I'm calling link bait. A more appropriate title would have been "the Americans I saw at GDC are narrow-minded in my opinion". The title is worded in such a way as to imply that this is some kind of "official" report.
I'm European and I agree somewhat with the author. It appears that Americans are indeed more focused on the one big platform or opportunity, whereas Europeans are more focused on the smaller untapped opportunities. It's a broad and sweeping generalization of course, and should be taken with a grain of salt.
Smaller untapped opportunities are only small until they gain traction. There is no end to browser based games right now.
Facebook started small, Twitter started small in fact most companies start small.
The difference is just as likely that European companies haven't understood the power of using large ecosystems to leverage their own business. Instead they are puritans who want to create their own companies.
When ecosystems like ebay, FaceBook and Twitter appear why shouldn't people take advantage of that?
Business opportunity is business opportunity. It is very few peoples luxury to create something truly unique and in that game Europeans aren't really making any dent's in the universe.
There are millions of opportunities that will never make you fuck-you money, but will afford you a decent living. They are often less risky because there's less competition. Patio11's Bingocardcreator is an example. No matter how much traction it gets it'll never be the new facebook. Europeans seem to be happier with these kind of opportunities, while Americans go for the homeruns.
I have to call sweeping false generalization. I can think ten local companies that meet that same criterion without even trying, and "local" for me is not Silicon Valley, either.
Maybe some Americans try for the homerun and no Europeans do (I can't judge), but even in America by company-count, which I accept as a reasonable proxy of number-of-people-starting-companies, the "home runs" attempters are the outliers. And of course the VCs are interested in the home runs, that's the VC business model!
Just my opinion: I don't think this argument applies to America, but only to the Silicon Valley (SV) culture (and all influenced others). Generally people want only to have a decent living, while those exposed to the SV culture (usually), are looking for the big opportunity.
EDIT: (Disclosure: I am an European exposed to the SV culture :)
Actually, if you want to make a decent living, going with something with lots of competition is safer - at least you know there is already a market for that.
That's a very big grain my friend. :-) I'm not speaking for all of Europe but it seems like the only measurement of success here is if you are attached to a huge company that either invests in you or owns you outright. It doesn't matter what your marketshare is, it's who is paying for you. France and Germany epitomize this, huge conglomerates control 90% of what gets made and marketed. And exert an incredible amount of influence in politics.
While there are plenty of opportunities to fill a niche, you won't receive broad support without the blessing of the few gatekeepers.
Speaking as a European - it seems rather ironic that the author is describing Americans as "narrow minded" for only being interested in following the big existing success stories when those are all American!
Americans are very narrow minded. They seem to fixate on the “winner”, and pile in to follow the market leader, ignoring the other successful, profitable businesses or platforms that have got quite so big yet.
Is this not true for the rest of the world? All industries are prone to fads. Just because the guys in the US - where, arguably, the action is - are caught up in this fad does not necessarily make them narrow minded. It makes no sense to extrapolate this to all Americans.
It seems to me this is how capitalism works. Those that say a free market economy maximizes choice I think are out to lunch. If you want exactly the same thing that everyone else does, then yes there are tons of choices (e.g. 50 different types of toothpaste in the store), but if you want something that's even a little out of the mainstream, forget it. Try finding electronics at an electronics store, where by electronics I mean something that isn't a shrinkwrapped gadget, like a breadboard, for example.
Another personal story: I have fairly small feet, where by small I mean 39-40 in European size, which by no means is abnormally small. Finding shoes for me is a frustrating exercise because most stores don't carry sizes that small. And the thing is that every store stops at the same size, so if you don't find it in the first store it's highly unlikely that going to ten more stores will help.
It seems to me that what the article is describing is exactly what happens: everyone rushes to the largest market with the largest potential and, while in theory there should be someone establishing themselves in the smaller markets, when deciding whether they want to be a big fish in a small pond or a small fish in a big pond, they go with the latter.
It's like when you get to a fraction of the total market (defined in some way) and it's below 5% or something, it's not like only 5% of the actors in the market will offer something for you. Everyone makes the same decision so the selection quickly drops to zero.
Thing came out longer than I expected, sorry for rambling.
Fry's has breadboards. A small section, couple of rows in what is otherwise a massive consumer electronics store.
I can get most of what I want in my city, but then that's one of the reasons I've chosen to live in a big city.
Of course, the main place your argument falls down is that the items you describe are in fact available. Perhaps not in the channel you want, but they're available.
I've seen these sorts of arguments before - what he is really complaining about is that he thinks more people should want the kinds of things he wants.
So there isn't a large enough market in your area for a "real" electronics store - that means you are in the wrong place if you want to buy a breadboard in person, not that there is a problem with the free market.
Do you really think there are too few people that want to buy a breadboard in Boston that the store would take a loss on having a few in stock? I think it's just not "profitable enough" for them.
What I said was that the fanboys claim that the free market will utilize every opportunity of profit, and I'm claiming that's not borne out by experience.
> What I said was that the fanboys claim that the free market will utilize every opportunity of profit, and I'm claiming that's not borne out by experience.
Strawman. The claim is that folks will try to find profitable things. That doesn't imply that they'll tolerate, let alone prefer less profitable things. (It also doesn't imply that everything profitable has been found.)
If you think that there's good money to be made on breadboards in Boston, go for it.
What? Your beef is that someone else isn't catering to something that you don't value enough for them to make money? If you don't think that breadboards are worth much, why should anyone else?
"What I said was that the fanboys claim that the free market will utilize every opportunity of profit, and I'm claiming that's not borne out by experience."
No, the fanboys don't say that. The "fanboys" say what arethuza said.
Fanboys might also say something along the lines of "If you're so sure there's a profit opportunity here, why not try it and capture it?" Now, I'm actually not seriously suggesting that you do that, but I am seriously suggesting that if you were to try it, you may discover that there are indeed good reasons they don't have them. I've seen any number of "boutique" stores start up under your philosophy, and from what I've seen it's a very, very dangerous mindset to start up a business in.
I think the real reason people don't like capitalism is that it tends to let the cold, hard underlying reality actually impact your business, and force you to adapt to the world instead of the other way around. (And when I see companies do that in a putatively "capitalistic" environment, I'm the first to say that it's no longer capitalism.) A lot of people have a deep resistance to that idea, but I think it's at the core of why capitalism succeeds so well; the success of your system will be pretty directly proportionate to its ability to deal with reality and not fantasy, and some non-capitalistic systems can at least survive... though, well, let's talk about that again after the entitlements (aka "the fantasy that I can be promised unconditionally safe money in the future by the government today"; there is no such thing as unconditionally safe future money) are done crashing. (Yes, the US has entitlements; to that extent it isn't very capitalistic.)
Have you tried, say, Radio Shack? It depends on the store, but I know at least one of them in Rochester stocks breadboards and basic components. If you need something less common or you don't want to pay the Radio Shack premium, might I suggest DigiKey.com?
I see it more as a big publisher trait. The execs at the top are falling over themselves to use Twitter and Facebook and iPhone games. They've never used Facebook or Twitter themselves, of course, and they have Blackberries, but these platforms are making lots of money so it's important to stumble in to the market as soon as possible. Mandate issued.
