Games in Europe

I just got back from a tour of a few countries in Europe
and was puzzled that I didn't see any game stores. I did
see a few games at a grocery store in Austria but other
than that not much more. I did however see many internet
cafes which leads me to wonder if many people own a
computer or desire to own a computer. We were in Venice
for a few days then drove to a town outside of Firenze and
got lost all over Tuscany and ended up in Siene. It's a
very beautiful country and the people are very friendly.
I did see a few arcade games here and ther but PC software
wasn't available. We flew into Munich which was quite
pleasant. I can understand there not being games there.
Who wants to play games when you can stroll the beach by
the river and gawk at the nudity and thumb wrestle with
retired yoddlers in the haufbrau haus and who would miss
the englich beer garten. London however needs games. we
stayed in bayswater and traveled the circle and strolled
through London. Too busy too much culture and too hot.
London and Westminster need games to escape the environment. I got suffered from the heat from sitting
in the top of one of those busses and we had to cruise back
to the hotel. I don't recommend the Hotel britania in
Bayswater. No AC and at 3am when we got up to go to the
airport I happend to turn on the TV to channel 3 and saw
one of the guests on what was obviously a hidden camera.
I mentioned it to the clerk when we checked out and he only
grunted and took my credit card. I also puzzled to see
very few laptops in airports and in cafes like you do in
the US. I loved the countries I visited. It shattered all
my preconceptions and misconceptions. Venice was a game in
itself. I want to go back some day. Maybe I'll see the
european game scene then.

*shrugs*

Hmm.. you were obviously looking at wrong places for computer games. Even a small country like mine (Croatia) has them...

Barney

You make it sound like Europe is still living in the dark ages :p Perhaps the tourist locations arnt the real place to measure a countries have's and don't have's by :p

I can barely walk 10 meters here in the netherlands without being swamped in piles of Videogames in stores. I can't really think of anyone I know who Doesn't own some form of computer either.

We do have a fair amount of Internet cafe's but they have had their best time. About 5-10 years back they where popular, but these days everyone seems to prefer their own rig at home.

So to rectify this final (potential) misconception, we do have plenty of all that stuff. You just gotta know where to look for it :)

A question to you though: Why would you go on a holliday to some foreign place and play video games there? :p

Did you mean to type into an online journal instead of this website forum? :)

> A question to you though: Why would you go on a holliday
> to some foreign place and play video games there? :p

Hey, I've been to Japan to do exactly that, so don't knock it!

I couldn't find PC games. I found a few console games
and Arcade games. I did find some magazines with covers
but I can get those in the states. What I really wanted
was somewhere I could buy used PC games. My guess is you
are right about the tourist areas. Who wants to buy games
when there is so much else to do. Come to think of it, in
Munich we didn't go too far out of the downdown area where
all the museums are. The Duetsches museum was a game in
itself and I do remember a few pc games in the gift shop.
http://www.deutsches-museum.de/e_index.htm
My favorite was Venice though. I was thinking how great
it would be to turn that city into some sort of 3d game.

hey Barney, you from Crotia? Cool, I use to finish my study there..what city??

i only expect one country i visit to have game stores everywhere and that is in only one city

Tokyo, Japan where the stores are taller than most apartment builds

EDIT: i only have 3 within 5 miles for my house

Heck... I live in Houston Texas. I have a BestBuy about 6 miles from my house and a Mall about the same distance... No PC Games in the mall... Down Westheimer Pkwy there used to be a used game store but they were shut down for selling HOT XBOXes one christmas... If I want a game I usually buy it online or get it from Bestbuy...

I allegedly bought a few when I was in Mexico... VERY CHEAP!!! but about 1/2 the time I got the wrong program... Same story in China... {{ KIDS DON'T COMMIT THIS FELONY AT HOME!!!}}

Haven't bought one in about two years... don't see anything that intrigues me out there yet...

O_O What?!?! Are you sure you weren't watching channel 4? Big Brother is on in the UK and shows live pictures of all the house mates sleeping at that time of night/morning.

Mhh...in munich you can buy console and pc games in nearly every greater store (just hard to find the right floor;).
Near "Hofbräu Haus" you will find around 10 Shops selling games.
If you dont like to buy games, you can lend them in nearly every video store for 2 EU a day or in a library for nothing (old funny crap there)^^

I like "Gamespot" most, they buy your old game's and sell it again. Usualy i find new titles with a price cut of 50-60% there.

Did you actualy go computer game shopping?

The only Time I see a computer shop, is when I go to a computer shop.

> The only Time I see a computer shop, is when I go to a computer shop.


And, heavy sigh, they are getting harder to find there as well.

I've lived in the US for about 7 years now. But there were always game stores lol. If you were in london Oxford street had many stores that caried games.

Probably not PC games, when I lived in england it was apparently illegal to sell PC games second hand allthough console games were fine. Don't know about now and maybe its a european thing which might explain some of your trouble.

But new games, you can buy anywhere.

.

wow i have only seen 1 or 2 floppy disc based games(in person) in my time

I would suppose that retial stores would have trouble competeing with play.com. So who needs stores?

Big10P
I must have missed them in Munich I walked all around not
really looking for any store in particular just something
I recognized. I think that may have been the biggest hurdle
in my search. I can't read German or Italian. I did understand
a woman speaking to me in the mens bathroom in salzburge when
she asked " Ist dis der damein" or something like that. I
said in english " no, next door". I never did figure out
what the German guy was saying in Venice as he followed us
through the streets for a short while saying something like
" ger stella is stein" I think he was asking for a cup of
wine as we were walking with a bottle and two plastic cups.

I'm assuming alot of the games are the same in germany but
I do visit the site www.demonews.de from time to time, after
running it through bable fish. There are quite a few
german pc games that we don't see in the states.

In Norway, you can hardly walk through a regular big store without bumping into games stands. And then there's the specialized stores, splattered all around the map.
I prefer buying online though, through portals and such in the US, as the dollar is quite weak nowadays.
I bought Prey through Triton Gaming on Demand ($50), and it cost me at least 35% less than from a shop.