I tend to agree (although I would argue that there are ALOT of Northern American Devs who are doing great things, but does not get recognized due to how low profile thier games are).
Overall I think it has something to do with the size of the dev teams, and cost of production.
Alot of the really sucessful Devs in the US grew alot, which in turn made making games really expensive, a risk most pubs would not allow. So to make safe bets, they pretty much killed off creativity.
It is what you see from all over the world though, the bigger the dev, the less creative they can afford to be.
Now the European Dev scene tends to work in smaller teams, and very differnt envioments, not to mention that I can count atleast 3 distinct lines in demographics as to where the creative input comes from (Northern European, Southern European and Eastern European) Which all have very varied backgrounds and world views, so Europe is still this witches kettle of input and ideas, taken from all over those backgrounds (This may not really be a cause, but I think it may be)
As stated though, I think the primary cause is the size and thus cost of many US dev teams. Publishers in Europe is also smaller and thus more prone to risk taking.
I really like the games we see from Europe, I always have, while I feel like the more prominent devs in the US are losing thier edge (Not all of them mind you, I can name a good handful who are quite unique and still manages to make me glee with childish anticipation). The European are often far less afraid to make games with really heavy "adult themes" which are NOT boiled down to bloody murders, and far from as politically correct.
As a side note, the shift in the far east also gives raise to some interresting games these days, it is just beginning to show, but you can feel how the older devs over there gives way to new ones, with thier ideas and storys they want to tell.
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