Games industry veteran Don Daglow thinks American gamers have trouble dealing with failure in games. He claims that this stems from the American education system where children are no longer taught to learn from the mistakes.
"The idea of failure has been dramatically reduced," he said, adding that American students don't "fail" anymore. Instead they are "challenged." Daglow thinks European developers should keep this in mind when trying to design games that they want to succeed in the American market.
He goes on to say that the key to keep American players going is to engage them with exciting content and to encourage the player when they do fail. Daglow notes that, once American players like a game, they will continue to play it and face up to the challenges just like European players.
Daglow made his comments to a gathering of developers at GDC Europe this week.
Many American gamers would disagree with Daglow's opinions on the American educational experience, and how they consume games from many different countries – particularly ones that are difficult to master. For example, if you are willing to lose everything you collected from Dead Rising at the end of the game to fight a guy on a tank surrounded by zombies, then chances are you know about failure…