EU vs NA version completion percentages

[Golem25]

I keep seeing this on lots of games and I wonder why it happens; EU versions typically having a higher completion percentage than the NA versions. Some examples;

 

 

 

I'm sure some exceptions to the rule 'EU% > NA%' exist, but I can't think of any off the top of my head. If considered on a game-by-game basis you could argue the difference is usually within a reasonable margin of error, but I find it remarkable that the EU versions almost always come out with a higher average. The number of owners is usually comparable as well, but even when these don't overlap nicely, the same trend is visible; for instance, American Fugitive (great game, great Plat; get it!) has way fewer and Skylanders quite a few more owners in NA compared to EU, but the percentage on both NA versions is lower than on the EU ones.

 

As for the reasons behind this discrepancy, far as I can tell there's only a couple of possible explanations;

 

1. Europeans are, in general, more dedicated to Trophy hunting than North Americans

2. The ratio of Trophy hunters to normies is higher in EU than in NA

3. More NA normies/fewer EU normies are tracked on the leaderboards, skewing the percentage

4. More EU hunters/fewer NA hunters are tracked on the leaderboards, skewing the percentage

5. A combination of some or all of the above

 

I absolutely don't want to poke a beehive or have this thread to turn into some stupid e-peen measuring contest between both regions, and I'd like to pre-emptively lambast anyone who tries otherwise. What I do want, however, is to hear your thoughts on the matter and possible explanations for this curious phenomenon. Far as I can tell, there is no difference between American and European Trophy enthusiasts which is why I'm so curious to see this difference in percentages analyzed.

 

Want to compare other games in terms of regional completion and see whether my appraisal of the phenomenon is correct? Check out this thread for all region stacks.

 

Edited February 25, 2020 by Golem25

[Han_the_Dragon]

Those aren't really that extreme (as I have pointed out in the past, Redout is an Ultra Rare on US and Rare on EU..). 

 

Anyway, all the points you named are valid, but there are 3 other points that are likely as valid. 

 

1 - US versions get released earlier, so some EU players may buy them with the previous knowledge of how hard they are. 

 

2 - A LOT of non-US people have US account to buy games from the US psn store and tests games (me included), so, it influences the achivers ratio. 

 

3 - EU players may be less likely to mass buy games and play them for short amount of time (I do doubt there's that big of a difference). 

 

Said all that, the points that I made would also shift the total owners in the favor of US, but it doesn't.. So, let's just assume that EU players are more committed to the games that they play then the US players, I guess.. 

[Taliesin_2943]

Alot of americans tend to buy region stacks so buy both American and eu versions this helping eu numbers

[Rias Gremory]

 

15 minutes ago, Golem25 said:

I keep seeing this on lots of games and I wonder why it happens; EU versions typically having a higher completion percentage than the NA versions. Some examples;

 

 

 

I'm sure some exceptions to the rule 'EU% > NA%' exist, but I can't think of any off the top of my head. If considered on a game-by-game basis you could argue the difference is usually within a reasonable margin of error, but I find it remarkable that the EU versions almost always come out with a higher average. The number of owners is usually comparable as well, but even when these don't overlap nicely, the same trend is visible; for instance, American Fugitive (great game, great Plat; get it!) has way fewer and Skylanders quite a few more owners in NA compared to EU, but the percentage on both NA versions is lower than on the EU ones.

 

As for the reasons behind this discrepancy, far as I can tell there's only a couple of possible explanations;

 

1. Europeans are, in general, more dedicated to Trophy hunting than North Americans

2. The ratio of Trophy hunters to normies is higher in EU than in NA

3. More NA normies/fewer EU normies are tracked on the leaderboards, skewing the percentage

4. More EU hunters/fewer NA hunters are tracked on the leaderboards, skewing the percentage

5. A combination of some or all of the above

 

I absolutely don't want to poke a beehive or have this thread to turn into some stupid e-peen measuring contest between both regions, and I'd like to pre-emptively lambast anyone who tries otherwise. What I do want, however, is to hear your thoughts on the matter and possible explanations for this curious phenomenon. Far as I can tell, there is no difference between American and European Trophy enthusiasts which is why I'm so curious to see this difference in percentages analyzed.

 

Want to compare other games in terms of regional completion and see whether my appraisal of the phenomenon is correct? Check out this thread for all region stacks.

