It just happens that patches for european gamers take unbelievable incredibly long to make, boxes for U.S. gamers contain goodies, whereas in european games things are simply cut down (D&D rules completely missing in Baldur's Gate handbook), and games are generally published in the U.S. first (for example Age of Wonders : Shadow Magic, being developed by a Dutch company, but published in the U.S. by Take2 first of all).
That really bites that certain things are CUT Down or removed entirely for Euro versions of USA games.
For an example of bad publishing, let's take Atari's publishing w/ Gothic 2. The USA has YET to receive a version of Gothic 2's Expansion -- Gothic 2: Night of The Raven. And it aggrevates me to see Atari not publish one b/c the game, unfortunately, did NOT sell well in the USA! I would have no problem w/ taking that expansion game in its original foreign AUDIO language, as long as they provide me some English subtitles, if they have to. Or if they think the English translation of Audio would take too long to produce. That would be fine w/ me!
I'm glad there were fans of Gothic 2: NOTR Expansion that translated that actual addition to the game from German to English, thanks to Piranha releasing a SDK for the German version -- though, it is a hop, skip and jump to try and get to run, it's available.
I turn on subtitles for DVD movies that are foreign films -- I'd rather hear a movie spoken in its original language and w/ sub-titles in a language I understand b/c a lot is often lost in translation when dubbing is used in movies. AUDIO acting sounds best in their language. You know, I thought it was quite sad when I heard many people went to go see the movie Hero in the USA, yet walked out once they heard or saw that it was not dubbed, but it was in English sub-titles. Yeah, yet people loved The Last Samurai, in which a great majority of the film had English sub-titles, since the AUDIO for the most part wasn't in English.
Another thing that bugs me in gaming: poor voice acting b/c the game is translated from one language to another. Why is poor voice acting hired often for foreign games, when translating a game? Well, we know why -- to save $, obviously. But if they are going to hire cheap voice acting, I think they just should forget that idea -- keep the game's AUDIO in its original language and give the player the option to be able to put English subtitles on.
Maybe Gothic 2 would've sold better if Atari, the publisher, marketed the game BETTER than they actually did.
The list goes on and on, and I can only hope that this bias vanishes one day.
If you really want to see what I think about it, you should read those articles.
I've played a bunch of foreign games and there are definitely lots of good ones.
Back to topic : The reason why <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/beyond.gif" alt="" /> or <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/div.gif" alt="" /> is not so famous is to a part to be sought in the "Action" fashion that's currently around. Action-based games are overwhelming the whole markets, and everything needing to use the brain is dying out, zynical speaking.
Well, I think there are a lot of popular RPG's on the market.
SW:KOTOR series (console and PC), BG series for PC, FF on consoles, Vampire: Bloodlines, etc etc. But, I do get what you mean: action is the most popular and biggest selling genre.
I don't know, but <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/div.gif" alt="" /> series needs more attention over here. It's not easy to find a copy of either games over here in my part of the USA here, currently.
On the other hand ... a few more Adventures have risen from the Sea of Darkness lately ... <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/think.gif" alt="" />
Alrik.
The USA really doesn't make any pure adventures anymore, unfortunately -- there's very few. Basically, Myst seems to be the big American one. I wish there more. Actually, I wish there more emphasis on companies developing non-linear adventures, but that really is for another thread.
I'm glad to see foreign companies making adventures; I don't want to see the genre die, And indeed, they've made some great ones. The Longest Journey & Shadow of Destiny come to mind.
