BuzzerBeater Forums

Japan has people on the net, money, and about 5 times the population of the biggest European BuzzerBeater nations.

Just to correct the facts a bit, it is more like 3 times. I assume Italy, Spain, and Poland are among the biggest European BB nations. Italy has a population of close to 50% of Japan. Spain and Poland are slightly smaller, but they are among the big European countries anyway. Only Russia (majority European), Germany, France and the UK are larger than Italy. I think Ukraine may be pretty close to Spain in size. Russia is anyway the only European country with a population larger than Japan.

You're kinda splitting hairs when it comes to the point at hand. Wolph's point remains valid: Japan has the population, economy, and the means to be many times vaster than the 20-30 users it currently has.

I simply corrected a fact. I was not arguing the point in any way whatsoever.

I simply corrected a fact. I was not arguing the point in any way whatsoever.

You are hardly adding anything constructive or do you want to turn this into a thread of 'whats the capital of....'

I think the point has been made - its now whether or not its valid to warrant any time & energy to re-jig the way in which promotions/demotions are shared out.

There have been a few different attempts to lure in new users in Japan (one of which was me agreeing to tank purposely - joke)...... maybe its just a market that prefers alternative ways of getting their kicks.

Correct me if I´m wrong but isn´t the Japanese market alot about Graphic Interfaces, highest technology concepts and plenty of "instant entertainment" other than long term "text adventure" feelings? Is basketball of any significance in the Japan observation of current sports? Nothing added to the discussion, pure curiousity.

You are hardly adding anything constructive or do you want to turn this into a thread of 'whats the capital of....'

Look, I simply corrected a fact and I am happy to leave it at that. I am not the one introducing capital cities to the discussion. And this will be my last post on this topic.

Obv you cant live without having said the last word...

Imo Japan could be one of the major countries in this game, especially considering the high standard of income I think there is a lot potential for selling supporter packages.

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 :)