Language Version Fiasco: How Would you have done it?

[Inverse Icarus]

Do you think it's better for companies to attempt to make localized versions of games for europeans, or would you be happy with an english copy?

also, since apolytonians are farily well educated, please answer for yourself, and the general populous of your area.

[ChrisiusMaximus]

Yes Im English and even then there are many differences in the way we speak and spell so I would prefer an English version, and IMO the more languages you cater for the more sales you make.

[alva]

I absolute loathe localised versions, I never buy them!!
Don't really care if it's english or american though.

[vondrack]

Originally posted by alva
I absolute loathe localised versions, I never buy them!!
Don't really care if it's english or american though.

Exactly. As if you said it for me, alva.

However, as far as general populous... well, that's quite different. Localized versions sell significantly better. That's why most games are sold localized or partially localized (game in original, manual translated).

[Tiberius]

IMHO that 10 % (? could differ from country to country, but roughly I'd say 10% - 25%) of the population who speaks english well hates localized versions, as they are full of idiotic words and expressions, which normally one would never use to express something that everybody knows in its english form.

However, for the rest of people, those who don't know english that well, what can you do? Localize.

This is why localized versions sell better.

Working in IT support, I must say that I'd have liked if more software titles were localized. I'd have less to work
"What does this mean? What is this? What is this error? I don't understand this message...
I've got an email I don't understand. What does "delivery failure" mean?
How can I print? Oh, click here where it says PRINT?"


Countries with high rates of software piracy are ironically luckier: since the companies sell less sw, they are tempted to not localize.

[Alex]

Originally posted by Tiberius

Countries with high rates of software piracy are ironically luckier: since the companies sell less sw, they are tempted to not localize.

And that is precisely the reason why Civ3 was not localized here in Brazil. Back in the days when piracy was not a concern, the companies still made an effort to fully translate a game... I still have my Portuguese version of Civ II. Sometimes the Portuguese versions were extremely well done (Grim Fandango, for instance, which was entirely dubbed into Portuguese, with excellent results! )

But... usually these localized versions are inferior to the original ones. I'm glad that they did not try to translate Civ3 into Portuguese... part of the humor in the texts would be lost, such as the Beatles reference ("You say you want a revolution?") and the classic "All your base are belong to us" line.

But then, not having a Portuguese version surely put off some players. In a brazilian forum about Civ3, one of the posters mentioned that he used to play CivII with his brother, but when he (the brother) found out that Civ3 was entirely in English, he pretty much lost interest in the game.

I never thought I would say this, but I have to agree with Infograme$ on one thing: with the high levels of software piracy here in Brazil, I'd not spend time and resources to localize a game that will be highly pirated.

[alva]

such as the Beatles reference ("You say you want a revolution?") and the classic "All your base are belong to us" line.

This is a very good example, transltors don't always get the joke/reference. So they will translate in to something completely different.(to be honest, it's not that easy either).
Besides if they translate it, it's most often in dutch(not flemsh), wich is * shuders *

[Datajack Franit]

I CAN'T play PTW as stupid italians didn't import the english version after releasing civIII in that language

[piratebrun]

and the classic "All your base are belong to us" line.

Where?!!? Too funny, but I haven't seen THAT one yet...

[Cesa]

Originally posted by vondrack

Exactly. As if you said it for me, alva.

However, as far as general populous... well, that's quite different. Localized versions sell significantly better. That's why most games are sold localized or partially localized (game in original, manual translated).

Not in Sweden, the only recent PC game I can think of that was translated is Black & White, and that didn't sell any better than most new games. In fact, so many people were complaining about the swedish dubbing that they had to put out a patch to change all text and speech back to english!

Almost no games are translated to swedish, and they wouldn't gain anything in doing so. In the B&W case, the possible profits by releasing it in swedish was probably lost to the cost of making the "back-to-english"-patch...

But then we never dub movies or TV-shows at all (except for cartoons), we use subtitles instead, so we are used to having the "original", be it a movie or a computer game.

This assumption may be wrong, but isn't it so that the contries that dub movies and TV-shows more often translate PC games aswell?


Edit: Oh, The Sims was translated aswell, and I actually haven't heard any complaints about that...it's hard to tell whether it helped sales or not though.

[vondrack]

Originally posted by Cesa
But then we never dub movies or TV-shows at all (except for cartoons), we use subtitles instead, so we are used to having the "original", be it a movie or a computer game.

This assumption may be wrong, but isn't it so that the contries that dub movies and TV-shows more often translate PC games aswell?

Good point. Even though movies are usually dubbed only for the VHS (and to a lesser degree, DVD) releases and subtitled in movie theatres, there is a very strong dubbing tradition in the Czech Republic. Almost everything on the TV is dubbed...

I can imagine that dubbing/localizing games helps little in Sweden - that must be related to the fact that almost everybody speaks English there (correct?). It will take quite some time before we catch up in this regard...

[Cesa]

Originally posted by vondrack

Good point. Even though movies are usually dubbed only for the VHS (and to a lesser degree, DVD) releases and subtitled in movie theatres, there is a very strong dubbing tradition in the Czech Republic. Almost everything on the TV is dubbed...

I can imagine that dubbing/localizing games helps little in Sweden - that must be related to the fact that almost everybody speaks English there (correct?). It will take quite some time before we catch up in this regard...

"Everyone" (more or less) in the younger generation(s) speaks english, and since it's mostly young people who play computer games, there is little need for translation.

When I think about it the localisation probably helped The Sims, since a lot of kids play it. But I really don't think it helped B&W at all.

The reasons that we speak english pretty good in Sweden are that we begin reading english in first grade (yep, at the same time we start to learn how to write and read... ) and that we don't dub movies.

[alva]

Don't forget that we are smaller countries too (Sweden included ), so that it takes a rather high investment to translate/dub it for a relative low yield compared to countries such as France or Italy.

Here too, just about everyone speaks english...

[Alex]

Originally posted by piratebrun


Where?!!? Too funny, but I haven't seen THAT one yet...

Tokugawa likes to say that when he's pissed off.

[The Viceroy]

Localisation is great, as long as its the same damn compile of the game ! There's nothing more dumb than to have to support several different versions, when all you needed to do was include the language files/data with a single version. It then allows local people to improve upon your own dire ability to translate, and these files could easily be hosted elsewhere for download.. Having a European version, and a US version with different CD protection etc is just daft, and has caused no ends of problems.

There should be 1 CIV3/PTW version for the world, we should all get it at the same time(release date) and that version should have an option for what language/localisation you would like to play with..