Gaming Why Japan does not translate games?

[Tigran]

The thing is.. There is a very -very- easy way to handle this.

Make deals with Collages with Language and programming courses. Have the students translate the text, and the programming courses insert the text.

Then a have one or two people at the parent company check it for accuracy/bugs and release it online. No fancy dubbing, no shipping, no boxes, no pressing. And since it'd likely be partnered with schools, almost -no- cost to the parent company.

 

[RevPokemon]

The thing is.. There is a very -very- easy way to handle this.

Make deals with Collages with Language and programming courses. Have the students translate the text, and the programming courses insert the text.

Then a have one or two people at the parent company check it for accuracy/bugs and release it online. No fancy dubbing, no shipping, no boxes, no pressing. And since it'd likely be partnered with schools, almost -no- cost to the parent company.

Only issue is potential quality control

 

[Tigran]

Even then, if they wanted to it'd quiet frankly be easy to put a disclaimer, "This was translated at "Such and such school." We have confirmed that the game works, but we cannot garentee that there will not be glitches and bugs." or some crap like that. And even then, like I said, toss it a few interns to test.

It's not like we have a lot of quality control now anyways *cough MK X delete save Cough Arkahm Origins cough*

 

[VinsCool]

Even then, if they wanted to it'd quiet frankly be easy to put a disclaimer, "This was translated at "Such and such school." We have confirmed that the game works, but we cannot garentee that there will not be glitches and bugs." or some crap like that. And even then, like I said, toss it a few interns to test.

It's not like we have a lot of quality control now anyways *cough MK X delete save Cough Arkahm Origins cough*

Pretty much like fan translations, but legal. I would like this concept to exist for real

 

[RevPokemon]

Even then, if they wanted to it'd quiet frankly be easy to put a disclaimer, "This was translated at "Such and such school." We have confirmed that the game works, but we cannot garentee that there will not be glitches and bugs." or some crap like that. And even then, like I said, toss it a few interns to test.

It's not like we have a lot of quality control now anyways *cough MK X delete save Cough Arkahm Origins cough*

True I hear you but it'd be easier to contact indie/smaller tech companies to work on it imo

 

[Tigran]

But they have to pay the Indie's/smaller companies. They wouldn't have to pay the schools. A lot of the companies already have contracts with schools and such.

 

[Wowfunhappy]

The thing is.. There is a very -very- easy way to handle this.

Make deals with Collages with Language and programming courses. Have the students translate the text, and the programming courses insert the text.

Then a have one or two people at the parent company check it for accuracy/bugs and release it online. No fancy dubbing, no shipping, no boxes, no pressing. And since it'd likely be partnered with schools, almost -no- cost to the parent company.

First, schools probably wouldn't go for this. Colleges assign projects that are designed to cover as much ground as possible. In programming classes you learn specific systems / algorithms etc. In language classes you cover set types of grammar etc. If teachers were to assign more open-ended projects, they'd let students pick what they want to do ("Go translate anything you want of such and such length and style").

Furthermore, if you were a student, how would you feel to be used by a company in this way for no pay? Keep in mind that not all students are necessarily as enthusiastic about video games as you are.

Then there's the fact that companies are protective of their source code.


Straight translations don't really cost that much money anyway (localization and voice work do). It's more a matter of licensing + distribution. Even download-only titles need to be rated by the ESRB, cleared by lawyers, etc.

 

[SammyPoke]

Cause Johnny Test didn't go out with me in 8th grade. . .
No seriously I don't know why Japanese companies do this it's a idiotic marketing move, especially when they decide to localize a much less successful game compared to a game that did incredibly well in Japan. Such as the Digimon scenario mentioned in the first page. I can go on a rant about this. . . but maybe some other day . . .

 

[loco365]

The thing is.. There is a very -very- easy way to handle this.

Make deals with Collages with Language and programming courses. Have the students translate the text, and the programming courses insert the text.

Then a have one or two people at the parent company check it for accuracy/bugs and release it online. No fancy dubbing, no shipping, no boxes, no pressing. And since it'd likely be partnered with schools, almost -no- cost to the parent company.

The only real issue with that is NDAs. There's the potential for source code leaks, and whatnot, as well as leaks of development software and pre-release game data.

If anything, I'd really like to see The Legend of Legacy localized. I highly doubt that'll happen though.

 

[Arkansaw]

I wouldn't trust students to do something that even translation teams can have trouble with - people tend to underestimate the amount of work and costs involved. Also they are not in any position to enter business deals and take full responsibility like professionals. That's why companies engage professionals (including sceners in certain cases) to do the work, and before that, make sure the business case is sound (and it very often isn't, leaving the space open to sceners and piracy)