European Vacation

I'm taking a vacation to Europe for 10 days and was wondering if there's some Mecca of video games I should check out. Visiting England, France, Switzerland, Italy, Germany, Netherlands, and Belgium.

That's a tough one. Personally I have not come across anything too impressive, just for a couple of off-hand/coincidental things. When I was in Amsterdam in 2006 I saw the office of Guerrilla Games from the canal while on a boat, and I walked past the rather impressive office of CCP Games a few times while in Iceland last fall... unfortunately I have not come across anything really awesome on the video game front when on various holidays in the Eurozone.

You might want to see where your favorite developers are located and then reach out to see if any of them welcome visitors for a quick tour - hard to say if it'll work out but it's worth a shot. Good luck!

There's so many incredible things in all of those places that wasting time on videogame stuff would be silly. Especially as you're doing 7 different countries in 10 days, which unless you're just doing night trains or something means you won't have long in any place.

If you're heading to Nottingham, GameCity have set up The National Video Game Arcade. It's basically a museum charting the rise of various concepts within videogames. They also have a floor filled with weird indie stuff that uses proprietary hardware, which is pretty awesome. Other than that, nothing rings a bell. Maybe the Insert Coin store in London?

@alexw00d: basically this.

@dan_citi Nah? I mean, I went to Tokyo last year and everyone and their mother told me to also check out the arcades. This dude is asking if there is some notable videogame place he doesn't know about that he should visit, similar to how everyone will tell you to visit the arcades in Tokyo. I was done in about an hour in the arcades in Tokyo, but was glad I had been there. There was also lots of other stuff to do around it, so it was great. It's not that crazy of a question.

@zevvion: Yeah but this isn't Tokyo is it? It's Europe. Sure a lot of games are made over here but there's not the same kind of shit as in Tokyo anywhere in the world. And seriously name a single videogame company from Switzerland or Belgium(I'd say Italy too but they at least have Milestone who make those bad WRC games)? When you've got barely hours in an entire country (especially when they're absolutely full to the brim of amazing places) looking at video games you could do any time seems a huge waste to me.

@djhicks1: That's pretty intense travelling! To me your question is an odd one really. You can enjoy games from the whole world at home, sure you might be a super fan of X dev and want to visit but my advice for all those countries in just that amount of time is see the sights! Absorb the culture as much as you can and go to places that in 30 years you will still remember. If you're still super keen on doing somthing based on games why not visit places from games and experience it for yourself, I guarantee a replay of assassins creed brotherhood will be awesome after visiting Rome yourself.

@alexw00d: I'd argue the exact same for Tokyo though. In two weeks, I barely got to see all the places I set out to visit. Going to the arcade certainly took time away from going elsewhere. I don't regret doing it at all, but it you think going somewhere in Europe for games is a waste, then Tokyo is the same. It's not necessarily that special. As for videogame companies, Guerrilla Games is here in the Netherlands for example. Ubisoft in France.

I would say. In the areas you are going to be in. Preferably one that doesn't speak you local language, find a massive arcade or barcade and do that for a couple hours. It would be burden to try to video game fill every location, but making a destination out of a sweet barcade is a totally valid tourism stint that will give you some local culture and a video game fix.

Yeah, Milestone rattle out about five games a year. Slightly Mad are Scandinavian and that's about as obscure as I get. I'm not even sure Eutchnyx are still putting stuff out. They haven't updated their website in a year and haven't released a game since 2014.

In September 2016, Zerolight moved across the river from Eutechnyx' Gateshead office to LiveWorks, on the Quayside at Newcastle upon Tyne.^[17]

Still kicking, then. Good to hear.

@shindig: Slight Mad are English, but that's not really my point. It's not like OP could just rock up at these business' offices and just walk in lol. If I was visiting Italy for what's gonna amount to an amount of hours like OP I would rather see the Coliseum or the Uffizi or something. I really don't think he's thought this trip through.

@zevvion: It's pretty silly to compare a single city to an entire continent. If OP was going to London or Amsterdam or a single place for 10 days, then it's easier to be granular in terms of proper city attractions. When you have a single day in a city, there literally isn't any time to get that granular - even if you want to seek it out.

(Relevant: After GB going to Video Games New York a couple year back, I really wanted to go when I was in NY. I ended up wasting something like two hours searching for the store. And still never found it. This is an okay thing to do when you're in an entire city for numberous days, but if you just have one or two, there's no chance).

i do not know of such a place in the countries you've described. i think tokyo is really unique in that regard. but I also think you'll have a blast exploring the level designs of the places you go to.

@alexw00d: Sorry, I knew they were ex SimBin guys so assumed they were all Swedes or something.

I thought this was going to be about a certain Chevy Chase movie.

@an_ancient 's post about the level design of the places you visit reminded me of this:

When I was in Rome several years ago, an in-law was very excited to see this tower on the Isola Tiberina (Tiber Island) that he'd climbed countless times in Assassin's Creed. He said even the tower's embellishments and hand-holds were pretty accurately depicted in the game.

