Project Eternity - Update #8, Novella, Translations

In the latest Project Eternity update, Obsidian has announced a novella from Chris Avellone, new digital tiers and translations:

We are still going strong over here on Kickstarter and we wanted to thank everyone that has been here since the beginning as well as those of you who have come on recently to back us with your pledge. With such great support, we want to thank everyone with a new addition to the $50 and later tiers, a new $110 digital only tier, and a big change to our $2.2M stretch goal.
Oh, and what are we doing this week as to updates you might ask? Josh Sawyer, Tim Cain and Chris Avellone will be posting updates and videos all this week starting on Sep 26 with Josh, Sep 27 with Mr. Avellone and a great one from Tim over the weekend.
French, German, and Spanish Translations added at $2.2M
We are glad to announce that we will add text translations for French, German, and Spanish when we reach this goal. As we hit more of our stretch goals, we hope to be able to add even more languages as well!

More information.

It's sort of strange to see all the people complaining about translation. Some people just want "Moar Content".

Also, something now put in the update, but in the FAQ at the bottom. The Paypal option will go "online" on October 3rd.

it's the problem with kickstarter. You put the money 'in the pot'. So if the (how do they call it?) step reward of 2 million adds Linux support, and you only have Linux, you're putting your money hoping it'll reach 2 million. Would be better if there was some sort of 'sub-projects' where people put the money and count towards the pledge only if the sub-project reaches its own sub-funding, though that would make things probably more complicated.

Their contributions curve is starting to flatten out quite a bit. I guess they must be hoping for non-English contributions to the pie? Otherwise, if the project release is successful, I would think that foreign-language translations would just be a logical next step from a business perspective.

Personally I'd rather see a detailed hard-core mode as a stretch goal; something that makes replay more worthwhile.

In the DDO forums I've seen a few morons complaining that the game was constantly downloading splash screens/title screens for German and French languages 8these are the only languages DDO is translated int). The last idiot sounded like "get those freakin' foreigners outta my game !!!111!1"

I hate Swedish translations, especially when they are forced on you. This is one of the primary reasons I cannot take EA's "Origin" seriously.

Quality translations are a good thing to encourage because then we all get to enjoy those non-English CRPGs like Witcher and Drakensang. An international development base means more titles to choose from. So yes, many of those people slamming translations have a completely parochial attitude.

Personally I couldn't care less for translations, like Jemy I would never ever play a game in Swedish even if it was an option, to me that's only viable for childrens games. And I don't really see why the Germans, Spanish, French etc. want their games translated, I haven't met a German person who doesn't speak decent English. And if you can speak it decently, you can probably read it well.

Alrik, you're German right? Do you prefer games to be translated?

On the other hand, I'm very happy that we get alot of for example Russian games translated into English, so I can't blame people for wanting translations. To me it just feels like most people, especially those like us who like to sit in front of the computer a little to much, are competent enough in English to play in English.

If this leads to Project Eternity getting more pledges and in the end a higher budget, I'm all for it. Although I have to admit I was kinda of disappointed because they were talking about a BIG monday update.

Originally Posted by tomasp3n
And I don't really see why the Germans, Spanish, French etc. want their games translated

Well, I prefer to play games in english as well but that is a luxury I can afford since I speak english. Unfortunately, here in Spain, the average level of english is embarrassingly bad so a translation does make sense.

I have observed that those countries that do not dub movies nor tv series but instead have subtitles speak on average much better english.

I often say that they should introduce subtitles here and get rid of the dubbing so that the people would automatically learn better english but, putting it mildly, the majority seem to react unfavourably to such "radical" proposal.

Originally Posted by tomasp3n
I haven't met a German person who doesn't speak decent English

I was sent by my company to Germany (Munich) for several months and I was actually very disappointed in their level of english. (I am referring to the common people and not to the professionals at work). Much to my surprise, many Germans, even among the younger generation, didn't speak any english at all. I can only guess it is due to the fact that they dub the movies and tv. Considering my observation, a request for a German translation does not come as a surprise.

I'm still holding out for the Klingon translation.

One of the most frequent comment/criticism I read on the french-speaking Android market is "Well, this game seems nice and all, but I wish it was translated to french".

So yeah, I think the translations might be worth it.

It's nice to see more translations but people who backed it want more. People are asking for voice overs and audio in different languages also.

They don't understand that will mean less time and resources for game development. It's not free. This is not a publisher backed game given $10 million dollars.

Originally Posted by tomasp3n
Personally I couldn't care less for translations, like Jemy I would never ever play a game in Swedish even if it was an option, to me that's only viable for childrens games.

Me too. I know plenty of people who actually get pissed when they are denied the "original" or "true" English version of an artistic work. Assuming they want it translated insinuate that they are a child, uneducated or even unsophisticated. The opposite, that a person request a translated version is rare, unless we are speaking about an older person.

