

Americans are so Narrow Minded - a GDC report - sadiq
http://www.glgroup.com/News/Americans-are-so-Narrow-Minded---a-GDC-report-47165.html

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j_baker
I'm calling link bait. A more appropriate title would have been "the Americans
I saw at GDC are narrow-minded in my opinion". The title is worded in such a
way as to imply that this is some kind of "official" report.

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mixmax
I'm European and I agree somewhat with the author. It appears that Americans
are indeed more focused on the one big platform or opportunity, whereas
Europeans are more focused on the smaller untapped opportunities. It's a broad
and sweeping generalization of course, and should be taken with a grain of
salt.

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ThomPete
I don't understand this.

Smaller untapped opportunities are only small until they gain traction. There
is no end to browser based games right now.

Facebook started small, Twitter started small in fact most companies start
small.

The difference is just as likely that European companies haven't understood
the power of using large ecosystems to leverage their own business. Instead
they are puritans who want to create their own companies.

When ecosystems like ebay, FaceBook and Twitter appear why shouldn't people
take advantage of that?

Business opportunity is business opportunity. It is very few peoples luxury to
create something truly unique and in that game Europeans aren't really making
any dent's in the universe.

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mixmax
A very American perspecive :-)

There are millions of opportunities that will never make you fuck-you money,
but will afford you a decent living. They are often less risky because there's
less competition. Patio11's Bingocardcreator is an example. No matter how much
traction it gets it'll never be the new facebook. Europeans seem to be happier
with these kind of opportunities, while Americans go for the homeruns.

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jerf
I have to call sweeping false generalization. I can think ten local companies
that meet that same criterion without even trying, and "local" for me is not
Silicon Valley, either.

Maybe _some_ Americans try for the homerun and _no_ Europeans do (I can't
judge), but even in America by company-count, which I accept as a reasonable
proxy of number-of-people-starting-companies, the "home runs" attempters are
the outliers. And of course the VCs are interested in the home runs, that's
the VC business model!

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arethuza
Speaking as a European - it seems rather ironic that the author is describing
Americans as "narrow minded" for only being interested in following the big
existing success stories when those are all American!

A very silly article indeed.

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shadowsun7
_Americans are very narrow minded. They seem to fixate on the “winner”, and
pile in to follow the market leader, ignoring the other successful, profitable
businesses or platforms that have got quite so big yet._

Is this not true for the rest of the world? All industries are prone to fads.
Just because the guys in the US - where, arguably, the action is - are caught
up in this fad does not necessarily make them narrow minded. It makes no sense
to extrapolate this to all Americans.

(Note: am neither American nor European.)

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ThomPete
Being an European having lived in the states for five years and coming there
often having great friends it's pretty basic.

There are morons and fantastic people in the US, just like Europe and
everywhere else.

It borderline absurd to talk about American vs. Europeans unless you are
talking statistics and even there is problematic.

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lutorm
It seems to me this is how capitalism works. Those that say a free market
economy maximizes choice I think are out to lunch. If you want exactly the
same thing that everyone else does, then yes there are tons of choices (e.g.
50 different types of toothpaste in the store), but if you want something
that's even a little out of the mainstream, forget it. Try finding
_electronics_ at an electronics store, where by electronics I mean something
that isn't a shrinkwrapped gadget, like a breadboard, for example.

Another personal story: I have fairly small feet, where by small I mean 39-40
in European size, which by no means is abnormally small. Finding shoes for me
is a frustrating exercise because most stores don't carry sizes that small.
And the thing is that _every store_ stops at the same size, so if you don't
find it in the first store it's highly unlikely that going to ten more stores
will help.

It seems to me that what the article is describing is exactly what happens:
everyone rushes to the largest market with the largest potential and, while
_in theory_ there should be someone establishing themselves in the smaller
markets, when deciding whether they want to be a big fish in a small pond or a
small fish in a big pond, they go with the latter.

It's like when you get to a fraction of the total market (defined in some way)
and it's below 5% or something, it's not like only 5% of the actors in the
market will offer something for you. Everyone makes the same decision so the
selection quickly drops to zero.

Thing came out longer than I expected, sorry for rambling.

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waterlesscloud
Fry's has breadboards. A small section, couple of rows in what is otherwise a
massive consumer electronics store.

I can get most of what I want in my city, but then that's one of the reasons
I've chosen to live in a big city.

Of course, the main place your argument falls down is that the items you
describe are in fact available. Perhaps not in the channel you want, but
they're available.

So where exactly is capitalism failing you?

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billswift
I've seen these sorts of arguments before - what he is really complaining
about is that he thinks more people should want the kinds of things he wants.

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teamonkey
I see it more as a big publisher trait. The execs at the top are falling over
themselves to use Twitter and Facebook and iPhone games. They've never used
Facebook or Twitter themselves, of course, and they have Blackberries, but
these platforms are making lots of money so it's important to stumble in to
the market as soon as possible. Mandate issued.

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__bjoernd
I'm a European and I know there are narrow-minded people over here as well.

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dazzawazza
It's just an opinion piece, stop getting your knickers in a twist. Of course
it's full of hyperbole.

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protomyth
perhaps his sample size was too small