Street View of the tower

I know you Americans may think Europe is small compared to the states but visiting 7 countries in 10 days you won't have time to see anything! If you want to spend all your time traveling that's up to you but Europe is not so small as you may think. You could easily spend that time in just one city like Paris for example and still feel you didn't get to see everything.

Sadly, I don't think that there is such a thing as a "videogame mekka" in any of the countries you plan to visit.

Other than that, I can only echo what @alexw00d said. I'd argue that you could easily spend 10 days just visiting one of the places you are going to, so I wouldn't spend my time with hunting down some obscure arcades.

@dagas& @alexw00d are definitely speaking the truth about the potentially insane pace your trip may take.

I normally find 5-10 days in any one, single world-class city like Paris or London is just enough to get a somewhat decent feel for the place (though in truth you're probably only scratching the surface). I cannot imagine doing 7 countries in 10 days. My wife and I did a sampling of 4 countries (UK/Wales, Amsterdam, Germany Rhine Valley, Salzburg Austria) in 16 days in 2006 and we were absolutely running for most of it. We try our best to plan our trips better these days but it's still easy to pack way too much in.

I hate to beat a dead horse but @djhicks1 I'd be very interested to hear how your trip is structured - I think you'll definitely be run off your feet, or looking at most of western Europe from the window of a train or coach. You might have to forego the video game sights (though I don't think there are a whole lot to be seen) and just focus on seeing the major sights.

10 days for these 7 countries? as @whitegreyblack i'm interested too in knowing your plan...

Can confirm you there is nothing noteworthy to see, videogames related, in Italy.

@zevvion: Tokyo has a cultural history associated with video games, electronic gaming and arcades. Nowhere in Europe comes close to that. We have a couple of big developers scattered around the entire continent of Europe (which obvious is much bigger than one city in Japan).

All the OP is going to find in any of those countries (and they're countries not even cities he's mentioning) are offices of a few developers. Like what, you're going to rock up to the offices of Ubisoft in France and do what? Look at the building?

Is this a train vacation? Any time I've gone for a touristy thing it's ~ a week for a city, so I can't really relate to how you wanna do things or what you think is important. But yeah as others have said, there's pretty much jack nothing as far as video game related stuff goes.

I stumbled on to a minor video game museum in Rome, but that was pretty small and far off the beaten path as far as everything else goes. They did have an Oculus set in 2014 that I got to try, so that was neat? But yeah, I wouldn't decide anything based on just going to this museum, it's like an hour at most of novelty. Link if interested anyways.

@jesus_phish: You're taking my post out of context. I'm not claiming there is any place to visit where OP is going that is worth seeing; simply because I don't know. I'm assuming, and this is a hell of a long shot but bear with me on this: OP doesn't know if there is a place worth visiting which is why he's asking? I don't know, I guess he asked the question to get a sincere answer. It's a possibility at least?

Also, the Tokyo thing is blown way out of proportion. I've been there. There are larger and more social arcades in Spain when I went there. It's just a 'general knowledge' thing. Like if you go to the Netherlands you have to ride a bike! (Even though you can do that in almost any country).

@jaymii Too bad you didn't find the place you were looking for, but that doesn't mean everyone can't find a place they are looking for. I just very much dislike the response OP is getting to his question. Basically, no one is really answering it at all. What I said to jesus_phish applies to you as well. If OP is asking if there is a place worth visiting, why is your response: 'don't waste your time on that'? Why isn't it something like: 'to my knowledge, there is nothing there you can really visit'? Or: 'There is this thing in this country, you can do this thing there [but I'd think twice about spending your time there]'? Why is it an immediate dismissal of the question? That's super weird to me.

It reminds me a lot of laptop purchasing advice threads. The poster is looking for a laptop because he moves around a lot and the #1 answer they get is always: 'don't buy a laptop, desktops are cheaper and better'.

@zevvion: Right, but in Tokyo people will think of arcades and video game stores etc. It's how people view that part of the world. They'll also think of public bathing with signs telling you no tattoos. That the OP is even asking "where's video game mecca in Europe" shows that there's not really a general one there, because if there was such a thing as a mecca of video games in Europe, people would have an answer.

But what we have in Europe is some developers in offices in boring industrial and office complexes.

Nobody is saying "Don't buy a laptop, buy a desktop". They're saying what you're looking for doesn't exist. They're also saying that a week to take in that many countries really isn't that much time because Europe really isn't as small as people think.

The only thing you're going to get from Europe and video games is visiting real world locations. So if you like Assassins Creed then you can at least go look at London and Paris from the list of places the OP mentioned, those being cities in those countries.

This to be honest, to be fair you'll certainly see a lot of things that inspired video game locations or indeed the actual location used. Charles bridge in Prague is really evocative of Bloodbourne for instance.

