I got curious about the nationalities of the games represented on RGD. As there are now exactly 100 attributions (and technically 100 total games, but that gets complicated), this seemed like the ideal time to share my research (which I conducted early in the year, so nothing has actually changed because RGD is now essentially a holiday show). Whenever I think of RGD, I think "overwhelmingly American games". But was I right? I'm intrigued by what this prompts in others, especially non-obvious countries.
I think most people know that, like the great era of tennis we had until recently[1], there is a Big 2.5 or Big 3 of "serious", non-mobile game development: US, Japan, and UK (in that order by most metrics). Various trackers and statistics consistently bear out this triopoly[1] using virtually every measure that most would consider legit: "real" (e.g. non-mobile, non-educational, professional) games/year, exports value, total production since the start of the industry, etc. The numbers will always be noisy and fuzzy because there are no definite delineation points[2], but they're clear on a top 3. (If one includes mobile games, irrespective of quality and counting e.g. gacha, countries like China and even Korea speed ahead of the UK and oft even Japan, which doesn't feel true to life or relevant to RGD.) I was particularly interested in who'd be the biggest of the remainder. I think we have a good idea of who the main competitors are going to be.
To the list! Some of these were hard to find, requiring some sleuthing on IA, scanning national company registrations, or OSINT techniques. Proudly, not a single case eluded me. Auspiciously and surprisingly, there was only one complication mandating a judgment call. There was also only one game whose dev structure was too diffuse to call for one or two nationalities (the maximum allowed, or indeed needed). Both of the exceptions are blatantly marked.
Games and nationalities
Tyrian: US
Nyet 3: German
Test Drive 3: US
CarnEvil: US
Eternam: French
Zany Golf: US
Strife: US
Potty Pigeon: British
Helious: US
Arcade America: US
Revenant: US
The Last Stand: Australian
Polaris Snocross: US
Quarantine: Canadian
Super Cult Tycoon: New Zealand [Huh, interesting]
Wolfenstein: US
Bip Bop II: US
Battleforge: German
Bozo's Night Out: British
Construction Bob Escapes From Hell: Canadian
Go to Hell: Polish
Uncanny Valley: Multiple [The first exception: complex pan-European team]
The Secret World: Norwegian
Dungeon Siege: US
Still Life: French
Puzzle Agent: US
Boppin': US
Darkspore: US
Rama: US
The Chosen - Well of Souls: Polish
Spiderbot: British
Deus Ex: US
Deus Ex IW: US
Deus Ex HR: Canadian [Sneaky Canadians ruined DX, or maybe I'm still annoyed about Eidos]
Contraption Zack: US
Realms of the Haunting: British
The Legend of Kyrandia: US
Freak Out - Extreme Freeride: Swedish
Baldies: British
Maabus: Canadian
Armed & Delirious: Israeli
Hinterland: US
Life is Strange: Canadian
The Black Mirror: Czech
Captain Zzap: British
Quadralien: British
A New Beginning: German
The Crew: French and British
Requital: Russian
Camp Sunshine: British [Surprisingly]
Lakeview Cabin: Finnish [Also surprisingly]
Halloween Harry: Australian
Still Not Dead: British
Haunted Castle II/III: French
Mini DayZ: Czech
Bitejacker: Singaporean
Death Road to Canada: American [Perhaps surprisingly]
Death's Hangover: British
Apocalyptica: British
The Cave World Saga: German
Trackmania^2: French
Veil of Darkness: US
Phantasmagoria 2: US
Harry Buster: Swiss
Messiah: US
Black Future '88: US
Sonic Heroes: US
Clans: Swedish [Would not have guessed that from the VAs]
Hellgate London: US
Daemonica: Czech
Aida's Strange Christmas: Georgian [Most niche origin? Also, Chris made this for his girlfriend Aida as a Christmas present]
SiN: US
Echo: Danish
The Journeyman Project: US
Terror Trax: US
Gothos: Canadian
Martian Gothic - Unification: British
The Division: Swedish
Mage Knight Apocalypse: Taiwanese
Conquest Earth: British
Killing Time: US
TrickStyle: British
Fahrenheit: French
The Legend of Kyrandia - Hand of Fate: US
Slipstream: Brazillian
'80s Overdrive: Polish
198x: Swedish [Including this and Palmride feels generous but the episode is unstructured]
Palmride: Romanian
Horizon Chase Turbo: Brazillian
Outrun 2006: British and Japanese [Second exception. More in a footnote.]
