Stuck in a foreign land with little comfort and less familiarity, I embraced the pursuit of information. Not information regarding history or education, but videogames. As a Print Journalism major at Lewis University, I am taking steps towards establishing a career in entertainment writing upon graduation, so it seemed worthwhile to take note of my worldly surroundings while in a land unlike my own. As such, I kept both mental and written notes of my observations, and will recount some of those here, along with personal photos taken while traveling in Italy.
Evading the heat in Montecatini Alto.
As with DVD movies, videogames released in North America and Japan cannot be played in European gaming consoles, and vice versa. Each console is region-coded, which specifies what games are able to be played in that system. This can typically be bypassed via a modification to the console, but such a move can be costly and will definitely void your warranty. The only exception to this is with handheld systems. For whatever reason, portable videogame systems have largely never been region-coded, and that extends to the latest generation of handhelds, including the PlayStation Portable and Nintendo DS.
The European gaming market uses the PAL, or phase-alternating line system. This system determines the way that an input signal is processed, with the PAL system displaying sharper colors than the NTSC (National Television System Committee) signal that North America and Japan both use. The major drawback, however, deals with the displayed frame rate. While one would typically never notice a frame rate issue while watching network television, the difference becomes much more obvious when playing videogames, which often run at a speed of sixty frames per second. The PAL system runs 17.5% slower than NTSC, so even if the games were compatible, American and Japanese ones would run poorly on a European television.
The PAL gaming market is comprised of much of Europe, Australia, and Asia. Because of the wide amount of participating countries, any game purchased with the PAL markings can be played in any PAL system. Typically, a single version of a game will be produced for all PAL countries, often with several selectable languages built-in to the game. As such, the European market tends to receive games much later than in North America, as the additional time needed to translate the game into multiple languages delays the average release date.
Italy recently caught onto the "Big Hurt" pinball phenomenon.
I am not an expert on the Italian entertainment industry (or the Italian language), so my observations can largely be taken as assumptions. However, I have been playing games for much of my life, and sold them in American retail stores for nearly five years as a teenager and young adult. Additionally, I have been writing about games in some respect for the last eight years, so I have a vast knowledge base to draw from.
From my travels, the key difference between the American and Italian gaming markets is the general availability of games. In America, every big-box retail store (Best Buy, Circuit City, Wal-Mart, Target) carries videogames, and there are over one-thousand locations of the GameStop specialty chain. I saw nothing of the sort while in Italy. We investigated several towns, small and large, and there were no media-related chain stores in sight. Aside from a large store in Rome (the only thing that convinced me that Italians actually played games), I noted only one specialty gaming store – and it was closed while the owner was on vacation.
However, videogames popped up in interesting other locations. My first sighting was in Florence, where I happened upon a music store that had a decent selection of videogames for the PlayStation 2, Nintendo DS, and Game Boy Advance. One thing I immediately noticed was how incredibly expensive everything was. A Game Boy Advance SP system was retailing for €115 ($144), while it can be had for just $80 in the United States. The snowboarding game SSX On Tour for the PlayStation 2 was priced at €65 ($81), yet it can be had for roughly $20 in the States (though it initially retailed for $40).
Later in the trip, we went to the quiet town of Lucca, which is where I found the closed gaming store. It must have been there for quite some time, as the door had a sticker on it for the original Tomb Raider game, first released in 1996. Another sticker advertised Resident Evil 4, one of the more notable games from 2005. A note on the door indicated that the store would be closed for two days beyond the day that we were in town. What would a local gamer do in such a situation? In America, if my local game store is closed, I have probably two-dozen options within a ten-mile radius. I doubt that Italian gamers have the same retail freedom that we do.
Lucca was not entirely game-free, though. A stop at the local newsstand to pick up a USA Today newspaper revealed a couple of video games for sale. Shadow the Hedgehog for the PlayStation 2 was shrink-wrapped to a backing board and placed in with the magazines, retailing for just €20 ($25), or roughly the price it sells for in America. Additionally, I saw a DVD version of Medal of Honor: Pacific Assault for the PC on a bookshelf behind the register. Sadly, I could not see a price tag on the spine, and I was not proficient enough in Italian to ask to see the item.
A section of the small town of Lucca.We spent the first half of our trip in a hotel in the town of
Montecatini Terme, which had a number of small shops within walking distance.
One such shop was an electronics store of sorts that seemed to be struggling with its own identity.
While part of the shop had items you might find in a Radio Shack in
America, another part was selling music CDs.
Right in the middle of it all was a glass display case with videogames.
Additional games and accessories could be found in the front display window, viewable from the street.
Between the music shop in Florence and the electronics shop in Montecatini Terme, I realized another key difference between the American and Italian gaming markets. In America, the prices of videogames lessen significantly over time. A game that retails for $50 can usually be had for $20 a year later, and used games can be had even more cheaply. The electronics shop had Ring of Red and Swing Away Golf, two of the earliest PlayStation 2 releases, for €65 ($81) each. Neither of these games is especially rare in America, and each can be had for $10 or less, albeit used. Clearly, these games are unlikely to be sold in the near future.