I would hope they made language selection up to the user rather than pre-determining it by region. I expect that should be the case for the GoG distribution at the very least. I do hope they spend the time between hinting at the big announcement was coming and posting it to get competitive bids on the translation.

After looking up the variability in costs for large translation projects (anywhere from $0.03 to $0.25 per word) I can certainly see why they might have taken a little extra time to nail down that price and shop around. Consider that that price range means that the 800,000 word script of Planescape torment would cost anywhere between $24,000 and $200,000 to translate into each language. Even at the low end and with a smaller script this is a non-trivial cost.

I hope they received a very good deal on the translation because it is unlikely that this announcement will see a big boost in pledges. Why is that? For one, I don't imagine those who see English as a barrier would be all that active in pledging to projects described entirely in English also on a website whose instructions and information is presented all in English. This might have been saved for a later stetch goal or perhaps each language could have been staggered as small parts of several stretch goals - the order of which could have been determined by survey. And perhaps if they really wanted to entice Spanish, French, and German speaking gamers to contribute - at least those who do not prefer untranslated works - they might have posted a very short kickstarter video in each language on youtube.

Translating into Spanish at least might well bring the game to a much larger market. It is important to remember that no other language has reached a level of native speakers beyond its country of origin to the extent that Spanish has (English is a close second) and the only language spoken natively by more people is Chinese. So when considering the Spanish speaking audience one must not just think Spain. Mexico for example is the 5th largest market for Xbox 360 games and has the 8th highest number of broadband internet subscribers; this is ahead of Spain in each respect. Still, I don't know if that means that Spanish translations of what is expected to be a very text heavy game inherently make sense at this point - let alone whether other languages do. Considering that Kickstarter is itself not exactly something that caters particularly well to non-English speakers, I am even less sure still.

I do think it the game should be offered in other languages besides English though, that such translations should be done as professionally and thoughtfully as is practicable, and that users rather than locale should be able to determine the language of their choice. I can't say for sure, without having a firm idea of the precise costs or the extent of interest among non-English speaking consumers who speak the languages mentioned, whether or not this will end up being a wise and cost effective stretch goal at this point. At the moment my feeling is that it probably will turn out not to have been - at least not for all three of those languages at once and not at this early point.

I hope that my doubts are proven wrong. To this end it would be helpful if the project and translation decision receives good coverage in German, Spanish, and French gaming news publications and websites - and the Spanish language outlets popular outside of just Spain. Either that or I hope the preference for the original untranslated version and indifference to the availability of translations is overrepresented on this forum.

Originally Posted by JemyM
Me too. I know plenty of people who actually get pissed when they are denied the "original" or "true" English version of an artistic work. Assuming they want it translated insinuate that they are a child, uneducated or even unsophisticated. The opposite, that a person request a translated version is rare, unless we are speaking about an older person.

I'm certain that nothing condescending is intended by it - at least nothing more condescending than assuming that the rest of the world market is at least partly as disinterested and ill-equipped to digest foreign-language products as the US market usually is. That's more ignorant and presumptive than actively condescending - not looking down on anyone so much as failing to see.

2,000,000 stretch goal reached. Everybody got an house now.

Chris Avellon's reaction. Language is probably PG-13+.

*now waiting for today's update*

Avellone seems to have a new hobby, painting graphs.

I think you've meant this one: https://twitter.com/ChrisAvellone/st…/photo/1/large

Originally Posted by Avantenor
Avellone seems to have a new hobby, painting graphs.

I think you've meant this one: https://twitter.com/ChrisAvellone/st…/photo/1/large

Oups! Corrected, thanks.

Originally Posted by JemyM
Me too. I know plenty of people who actually get pissed when they are denied the "original" or "true" English version of an artistic work. Assuming they want it translated insinuate that they are a child, uneducated or even unsophisticated. The opposite, that a person request a translated version is rare, unless we are speaking about an older person.

I'm a bit like that but I usually get disappointed, since the voice-overs are always worse and the lip-synch is always a bit off and jarring. This is even true of languages I do not speak. I much prefer the original audio with subtitles.

A recent example I have is the film Brave. In English they have authentic Scottish accents which of course is impossible to find an equivalent of in Swedish. It basically removes an integral part of the film.

Anyway, I think it is a really good idea with text translations. A quite easy way to expand the possible customer base since a lot of people really do struggle with English.

@jwishner: The game is covered by german news press, so there are definitely some more fans that would like to buy the game. There have been only two issues from the beginning: No localization and no Paypal. Everyone has to learn english in school, that's correct, but Fantasy english is a different beast than all-day or business english. And maybe you've heart about british advertises making fun of germans speaking english.

The next barrier is having to use a credit card for Kickstarter. Germans usually don't use credit cards we have a debit card system for daily shopping and bankwire for online shopping. Actually, no one needs to have a credit card to get along here, so there are many that simply don't have a credit card.

Paypal is coming October 3rd though. They want to finalize the reward tiers before opening it, because you can't manage your pledge like on Kickstarter.