Kabus 22: Turkish
State of Mind: German
Culpa Innata: Turkish [Huh, two in three!]
Yuppie Psycho: Spanish and French
Gothic: German
Sabotain - Break the Rules: Russian
Alan Wake: Finnish
Normality: British
Videos analysed
Videos: 96 (with 3 follow-ups and 5 extraneous parts)
Total games: 98 (Uncanny Valley is counted but won't be attributed)
Total attributions: 100 (with 3 shared credits)
What a delightfully round outcome.
Developer nationality in descending order of attributions
US - 33
UK - 17
*Scandinavia total - 8
France - 7
Canada - 6
Germany - 6
Sweden - 4
Czechia - 3
Poland - 3
Australia - 2
Brazil - 2
Russia - 2
Finland - 2
Turkey - 2
Denmark - 1
New Zealand - 1
Norway - 1
Georgia - 1
Spanish - 1
Taiwan - 1
Romania - 1
Singapore - 1
Switzerland - 1
Israel - 1
Japan - 1
Note on Outrun: Outrun 2006 is an engine-up remake of Outrun 2 with a lot of extra content. Both the remake and the new content were done by British devs (not as surprising as it may seem). 2006 is fairly described by most sources as "developed by Sumo Digital [i.e. a British studio]". Even though the game covered is 2006 and technically not 2 at all, it seemed harsh not to give the co-production credit when Outrun 2 clearly set the tone and provided most of the track designs. So I made an executive decision and, as a result, there is one Japanese developer on the list, with a small asterisk.
Did anyone have France on their bingo card? I did but I had it below Canada, the Nordics, and even Poland. I actually thought US domination was/would be far greater, especially early on. While doing the research, it was beginning to look boring, and I was questioning the purpose. I don't know exactly what happened (perhaps the shift in focus to indie), but the variety just goes crazy at some point. It begins with the sampler packs doing a lot of heavy lifting and never ends. Obviously this doesn't say anything definitive about the international games industry, but there are no definitive numbers[2], so any sample is still a sample to be analysed.
As a sort-of-random sample that later grew to include big mainstream releases like The Division, Alan Wake, Sonic Heroes, and Life is Strange, it seems like a fair one. The fact that it's in line with expectations suggests that it's a good, realistic sample, with one huge exception: the lack of Japan. Even with Sonic and Outrun games, they only creep in just above zero. I'm not necessarily cheerleading for any particular country (and not much of my personal all-time top 20 would be Japanese), but the dearth of JP games could be fairly used as a critique against the use of RGD as a total cross-sectional sample.
Apart from the virtual absence of Japan, it is more or less what you'd anticipate (well, maybe it wasn't!). The extent of Japan's absence can't be explained by their lack of PC releases alone. They don't release a ton of PC games compared to their console output, but relative to the rest of the world, it's still a lot. Maybe a lot of games that would suit RGD have never been translated, like The Cave World Saga in the case of Germany. But some pretty damn obscure JP games get translation patches. Who knows? Competing hypotheses welcome. Perhaps Ross thinks that weeb obsessives could do a better job. In any case and with all the caveats in the world, the lack of Japan on such a long list of games is fascinating for its rarity.
As an aside, the US and Japan made similar decisions in choosing consoles early, unlike the UK (and much of the rest of Europe) which stuck with microcomputers into the late '80s and even early '90s (in the UK). With huge domestic production and native hardware, the UK did not experience any video game crash (nor did many regions following along, which is why it was really the North American video game crash, and the idea that Nintendo saved the whole of gaming is hyperbolic to say the least). 1983-85 were bumper years for the expansion of retail game stores in the UK. Later on, after the market had restabilised, it seems like the US divested more into PC than did Japan. But not so much that Japan having one credit on the list can be explained this way. Perhaps it simply reflects Ross's tastes, which seem Westernised. Mine are too, and there's nothing wrong with that (Japan's games reflect its cultural distance from Europe and aren't for everyone; there's a reason many Western/European franchises conversely sell like shit in Japan).