The shop also had games for the original PlayStation for €40-50, further continuing the trend of overpriced, under-loved junk. Like in America, the top-selling games for the PlayStation 2 are repackaged as “Greatest Hits” and sold for a lower price after nine to twelve months of release. A major hit from last year, God of War, could be had for €30 ($38), though the same game can be purchased for $20 in the States. The PlayStation 2 console was being sold for €148 ($185), as opposed to $130 in America. However, there was an exclusive European accessory package called the “Triple Pack.” It had an extra controller, memory card, and DVD remote for the PlayStation 2 for €50 ($63). These items would cost roughly $65 (total) if purchased seperately in America, and Sony has never put out a special package like that in the States.
A stop at a monstrous store in Rome finally validated my suspicions: there are a lot of videogames available in Italy, but they’re mostly located in Rome. I didn’t get the name of the store, but it reminded me quite a bit of the American store Borders. It featured two or three floors of books, topped off with a floor full of music, movies, and videogames. Hundreds and hundreds of games were available for all systems, including the Xbox 360, which I had not seen beforehand in Italy. Brand new games were available, including some games that had not yet been released in America.
One was LocoRoco, a PlayStation Portable game that finally made it to America in early September. I was interested in the game, and could run it on my system (which I brought with me to Italy), but I got stuck on the price. At €50 ($63), I went back and forth on whether I should purchase it (especially since the exchange rate we got would have put it in the $70+ range). Thankfully, I held off, and received a free review copy of the game in September. Despite the miles we walked in Rome, this was the only gaming store I found. Maybe the sheer size of it put the smaller stores out of business, or perhaps it is only profitable to run a small gaming shop in a small town.
I purchased two Italian gaming magazines during my travels: “PlayStation 2 Magazine Ufficiale Italia” and “Game Republic.” I found “PlayStation 2 Magazine Ufficiale Italia” in a small convenience store in the miniscule town of Montecatini Alto. It largely resembles the “Official U.S. PlayStation Magazine” released in America, though I believe such “official” magazines are available worldwide, though from different publishers. I initially assumed that it was just a translated version of the official PlayStation magazine from the United Kingdom, but it appears to be a completely original publication for the Italian market. The entire editorial staff appears to be Italian, and the magazine seems to have been in existence for over four years.
The front cover of the magazine features a group shot of the World Cup champion Italian soccer team, and is advertising a feature story about Pro Evolution Soccer 6, one of the most popular games in all of Europe. Additionally, the front cover advertises a special feature about the Gran Turismo racing series, another European favorite. “PlayStation 2 Magazine Ufficiale Italia” has much, much less advertising than any American gaming magazine I’ve ever read, and the advertisements it does have are almost entirely from Sony Computer Entertainment Europe. The reviews use a full one- or two-page layout with large screenshots (many American magazines give reviews one-half or one-third of a page with a single picture), but the editorial content is largely the same. The games are rated on a ten-point scale, with half-points in-between.
As with most worldwide official gaming magazines, “PlayStation 2 Magazine Ufficiale Italia” comes with a playable demo disc, with eleven playable games and a video reel. A small hint guide for Grand Theft Auto: Liberty City Stories was also included with the package, which was impressively large. In America, all of these things would be poly-bagged to save space, but the Italian magazine used a large, cardboard backer to allow the individual parts to be displayed. It takes up an enormous amount of space, and the additional packaging is probably factored into the price (€8.90 [$11.25], while the American magazine is just under $10).
The monstrous packaging of "PlayStation 2 Magazine Ufficiale Italia."The other magazine I purchased was “
Game Republic,” which looks startlingly similar to “
Gamers Republic”, an American magazine that folded a few years back.
My guess is that the rights to the design and such were sold abroad.
“
Game Republic” is a multi-platform magazine from the same publisher as “PlayStation 2 Magazine Ufficiale Italia,” and similarly lacks a heap of advertising (and uses many of the same ads in the same places).
It has a fair bit in common with some of the American multi-platform magazines of years’ past.
Not only does it have game reviews, previews, and features, but there is also a focus on anime and Japanese culture.
The same ten-point scale is used for reviews, and the magazine sells for €5.
Several other gaming magazines were available at the newsstands, including specialty magazines for the PlayStation 2, Xbox/Xbox 360, and PC. My time spent with the Italian gaming magazines revealed them to be just as detailed and wide-reaching as your average American magazine. Considering the size gap between the American and Italian gaming markets, this revelation was fairly shocking. I have no idea how these magazines are profitable, though. With little advertising and a likely small base of readers, I have to wonder how they can pay the writers a decent wage. Maybe all the tourists (like me) buy the magazines and stare blankly at the pretty pictures.
Despite high prices and limited availability, the Italian videogame market appears to be thriving. It would probably be tougher to maintain the market if each game had to be developed specifically for Italy, so the European PAL system likely works in their favor. Hundreds of recent games for all major systems are available – just not in every city, like we are used to in America. Because of the non-corporate nature of the shops, prices vary wildly and are often obnoxiously high, but such things must be endured until corporate America finds a way to get their paws into the small towns of Italy.
Venice had a lot of water. Games... not so much.
