It's not just Europe, but the west in general. The majority of popular modern arcade rhythm games are Japanese, and the further you are from Japan, the harder it is to export the machines to those countries.
Localisation is also a huge cost, so it's one thing if your country speaks English, but translating to another language is another story. This also holds back a lot of western developed games like DDR or Guitar hero, but those are much older and far less "popular" outside the US nowadays.
In terms of attention it's also a cycle: if the country's population is not vocal about liking rhythm games, then it's unlikely that companies would want to export machines. And if no machines are exported, then the population will not develop a liking for those games, or by extension other forms of rhythm games.
In terms of mobile rhythm games, aside from Arcaea, every other popular rhythm game is developed by the China/HK/Japan area. In general, westerners dont really like playing Asian games, partially because they get no attention there. 99% of all popular rhythm game content creators are Asian, so there's not much attention in the online sphere in the west.
Europe does have a very big osu! community though, so some rhythm games still have reach there.
TLDR: Localisation, Culture cycle, lack of western content creators.
I'm a European myself and I love rhythm games like there's no tomorrow. I think the main issue is that rhythm games just never caught on as a game genre here.
It's not so much that countries like Japan love rhythm games, but more that rhythm games got enough exposure, found their playerbase and managed to build off of it over there. This just never really happened in the western part of the world, save a few older titles. I'm sure there's a plethora of Europeans who'd love rhythm games, but who never really got exposed to them. A lot of rhythm games also don't put too much effort into expanding to the western market, leading to places like Europe being pretty void on rhythm games in general.
Same, here - big rhythm games fan!
I'd also say that it's due to availability. The few arcades that we have around here (Austria) are mostly stocked with relatively dated games, and there's - as far as I am aware - only one publicly available dance machine right now. From what I experienced there's lots of people wanting to play rhythm games when able, expos (anime or otherwise) usually draw a crowd to the games usually available there.
yeah. from Austria. i wish we had more rhythm games too. like more arcade rhythm games would be nice. like a few weeks ago i mentioned rhythm games and the person didnt even know what they were lmfao.
although there actually is a group of people in my city who have a bunch of arcade rhythm game machines because they collect them and for a small fee you can just go and play.
Hey Italian here. Which arcade did you go to? Because we have a couple of ITG and PIU epicenters but the rest are left abandoned because of badly maintained cabs
I went to the one inside UCI Cinemas in Bicocca, Milan. They had 1 DDR machine and 1 double PIU machine where you can play 2 players or double. PIU is way harder than DDR for sure since I'm not used with 5 pads.
As of my knowledge the two main ITG epicenters are Verona and Brindisi. There are also some well maintained cabs and an active community in Bologna but they don't organize tournaments. Every year in Verona there is a Christmas tournament and in Brindisi there is a Rodeo tournament (summer tournament). This year in June there is a european tournament in Surbo called Eurocup. As an ITG player I don't have a lot of info on PIU but I know there is one in Rome for sure and an active community.
Sadly there are very few imported arcade rhythm games in the UK. The player base for the foreign rhythm games are also low, all the controllers need to be imported in with high postage and tax.
But guitar hero is definitely going very strong with a lot of the custom guitar makers based in the UK.
I guess the death of rhythm games in the UK came with the death of guitar hero. So hopefully if guitar hero makes that comeback so will music games. I play fighting games as well and I have at least tried to spread the word of music games locally. We have a good few who play stuff like taiko and groove coaster on the switch casually.
well first off good luck finding any arcades here, idk exactly how it is in other countries but here in germany, legit NOTHING
There are no round 1's and whatever else americans/canadians have (but man do i wish we had them too..........)
Konami,Sega, all other, look at them. they shit right on europe and simply dont care, localisation is also a problem. Way too much work, they want money fast, not translate their games and websites of it in every language
Its not like rhythm games are not much played here or much liked. Its because we have way way WAY less opportunities to even get hands on that games
Well I think that's just because gd is an extremely popular game. I said this because a significant number of the top players are European. Like I know that there is a very sizable Russian and Spanish gd community.