I think most people know that, like the great era of tennis we had until recently[1], there is a Big 2.5 or Big 3 of "serious", non-mobile game development: US, Japan, and UK (in that order by most metrics). Various trackers and statistics consistently bear out this triopoly[1] using virtually every measure that most would consider legit: "real" (e.g. non-mobile, non-educational, professional) games/year, exports value, total production since the start of the industry, etc. The numbers will always be noisy and fuzzy because there are no definite delineation points[2], but they're clear on a top 3. (If one includes mobile games, irrespective of quality and counting e.g. gacha, countries like China and even Korea speed ahead of the UK and oft even Japan, which doesn't feel true to life or relevant to RGD.) I was particularly interested in who'd be the biggest of the remainder. I think we have a good idea of who the main competitors are going to be.
To the list! Some of these were hard to find, requiring some sleuthing on IA, scanning national company registrations, or OSINT techniques. Proudly, not a single case eluded me. Auspiciously and surprisingly, there was only one complication mandating a judgment call. There was also only one game whose dev structure was too diffuse to call for one or two nationalities (the maximum allowed, or indeed needed). Both of the exceptions are blatantly marked.
Games and nationalities
Tyrian: US
Nyet 3: German
Test Drive 3: US
CarnEvil: US
Eternam: French
Zany Golf: US
Strife: US
Potty Pigeon: British
Helious: US
Arcade America: US
Revenant: US
The Last Stand: Australian
Polaris Snocross: US
Quarantine: Canadian
Super Cult Tycoon: New Zealand [Huh, interesting]
Wolfenstein: US
Bip Bop II: US
Battleforge: German
Bozo's Night Out: British
Construction Bob Escapes From Hell: Canadian
Go to Hell: Polish
Uncanny Valley: Multiple [The first exception: complex pan-European team]
The Secret World: Norwegian
Dungeon Siege: US
Still Life: French
Puzzle Agent: US
Boppin': US
Darkspore: US
Rama: US
The Chosen - Well of Souls: Polish
Spiderbot: British
Deus Ex: US
Deus Ex IW: US
Deus Ex HR: Canadian [Sneaky Canadians ruined DX, or maybe I'm still annoyed about Eidos]
Contraption Zack: US
Realms of the Haunting: British
The Legend of Kyrandia: US
Freak Out - Extreme Freeride: Swedish
Baldies: British
Maabus: Canadian
Armed & Delirious: Israeli
Hinterland: US
Life is Strange: Canadian
The Black Mirror: Czech
Captain Zzap: British
Quadralien: British
A New Beginning: German
The Crew: French and British
Requital: Russian
Camp Sunshine: British [Surprisingly]
Lakeview Cabin: Finnish [Also surprisingly]
Halloween Harry: Australian
Still Not Dead: British
Haunted Castle II/III: French
Mini DayZ: Czech
Bitejacker: Singaporean
Death Road to Canada: American [Perhaps surprisingly]
Death's Hangover: British
Apocalyptica: British
The Cave World Saga: German
Trackmania^2: French
Veil of Darkness: US
Phantasmagoria 2: US
Harry Buster: Swiss
Messiah: US
Black Future '88: US
Sonic Heroes: US
Clans: Swedish [Would not have guessed that from the VAs]
Hellgate London: US
Daemonica: Czech
Aida's Strange Christmas: Georgian [Most niche origin? Also, Chris made this for his girlfriend Aida as a Christmas present]
SiN: US
Echo: Danish
The Journeyman Project: US
Terror Trax: US
Gothos: Canadian
Martian Gothic - Unification: British
The Division: Swedish
Mage Knight Apocalypse: Taiwanese
Conquest Earth: British
Killing Time: US
TrickStyle: British
Fahrenheit: French
The Legend of Kyrandia - Hand of Fate: US
Slipstream: Brazillian
'80s Overdrive: Polish
198x: Swedish [Including this and Palmride feels generous but the episode is unstructured]
Palmride: Romanian
Horizon Chase Turbo: Brazillian
Outrun 2006: British and Japanese [Second exception. More in a footnote.]