@djhicks1: Like others have said, 10 days is indeed very little for visiting 7 entire countries. However, it can be done. I did a short European train tour of 5 countries and 6 cities in 11 days a few years ago, as my first Interrail.

It was just enough to see a couple of major sights in each city and have an hour or two left in each place to walk around and take in the atmosphere. Keep in mind, that I only stopped in Brussels for a quick lunch and slept in trains whenever I could.

But don't get stressed and don't feel bad for dropping a place or two from your agenda if it all starts to feel a bit rushed. And keep in mind, that rushing around with beads of sweat on your brow will result in accusing stares and poor service in places like France or Italy.

I get what you are trying to say, but this part really isn't true though. Common knowledge is a lot different from actual fact on most things, I wouldn't exclude this from it. As a simple example, Tokyo doesn't even crack the top 10 of largest arcades in the world. As I said, I go to Spain often and once I visited an arcade there and it was much larger and more social than anything I've seen in Tokyo. I thought the Tokyo thing was cool because you could see the clear difference in culture between the west and east. It's very odd how they live their lives (from an outsiders perspective of course). That doesn't mean it's a videogame mecca by any stretch.

As for the laptop comparison, it was mostly directed at people responding that OP shouldn't waste his time of doing anything videogamey and just go sightseeing. 'You should spend your time on things I would spend it on' is not a valid stance to take. At least not if that is the entirety of your response and you're being dismissive about it. It's better left as an suggestion after giving an actual answer.

At least in the UK I can't think of any notable video game places to visit and I imagine it's the same for most of Europe. Unless you manage to book a tour at a studio you really like beforehand, don't go out of your way. You'll maybe find an okay barcade or look at some office building but there are hundreds of places I would rather visit in that short amount of time.

One suggestion I could make is to possibly go to Forbidden Planet if you're in London. It's close to Oxford Street or Covent Garden which are both worth checking out and you can easily see the major sites and still take a detour there. It's not strictly video games but they have a ton of figures and comics on display and sell generally nerdy stuff. It's quite popular with tourists and cool to look around.

@49th: I was going to recommend the Forbidden Planet if I'd remembered the name of it. Granted, it was over a decade since I was there, but I remember it being a cool place to check out figures and such.

It's the only thing i can think about: Computing History

Look kids, Big Ben (and parliament).

If your time is that constrained, don't waste any time with anything video game related.

Don't be these guys...

I chose this cram-packed voyage because depending on what happens in November, Americans might not be welcome in other countries.

The dude talking about arcades in Tokyo got it right.

This isn't a video game vacation. It's an explore-as-much-as-I-can vacation. And if there is something of significance pertaining to one of my hobbies I might check it out.

@alexw00d: Larian Studios Belgium Represent ! :P

LOL do you really think this? Europe isn't going to block entry for American nationals because you voted in a fucking moron, don't worry about that. You're going to have the rest of your life to explore Europe dude, just don't think you need to rush it because of some dumb election. If we were gonna block you coming here cause you voted in a hateful idiot politician there's been at least 3 chances in the last 40 to have done it.

Honestly, unless you legit just wanna see stuff from the window of a train (or even worse a slow ass coach) you should cut like, half those countries out. Maybe stick to England, France, Belgium and the Netherlands, that way you can Eurostar from London to Paris, then TGV to Brussels, and then to Amsterdam. Way less travelling, but still 4 countries crammed full of amazing stuff.

Either way though, Europe is not like Tokyo at all. People recommend Akibahara because it's one of a kind. Just like people recommend seeing Notre Dam or the Colosseum for the same reason. You'll have an incredible time, but there's nothing in the way of videogame stuff worth seeking out.

Absolutely agree with @alexw00d

Nothing is gonna happen whoever you vote in, at most you might receive some off-hand comments (and if you don't want them just use the usual trick of saying you're canadian). And if it happens in Italy, just say to us the word "Berlusconi", should be enough :D

Reducing the places you want to visit to a more reasonable number is a very sound idea

Not strictly video games but how about Bletchley Park? Arguably modern computers wouldn't exist quite as they do without the advances made there during WWII:

"Bletchley Park was the central site for Britain's codebreakers during World War II. Run by the Government Code and Cypher School (GC&CS), it regularly penetrated the secret communications of the Axis Powers – most importantly the German Enigma and Lorenz ciphers. The official historian of World War II British Intelligence has written that the "Ultra" intelligence produced at Bletchley shortened the war by two to four years, and that without it the outcome of the war would have been uncertain."

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bletchley_Park

https://www.bletchleypark.org.uk/content/visit/whattosee.rhtm

There's the Computerspielemuseum (Computer Game Museum) on Karl-Marx-Allee in Berlin. Was a bit disappointed there was so little about games in East Germany and the Soviet Union, but I've heard they've got some additions since I last visited in 2011.