Why isn't there a wider variety of real life mythology?

[Forlorn Drifter]

In games, often, we see Greek mythology. Sure, lot's of games have their own created universe and lore, but when it comes to real life mythology, why don't we see a wider variety of it? Japanese mythology is somewhat more widely covered. We on occasion see Norse. But what about others? We never see Celtic, Gaelic, African etc. There's a lot of untapped potential here!!

A new XBLA title called Bloodforge is supposed to come out somewhat soon. It has elements of Celtic mythology, but I question how true it will stay.

What do you guys think?

[vlame]

comic books. in art class we learned that the greeks painted their statues and buildings bright colors.

[AznKhmerBoi]

I think it depends on the game developer and the demograph of people who are buying the games.

Japan have always try to hint and embed the Japanese culture/myth in their games for appreciation of the country.

As for Greek mythology, its more widely known than other mythology since it is studied world wide.

[Menegrothx]

The impact of christianity on the western world is a pretty major factor

[AmishSamurai]

I'd like a game based on Mesoamerican mythology with a level of thought beyond "they sacrificed hearts".

[MrPopo]

The average person on the street is only aware of Greek and Norse mythology, with a smattering of Egyptian, mostly around the afterlife beliefs. Add in the Japanese for all the Japanese devs. The purpose of utilizing an existing mythology is to impart recognizability, so if no one is aware of it you don't gain anything by using it.

[BananaXX]

I always wanted to see a game with the same gameplay mechanics of Silkroad Online but instead of being based on the Silk Road being based on ancient Aztec / Mayan / Incan and their respective mythology. Cocoa Road Online it would be called.

[BoringSupreez]

The mythology of important peoples is generally the only kind studied. Greece and Rome had extreme influence on the world, so we study their myths. Angola has never really mattered, so we don't care about their stuff. If an African or South American country became a major player in the world, I'm sure we'd start seeing more of their mythology.

[Yancakes]

Norse stuff winds up in games all the freaking time. There are a tonne of games about the norse gods, and even in Japanese game writers seem to have a pretty big boner for Norse mythology (hell, the FF series is rife with Norse mythological references- and come on, "Odin Sphere"?).

Beyond that, you only see references, very few games. Epona is the celtic god of...horses or something, I think it's a little more involved than that, but Epona is the name of Link's horse in OoT. Most of the time it's easier to name things after lesser-known mythologies than to come up with unique names, but realistically you're right.

I think what it comes down to is, basically, we know way, way, way more about Classical, Japanese, Norse and Christian mythology than anything else. A game based on what little we know of meso-American mythology would be cool, but so much of it would be conjecturalized fantasy due to the fact that we know almost nothing about it.

Sort of the deal with the Christians, the Bible says to spread the good word, so the good word gets spread causing the decimation of other cultures. Even non-Christians are so inundated throughout their lives with Judeo-Christian references that they, whether or not they realize it, are familiar with most of the mythological references involved. Familiar references make stories more understandable, characters more believable and plots more accessible.

EDIT: wow that was a very "train of thought" post

[Erik_Twice]

Also because videogame developers have inbred influences. Having a wide array of influences is totally neccesary for an artist but it seems that most games nowadays have other games as inspiration and nothing else.