 |
| |
|
| |
|
|
Alex
|
 |
Brasil
Mar 1999
time: 02:25
|
|
quote:
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. 
|
|
| |
|
| |
|
|
|
Cesa
|
 |
Kumla, Sweden
Nov 2001
time: 06:25
|
|
quote:
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.
Last edited by Cesa on 18-01-2003 at 15:04
|
|
| |
|
| |
|
|
|
The Viceroy
|
 |
tu mumbai se, mai Bombay se
Nov 2000
time: 05:25
|
|
Why would having one version make it longer to produce a patch, some people have to wait months and months before they get a patch (after the patch has been released for the US version) .. however, I can't see how fixing a bug in one version can be any different to fixing the same bug in another version, unless Firaxis are very very dumb, and have different designs for each, only Language dependant fixes would add time, and they need to be done anyway.
So I have to agree with your first analysis "Its ideal", but disagree with your belief it will take longer to patch.
Anyway, Firaxis don't tell you when they are releasing things anyway, so it will hardly matter.
|
|
| |
|
|
|
panag
|
 |
MY WORDS ARE BACKED WITH BIO-CHEMICAL WEAPONS
Oct 2000
time: 07:25
|
|
quote:
Originally posted by UberKruX
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. |
hi ,
well US english should have been the only version , it would have saved loads of time and money that could have been used towards developing other aspects of the game (!)
an instruction book in english and the local market language , yes that would have been possible , but as for the rest , one hundred percent of english
and if they would have kept it like that , there would have been almost no software conflicts , ....
have a nice day
|
|
| |
|
| |
|
|
|
Alex
|
|
Brasil
Mar 1999
time: 02:25
|
|
quote:
Originally posted by The Viceroy
Why would having one version make it longer to produce a patch, some people have to wait months and months before they get a patch (after the patch has been released for the US version) .. however, I can't see how fixing a bug in one version can be any different to fixing the same bug in another version, unless Firaxis are very very dumb, and have different designs for each, only Language dependant fixes would add time, and they need to be done anyway.
|
Suppose that a number of languages is available to the player when he/she is installing the game. I install the Portuguese version, you install the English version and Bush installs the Korean version. Then Firaxis needs to produce a patch for the game... they cannot produce a patch only for the English version, because there were 7 different languages available to the player out of the box. IIRC, the first patch for Civ3 appeared three weeks after the game was released. Now imagine how long it could have taken to be released if they had to translate the patch to seven different languages. "oh, but these are minor changes", you say... the problem is that these so-called minor changes would still have to be made, and more money would have to be spent doing it (after all, you don't expect the Korean translator to be working for free, do you?). More money = less chance of getting more patches.
quote:
The publisher should definitely proofread the translation work. |
Guess what? Recently Brazilian Civ3 fans released their translation for Civ3, and before doing this they submitted the files to Infogrames Brazil. The company authorized them to release the translation, and it sucks. Large chunks of text were not translated, units names were not translated, some sentences were in the wrong order, some things were simply wrong and a lot of things were missing. I applaud their effort (after all, their aim was to improve a game that they love, without official support), but Infogrames could never have approved the files that were submitted to them.
|
|
| |
|
| |
|
|
|
The Viceroy
|
|
tu mumbai se, mai Bombay se
Nov 2000
time: 05:25
|
|
Alexnm, no you misunderstood me, There was still only 1 version of code, but several languages catered for , not at install time, at runtime !!! (I am divorcing the code and Languages for the very purpose of making it easy to patch)
We all install the same version, however, we all get to pick what language we would like to see Civ in.
So it would not take any more time producing a patch for this, than it would any version, unless (as I stated) it involved changes to the language files themselves, but that work needs to be complete anyway.
|
|
| |
All times are GMT. The time now is 05:25.
Apolyton Time is 00:25. |
top of page
|
| archivepost |
|
Forum Rules:
You may not post new threads
You may not post replies
You may not post attachments
You may not edit your posts
|
HTML code is ON
vB code is ON
Smilies are ON
[IMG] code is ON
|
|
|
|
|
|
17-01-2003 09:48
), 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.
I'm in Korea and we can only get localised versions here. Publishers such as EA cater for choices among different languages when installing the game, but PTW only had Korean as the language. The translation is awful. Different words are used in the game from the printed manual. The publisher should definitely proofread the translation work.
|