 

What's wrong with stacking trophies with the same games? I don't see a problem here lol.

[You]

6. Americans just suck more at games!

 

Just kidding.

[scemopagliaccioh]

It kind of piss me off, I bought Hollow Knight EU Version  and the plat there is only a very rare, demotivating me a bit to undergo that monumental amount of work.

[You]

8 minutes ago, scemopagliaccioh said:

It kind of piss me off, I bought Hollow Knight EU Version  and the plat there is only a very rare, demotivating me a bit to undergo that monumental amount of work.

 

lol I feel your pain. One of the harder platinums I ever achieved was on Bloodborne, I found that game so hard, and yet, it's like 20% rarity. As rare as an easy game.

Edited February 25, 2020 by enaysoft

[DaivRules]

There is nowhere near enough data collected to do anything but make huge generalizations about these “numbers”.

 

[BeautifulTorment]

To add an extra layer, Asian stacks are almost always higher than EU and NA.

[Golem25]

1 minute ago, BeautifulTorment said:

To add an extra layer, Asian stacks are almost always higher than EU and NA.

That might be the stacking mentioned by @Han_the_Dragon and @Taliesin_2943 taken to the extreme - massive perseverance, but I know I'd do it for select games I really love.

[Han_the_Dragon]

1 hour ago, Golem25 said:

That might be the stacking mentioned by @Han_the_Dragon and @Taliesin_2943 taken to the extreme - massive perseverance, but I know I'd do it for select games I really love.

Nope, that's not just the stacking mentality.

 

I didn't mentioned those, nor the Japanese ones because as @DaivRules pointed out, there's not enough numbers for a statistically relevant sample. And that's specially true for the Japanese and Asian stacks, that people play only for trophies.

 

You need to remember that probably 90% of the tracked accounts here are from US and EU region, and people from those regions almost only play games from other regions to stack, or because they are easy plats. 

 

This makes the numbers quite biased towards some regions. 

 

Technically the more accurate numbers are the ones from Sony rarity, but then, those are tainted by hackers, so aren't accurate too, but probably are more accurate if all that you want to generalise is the average person gaming habits on each area (kind of, players stacking does make this go out of the window..). 

 

Edit:

Just for fun, I decided to check Redout PSN rarity.. 

 

It turns out that:

US: 0.1%

JPN: 0.2%

EU: 1.1%

 

On PSNProfiles it's:

US: 4.29%

JPN: 5.58%

EU: 12.30%

 

Definitely something's going on there... Still funny at my eyes ? 

 

Obviously this is just 1 game of a genre that I actually assume EU has a way bigger following than other places (I think racing games along soccer/football are always more popular here, kind of like NBA, Baseball and stuff being more popular in the US). 

Edited February 25, 2020 by Han_the_Dragon

[Helyx]

3 hours ago, Han_the_Dragon said:

A LOT of non-US people have US account to buy games from the US psn store and tests games

 

This is probably the main reason.

[starcrunch061]

6 hours ago, Golem25 said:

1. Europeans are, in general, more dedicated to Trophy hunting than North Americans

2. The ratio of Trophy hunters to normies is higher in EU than in NA

3. More NA normies/fewer EU normies are tracked on the leaderboards, skewing the percentage

4. More EU hunters/fewer NA hunters are tracked on the leaderboards, skewing the percentage

5. A combination of some or all of the above

 

Maybe there are just a bunch more cheaters in Europe? Maybe the fact that Americans eat more dry roasted peanuts than Europeans contributes as well?

[Golem25]

49 minutes ago, starcrunch061 said:

 

Maybe there are just a bunch more cheaters in Europe? Maybe the fact that Americans eat more dry roasted peanuts than Europeans contributes as well?

Or some of them are too busy making needlessly smarmy posts online.

[awf9495]

It would be interesting to see actual numbers and if there are noticeable patterns, but that would require pulling stats on so many more games. A more meaningful comparison would be to compare percentages on the biggest sellers where regional bias is somewhat mitigated (so probably just eliminate sports games in general).  Your sample games are odd picks for trying to discern any kind of pattern.

[starcrunch061]

7 hours ago, Golem25 said:

Or some of them are too busy making needlessly smarmy posts online.

 

Now, now. Smarmy posts are never needless. And they are further required when people attach tortured narratives to extremely limited raw data the way the OP has.

Edited February 26, 2020 by starcrunch061