Drakensang - Translation of Gone Gold Announcement

Off-Topic

Skaven, you can speak all 3 languages? Amazing, if so! I'm lucky to understand my own language, much less another :D

My Chinese has improved a lot this last year, but would I say I'm fluent..no. Not yet. Chinese uses 4 different tones when speaking and if you use the wrong tone with a word, it will change the whole meaning of the word. That is my biggest headache with trying to learn Chinese. I don't even want to tell you the horror about the chinese characters. I'm trying to learn (keyword is trying)spoken Chinese first and then moving on down to written maybe in a decade or so:)

That's the thing though, most Taiwanese know some basic English, some Japanese that their grandparents taught them, most are fluent in both Taiwanese and Traditional Chinese. But even though they only know some Japanese they'll play Wizardry (japanese Version) on the console or whatever the current console Japanese RPG that is released or English RPG released on the PC. They don't know enough to understand what exactly is going on, but still have a blast playing it.

I tried doing that when I first got here. I bought this cool looking RPG TB game that was only availble in Chinese and tried to play it. I ended up with a dictionary next to me and every three seconds trying to look up the next word in my dictionary. I did manage to play that game for awhile but I gave up on the conversations and just looked up the meaning of my skills, equipment and anything else that I needed to know to survive. It was fun for awhile but got boring because I had no idea why some NPC was yelling at me or what I was saying back at them ;P

It must be a cultural thing because my friends still have fun on games that I would of given up on if it wasn't in English. Say for example Planescape: Torment if that had been in Chinese forget about it. I wouldn't of gotten out of the crypt without getting frustrated and calling it quits.
 
Joined
Feb 3, 2007
Messages
5,347
Location
Taiwan
Better just make english only version in the first place so you dont need to make additional translations. It has a way bigger market anyways and it shouldnt be a problem since every german speaks english. ;)
Even if this has already been addressed, I think I see some fundamental misunderstanding here. Even if most Germans are technically able to speak English to some extent, they don't expect to have to use it. The big European countries are not subjected to English like the smaller ones (smaller as far as population is concerned). In Germany, all Hollywood films are shown in German. Even the tiniest US TV series will be shown fully dubbed. Original English programs are a tiny niche for a negligible midnight crowd.

I know a few friends who will buy original English versions of games because they don't like the often horrible translations into German. Most of my friends wouldn't buy an English language version under any circumstances, though. They demand a German version, or it's a lost sale.

There is an additional legal problem for English language games: They will not get an age clearance, which means they will automatically be rated for 18 years and older. Shops won't be able to sell them without age verification, which automatically means that English language games are hard to find in shops. Most shops won't bother with stocking them.
 
Joined
Mar 28, 2008
Messages
804
Location
Austria
Turjan explains things fairly good.

All in all, it's about different cultures.

English-language versions are not that easy to get. Some shops have them, of course, but the majority doesn't I got the impression.

I once asked at EBGames, they wouldn't import *any* games, not even Puzzle Quest. ;)
The Saturn electronics chain - one of the biggest retailers here - doesn't import, too.
And I almost assume that most other electronics chains don't as well.
 
Joined
Nov 5, 2006
Messages
21,908
Location
Old Europe
Back
Top Bottom