The German gaming culture

Editor's note: John Gaudiosi covers the video game industry for WRAL.com and WRAL Local Tech Wire.

MUNSTER—After my whirlwind tour of Germany, I thought I’d share some things with you. I attended the Role-Playing Convention in Munster on my trip. They had Sacred 2, the new CDV/Ascaron role-playing game, playable for up to 16 PC players and four Xbox 360 players at the event. A giant tractor trailer opened up to allow the online games to be played by any of the 30,000-plus attendees in the college town.

For those wondering about Munster, it’s the most desired place to live in Germany as voted by Germans. I agree with them, as this large town has a very small-town feel to it—by design. Unlike other German cities like Aachen, which I also visited, Munster is spread out with lots of trees, parks, grass and ponds. You feel like you’re surrounded by nature instead of in a town. Even the hotel we stayed at, the Movenpick Hotel Munster, was pet-friendly. And as someone who’s active in dog rescue and owns six dogs, it was nice to see so many dogs.

Other interesting things about Munster is that during World War II, the Nazis used the town as the headquarters for the Luftwaffe. As a result, the Allied forces bombed 85 percent of the town to smithereens. When it was rebuilt after the war, it was done to its original specifications. Perhaps that’s one reason that there are thousands of bike riders in town, which is home to a huge German university. The roads are not made for cars and there are few places to park, so the best way around the completely flat area is by bike.

I also highly recommend the German train system. I was able to ride on several different trains and there’s no better way to tour the country. The scenery is so beautiful, especially the route I took from Munster to Frankfurt. You pass some of the greenest pastures I’ve ever seen and idyllic German towns with a single church. There were plenty of castles in the hills and along the river. The trains are much cleaner and more modern than the ones I was on in France. There, you have to ride first class and they’re still not as nice as second class on the German ICE train. It was also nice to have all of the stops repeated in both German and English, as someone who never learned that language.

In fact, unlike in the U.S., where so many residents don’t speak a word of English—many of them illegals—almost everyone I encountered spoke fluent English, as well as German. It was especially interesting to take a van ride from Cologne to Aachen with two Germans and a journalist from Spain, Greece and France. Since none of them spoke German and they each had a native tongue, they all spoke English the entire journey, which allowed me to be part of the conversation. It’s ironic to think that in so many European countries, English is spoken so well, and yet in America, so many can’t speak it that our banks and airlines have to repeat everything in Spanish.

When it comes to gaming, the German games market is different from any other game market, including in Europe. Germany is one of the biggest games markets, traditionally a PC games market. It’s recently turned to console games. Hardcore gamers on Xbox 360 are bigger now. And Wii’s addressing of the casual gamers that Nintendo has discovered has happened in Germany, as well.

If you live in Germany, the only way to buy Gears of War is in another country. The game was banned due to its violent content. And if you play any of the House of the Dead games, there won’t be an option to choose between red and green zombie blood—it’s all green as part of the restrictions on blood and violence in games.