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Basketball is huge in Spain and Italy, how big is it in Japan ?

Anyway I think it's more about gaming culture and trends.
It's known Spain is very much into internet gaming for several reasons, it doesn't come as a surprise it is the largest community here.

Outside of internet infrastructures or lifestyles, Europe has a developed market for management games of the BB's type lead by the famous Football Manager serie.
The USA, for exemple, has a long history of fantasy team games which were almost non-existent in Europe until recently and that style of games is much more popular than FM clones.
I'd suspect Japan is closer to the USA in term of gaming trends and is more familiar with fantasy teams and as seelenjaeger said Japan simply plays other types of games as part of its gaming culture.

There are many things to consider, the UK have a large internet gaming community but basketball is non-existent in the UK and they are small on BB despite being the birthplace of the game genre.

Poland is another singular exemple, basketball is only moderately big there (our Polish members will contest this ;p) but very much into internet, I remember a study showing that Poland had the highest number of searches by searchers in Europe ahead of the UK which came as a surprise to me. Poland has a fast growing internet market and maybe BB is a witness of that as I don't remember Poland being amongst the largest communities only a couple of years ago.
Philippines users number stands out on BB probably for the fast growing market too.

Lithuania has a small population, only a few millions, but basketball being by far the major sport, it is reflected on BB. Greece and Turkey are two other exemples showing that the popularity of basketball in a country will draw users towards BB.
Germany, on the other hand, where interest in basketball is mild has a disappointing community size.

So... many many things to consider...

But i really like these kind nf games and have beem playing many of them.

I may have not explained myself properly but it is one of the things to consider I wanted to underline.

I know for a fact that Scandinavia used to be the largest market for FM outside of the UK. These games used to be a niche genre. It has exploded now but it is still not popular in every part of the world.
I think it's quite simple. BB may be compelling to basketball fans and management games fans. If Japan doesn't have either of these types, the game community will remain in the low numbers.
Other than that, a lively and welcoming community can do wonders to entice newcomers to stick around :)

We are in total agreement.

However it is not so easy to solve.
Group small communities together, at which time will the games be played ? Which language will they speak on the forum and amongst themselves ?
I think this can be overcome but users of these communities have to reach a consensus on a solution, gather in large numbers and lobby heavily for the solution to be implemented or it won't happen.

I will make a suggestion. I know it is not the easiest technically speaking.

Create a new level at the top of the pyramid.
The four best teams of a small country are promoted to a new international 16 teams league grouping 4 small countries.
Those teams are probably and understandably so eager to meet new and better competition that they may be willing to overlook the small inconveniences it will create.

So that would be in the first season :
a D.I grouping 16 teams, the best 4 of 4 small countries in the first season. 2 countries in each conference, better for demotions, i'll explain further down.
4 D.II (the former D.I of 4 small countries), 16 teams, all from the same country
etc...

A cluster of only 4 countries will make it easier to work around time zones problems and language too in some cases.
From D.II down, the structure will retain a national league structure.

The big, very big problem is that revenues will have to be changed and D.I teams which aren't promoted to the international league will have to do with D.II revenues and D.II with D.III revenues etc. It will be very hard to have the GMs accept that. So this suggestion is actually doomed from the start unless there is a strong and unselfish will for a real change :(

Another problem is the promotion/demotion. D.II champions would have to be promoted to the international league. The demoted team from the international league MUST be the same nationality. One team from each the 4 four represented countries in the international league would be demoted, the worst ranked one. Each would be relegated to their own national league structure.
The international league would be a special league with special rules.

edit : feedback and critical minds welcome

Last edited by Manouche at 1/22/2012 1:51:22 PM

At the end of the day, it's down to the users of these leagues to discuss solutions.
Sometimes, there are two many not affected members monopolizing the debate. If the affected members can't organize to have their voice heard then it's because they are fine with the current situation.
But no solution will be easy to implement and merging leagues will have all kind of side effects.

well this will be amazing stereotypes but here goes

top 10 nations
spain 1 & usa 4 - loves basketball, loves computer games, rich nation & big population
turkey 5, lithuania 7 & greece 8- obsessed with basketball, medium populations
china 9 - like basketball, love computers, redic population
france 6 & italy 2 - big population, love computer games, rich, love soccer so maybe used to management type games
poland 3 - totally adore and games anytime & too cold to do anything else
brazil 10 - no idea

japan - loves computer games, rich nation, big population

seems good but someone made a great point about the types of games they like

japan is all flashing neon & fast fast fast

every 6 yo kid has a psp & an x-box

they r brought up on high end graphics & fast game play with things constantly exciting

not exactly bb

so maybe your typical japanese gamer isnt interested in management games at all, being basketball as well & not baseball or sumo makes it even worse

it may just be a bad cultural fit

Hehe, you under-estimate Turkey in size and Poland in weather ;)