Kabus 22: Turkish
State of Mind: German
Culpa Innata: Turkish [Huh, two in three!]
Yuppie Psycho: Spanish and French
Gothic: German
Sabotain - Break the Rules: Russian
Alan Wake: Finnish
Normality: British
Videos analysed
Videos: 96 (with 3 follow-ups and 5 extraneous parts)
Total games: 98 (Uncanny Valley is counted but won't be attributed)
Total attributions: 100 (with 3 shared credits)
What a delightfully round outcome.
Developer nationality in descending order of attributions
US - 33
UK - 17
*Scandinavia total - 8
France - 7
Canada - 6
Germany - 6
Sweden - 4
Czechia - 3
Poland - 3
Australia - 2
Brazil - 2
Russia - 2
Finland - 2
Turkey - 2
Denmark - 1
New Zealand - 1
Norway - 1
Georgia - 1
Spanish - 1
Taiwan - 1
Romania - 1
Singapore - 1
Switzerland - 1
Israel - 1
Japan - 1
Note on Outrun: Outrun 2006 is an engine-up remake of Outrun 2 with a lot of extra content. Both the remake and the new content were done by British devs (not as surprising as it may seem). 2006 is fairly described by most sources as "developed by Sumo Digital [i.e. a British studio]". Even though the game covered is 2006 and technically not 2 at all, it seemed harsh not to give the co-production credit when Outrun 2 clearly set the tone and provided most of the track designs. So I made an executive decision and, as a result, there is one Japanese developer on the list, with a small asterisk.
Did anyone have France on their bingo card? I did but I had it below Canada, the Nordics, and even Poland. I actually thought US domination was/would be far greater, especially early on. While doing the research, it was beginning to look boring, and I was questioning the purpose. I don't know exactly what happened (perhaps the shift in focus to indie), but the variety just goes crazy at some point. It begins with the sampler packs doing a lot of heavy lifting and never ends. Obviously this doesn't say anything definitive about the international games industry, but there are no definitive numbers[2], so any sample is still a sample to be analysed.
As a sort-of-random sample that later grew to include big mainstream releases like The Division, Alan Wake, Sonic Heroes, and Life is Strange, it seems like a fair one. The fact that it's in line with expectations suggests that it's a good, realistic sample, with one huge exception: the lack of Japan. Even with Sonic and Outrun games, they only creep in just above zero. I'm not necessarily cheerleading for any particular country (and not much of my personal all-time top 20 would be Japanese), but the dearth of JP games could be fairly used as a critique against the use of RGD as a total cross-sectional sample.
Apart from the virtual absence of Japan, it is more or less what you'd anticipate (well, maybe it wasn't!). The extent of Japan's absence can't be explained by their lack of PC releases alone. They don't release a ton of PC games compared to their console output, but relative to the rest of the world, it's still a lot. Maybe a lot of games that would suit RGD have never been translated, like The Cave World Saga in the case of Germany. But some pretty damn obscure JP games get translation patches. Who knows? Competing hypotheses welcome. Perhaps Ross thinks that weeb obsessives could do a better job. In any case and with all the caveats in the world, the lack of Japan on such a long list of games is fascinating for its rarity.
As an aside, the US and Japan made similar decisions in choosing consoles early, unlike the UK (and much of the rest of Europe) which stuck with microcomputers into the late '80s and even early '90s (in the UK). With huge domestic production and native hardware, the UK did not experience any video game crash (nor did many regions following along, which is why it was really the North American video game crash, and the idea that Nintendo saved the whole of gaming is hyperbolic to say the least). 1983-85 were bumper years for the expansion of retail game stores in the UK. Later on, after the market had restabilised, it seems like the US divested more into PC than did Japan. But not so much that Japan having one credit on the list can be explained this way. Perhaps it simply reflects Ross's tastes, which seem Westernised. Mine are too, and there's nothing wrong with that (Japan's games reflect its cultural distance from Europe and aren't for everyone; there's a reason many Western/European franchises conversely sell like shit in Japan).
