPN Networks in AT to get the stupid GoW Maps!

  • hatieshorrer

    Posted Jun 26, 2008 5:00 am PT

    Im not surprised because sense the Wii there has been a sudden demand for casual games and, video game companies are slowly increasing their development of casual games in response. In resent years casual gamers have come to take a back seat to pro-gamers who spend more money on video games; However the lessen is clear developers can make a single game targeted at pro-gamers that may or, may not live up to the hype, or about five casual games that target a larger audience.

  • NatBat1991

    Posted Jun 26, 2008 4:50 am PT

    By European do they mean the UK aswell or just mainland Europe? Because if they mean the UK, everybody I know plays Call Of Duty 4 on their 360 or PS3, we have massive multiplayer battles over GTA IV on LIVE. And to be honest I hate sports games - especially football games, the only sports games I like are, excluding Blood Sport (UT!), golf games .

  • JP-

    Posted Jun 26, 2008 4:03 am PT

    I never knew this caus i live in holland and i always play shooters like cod 4 halo 3 with my dutch friends almost every teenager in holland has a xbox360 or a ps3 and cod 4 or halo 3 but holland is a small country

  • Bakahashi

    Posted Jun 26, 2008 2:15 am PT

    Let's get one thing straight lol. Us Europeans for the most part do not see shooter games as "evil". But we have a lot of sport in our culture. The majority of young men in Britain like soccer, hence they buy soccer games. As for brain training, that would probably be the older generation. Not to mention the DS being a big seller. Because much like Japan, us Brits love our portable gaming.

  • Leo_Colt

    Posted Jun 26, 2008 1:25 am PT

    Older consoles? Probably because we are charged twice as much as the rest of the world for the new generation of consoles.

    Sports games? Ugh, I think most of them are incredibly boring. As far as I'm aware, most people play other genres of games over here. Sports games are usually really saved for when there are large groups of people.

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