first of all this isnt a rip on bethesda since skyrim looks to be not be another easy oblivion clone and this doesnt include the awesome indie companies like taleworlds and frictional games and others like them. i liked obisidian design decisions for fallout new vegas but their QA was deplorable. this is directly aimed at most games made by american game developers in the last few years.

im seeing awesome games coming from russia and the eastern and western european countries that are not only excellent in graphics, story and have some actual difficutly to them, the Witcher and STALKER games in particular. i look at our "counterparts" to these games and they are definitely not up to snuff. dragon age was not nearly as good as the witcher and i dont think there is a domestic game that is close to the STALKER games. all of the american games are easy, subpar in graphics cause of their focusing on console first then PC while projektCD focused on PC then console and their is a big difference in graphics quality between the Witcher 2 and Dragon Age 2 which just looks really pathetic at this point. i forgot who made two worlds 2 but they also went against the console first mentality and their PC version of two worlds 2 looks great. i realize there are exceptions out there like mass effect and red dead redemption but if you took the percentage of good vs bad foreign games and compared it with the percentage of good vs bad domestic games.........it seems like only the japanese could beat us in number of crappy releases. even deus ex is being produced in canada.............canada. i didnt even know they had computers up there yet.

Nope not by a long shot, Japan's days of ruling the video game world are over.

...Bioware (the company that made Dragon Age) is not an American game developer.
Neither is Frictional.
Just putting it out there. >.>

I expected the QA to be sub-par for New Vegas, seeing as how many of the Obsidian team were a part of Black Isle, and the first two Fallouts, love them as I may, were quite bug ridden.

I do believe that western games have been a little lack-luster as of late, but then I've not been overly impressed with non-western games either, maybe I'm just getting jaded.

Well you're obviously only getting the best games from those parts since they are getting here, I can only imagine all the crappy games the devs over there make as well.

Haven't bought any games made anywhere besides Western Europe ( specifically the UK ) and North America for a long time. Not because I'm too impatient to download or wait for shipping, but because our games are better. I completely disagree with you.

Square Enix says hi.

Honestly, as much as I may groan about many modern Western-made games, Japan makes a lot of crap too. I'm just biased because my favorite genres are JRPG and Third Person Action, one of which is rarely done right by Western developers and the other..not even being Western, though some look-alikes exist. And by Third Person Action, I'm talking about games like Ninja Gaiden and Devil May Cry, not Third Person Shooters. One great example of a well made Western TPA is the God Of War series.

Both ends of the world have their strengths and their weaknesses when it comes to video game development, and it really depends on which types of games strike your fancy.

thats why i mentioned japan specifically..........their glory days are long behind them at this point.

One could say their game industry bombed.

Same. I usually dislike Eastern games.

Maybe 4 to 5 years ago they were but not recently. FF XIII was horribly bad when compared to it's competition.

I see what you did thar.

To add, I find myself buying much more western developed games than Japaneses games. This may be a consequence of not owning a Wii and not buying too many PS2 and PS3 games. But as I look at my game collection, there's quite a difference between western developed and Japanese developed games as the consoles progressed. Sure, I owned a hell of a lot of N64 and Gamecube games, but once I got the xbox, xbox 360, and a PC, it went downhill for my investment in the Japanese games. That's not to say I hate their games, but... I find the west has picked up its stride as the years progress. The Witcher was [NUMMIT] fantastic, but does being developed in Poland count as being eastern?

And I don't mean stuff like CoD.

Well, I'm not talking in quality, but just in success. They're even publishing some Western made titles now.

Edit: Which irks me greatly, seeing as they should be focusing on making JRPGs and the like that don't svck rather than attaching their strings to others.

Dungeon Siege 3 will be interesting to say the least

Nintendo's not going anywhere anytime soon.

I agree the Wii is holding them back. I understand it's a great tool for the elderly to exercise with but it is holding Nintendo back as to what they can do.

You misunderstand, Nintendo's doing pretty well with the Wii's business model regardless of what most of you guys think about it.

That game you condescendingly reference is my all-time favorite, so no, I don't think American companies have lost any mojo, on that front. Fallout 3 is up there. Skyrim is highly anticipated. Obsidian's always had buggy games. Nothing's changed, as far as I'm concerned, but aside from Bethesda, I probably don't even know what nationalities game companies hail from, anyway.

I don't necessarily agree with the op on this one. No matter where the games are coming from, your going to get your good titles, and your going to get your shovelware. Though yes, the stalker series is one of the better to be seen in a long time.

Last I checked, Canada was in North America...

American as in the United States of America.

This.
Of course, there is always the chance I misinterpreted what the OP meant by 'American game developers'.
Besides, we all know this 'Canada' place is a myth. :0

Damn you people from the States, not only are you claiming all of the American continent for yourself, but now you make it sound like the only games worth playing come from the US and Japan

Lately I've mostly been playing The Witcher (Poland) and X3 Terran Conflict (Germany I think). I do not think however, that US developers have 'lost their mojo', so to speak. Its just that since they produce the most games it is only logically that they also produce the most crap. Never liked any Japanese games (or Korean, as Aion painfully showed me). Not that they're bad, the style just doesn't appeal to me.

In all honesty, I really don't care where game devs call home. :shrug:

Good and bad games come from all over the world. No one country has a monopoly on either.

I don't play Japanese games. Mostly hate them for their art style, its to showey with swords on swords and everything has a gun attached to it.

Its to guilded and overly dressed for my tastes. The gameplay is usually decent every once in awhile but can be very linear.
All in all I prefer Western games but I try to branch out.