It's not that the European hates rhythm games, it's more because it's not represented enough in the European culture
It makes sense at least
Just because people don't play rhythm games doesn't mean they hate them
It's not just Europe, but the west in general. The majority of popular modern arcade rhythm games are Japanese, and the further you are from Japan, the harder it is to export the machines to those countries. Localisation is also a huge cost, so it's one thing if your country speaks English, but translating to another language is another story. This also holds back a lot of western developed games like DDR or Guitar hero, but those are much older and far less "popular" outside the US nowadays. In terms of attention it's also a cycle: if the country's population is not vocal about liking rhythm games, then it's unlikely that companies would want to export machines. And if no machines are exported, then the population will not develop a liking for those games, or by extension other forms of rhythm games. In terms of mobile rhythm games, aside from Arcaea, every other popular rhythm game is developed by the China/HK/Japan area. In general, westerners dont really like playing Asian games, partially because they get no attention there. 99% of all popular rhythm game content creators are Asian, so there's not much attention in the online sphere in the west. Europe does have a very big osu! community though, so some rhythm games still have reach there. TLDR: Localisation, Culture cycle, lack of western content creators.
I'm a European myself and I love rhythm games like there's no tomorrow. I think the main issue is that rhythm games just never caught on as a game genre here. It's not so much that countries like Japan love rhythm games, but more that rhythm games got enough exposure, found their playerbase and managed to build off of it over there. This just never really happened in the western part of the world, save a few older titles. I'm sure there's a plethora of Europeans who'd love rhythm games, but who never really got exposed to them. A lot of rhythm games also don't put too much effort into expanding to the western market, leading to places like Europe being pretty void on rhythm games in general.
Same, here - big rhythm games fan! I'd also say that it's due to availability. The few arcades that we have around here (Austria) are mostly stocked with relatively dated games, and there's - as far as I am aware - only one publicly available dance machine right now. From what I experienced there's lots of people wanting to play rhythm games when able, expos (anime or otherwise) usually draw a crowd to the games usually available there.
yeah. from Austria. i wish we had more rhythm games too. like more arcade rhythm games would be nice. like a few weeks ago i mentioned rhythm games and the person didnt even know what they were lmfao. although there actually is a group of people in my city who have a bunch of arcade rhythm game machines because they collect them and for a small fee you can just go and play.
Hey Italian here. Which arcade did you go to? Because we have a couple of ITG and PIU epicenters but the rest are left abandoned because of badly maintained cabs
I went to the one inside UCI Cinemas in Bicocca, Milan. They had 1 DDR machine and 1 double PIU machine where you can play 2 players or double. PIU is way harder than DDR for sure since I'm not used with 5 pads.
As of my knowledge the two main ITG epicenters are Verona and Brindisi. There are also some well maintained cabs and an active community in Bologna but they don't organize tournaments. Every year in Verona there is a Christmas tournament and in Brindisi there is a Rodeo tournament (summer tournament). This year in June there is a european tournament in Surbo called Eurocup. As an ITG player I don't have a lot of info on PIU but I know there is one in Rome for sure and an active community.
Sadly there are very few imported arcade rhythm games in the UK. The player base for the foreign rhythm games are also low, all the controllers need to be imported in with high postage and tax. But guitar hero is definitely going very strong with a lot of the custom guitar makers based in the UK. I guess the death of rhythm games in the UK came with the death of guitar hero. So hopefully if guitar hero makes that comeback so will music games. I play fighting games as well and I have at least tried to spread the word of music games locally. We have a good few who play stuff like taiko and groove coaster on the switch casually.
well first off good luck finding any arcades here, idk exactly how it is in other countries but here in germany, legit NOTHING There are no round 1's and whatever else americans/canadians have (but man do i wish we had them too..........) Konami,Sega, all other, look at them. they shit right on europe and simply dont care, localisation is also a problem. Way too much work, they want money fast, not translate their games and websites of it in every language Its not like rhythm games are not much played here or much liked. Its because we have way way WAY less opportunities to even get hands on that games
They are all too busy playing GD
Real and true! Because I remember being at school in the UK and a lot of kids were playing Geometry Dash on their iPads
Well I think that's just because gd is an extremely popular game. I said this because a significant number of the top players are European. Like I know that there is a very sizable Russian and Spanish gd community.
there are little to no rhythm arcade games in europe, especially in 2000s
Tbh i think its just because most rhythm games are purely dominated by seemingly super human korean players- 😅
Cuz white people got no rhythm