No translation no party
I bought tales of monkey island just for this guys. http://www.tomiinitaliano.tk/
I wanna know if you continue to release your game only in English. I want to buy back to the future, but no Italian subtitles, no party.
I wanna know if you continue to release your game only in English. I want to buy back to the future, but no Italian subtitles, no party.
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Darros, with each and every Telltale game announced, this comes up in the forums, some kind of translation "blackmail". People seem to think it's easy and cheap to get these games translated (and a good translation at that!). Working for a translation agency, I assure you it is neither, and I am sick of non-professional translators in these forums thinking that they could even do that themselves. For Telltale, the only possible way is to set up cooperations with other gaming firms in the target countries for retail release there, and that_just_takes_time.
I know what the problem is, this is the reason why most of the companies have a partnership with a publisher who made the translation. I know it is difficult to do translation, ok, but in this way many customers are cut off
edit:Ok, let me fix that. Telltale is a self publishing company for the most part. When they want to translate it into another language, they have to go out to an agency to do this. THIS IS VERY EXPENSIVE. Sometimes there are deals that are made with publishers for, say, the Wii releases of Sam and Max season 2. They may decide that they want to translate the game so they will. This has very little to do with the game company itself, so take it up with them.
This is, at least, the impressions that I get. I am by no means in the business, so I don't know for certain. But these are the scraps I hear from people who are in the business.
So, a lot of REALLY small companies can do what Telltales can't do?I don't think so.
except, you know, all those games were released specifically for a eu audience instead of an american audience first. and all those translations took time.
Making a game based off one of the most successful franchise worldwide and expecting it to be translated is NOT a bit too demanding.
Huge licence = Huge Work. Otherwise it's not even worth it.
I'm fluent in english so I don't EXACTLY care but, I have to admit these movies are my childhood. And just like with Disney, I'm always gonna love the french version of those movies.
I would really love a french version, so do the germans, the italians, the spanish etc...
I think with such a huge licence, we deserve that.
Moreover, don't expect foreign people to buy the game now, since most of them don't even speak english, or don't have the proper english required to fully enjoy an adventure game.
this!
Wait huh? What franchise is this?
Also, who says they aren't putting everything into this?
You're still missing the point that Telltale is a company that gears towards American audiences. The fact that there are international players does not change this fact.
Even subtitles take a lot of work. Especially for a product filled with so much humor. You guys severely underestimate how expensive this would be for the company. It doesn't matter what license they're working with, they're still only able to work by their means. And since Americans are the target audience and translation (by any means) is expensive, localization to other countries would either take a while or not happen. This is totally reasonable.
Also, don't go around saying you DESERVE this. It makes you look like an ass.
It's a great opportunity to learn while playing. That's how I learned my English. Games, movies, internet etc... Only rough basics from school.
im pretty sure the germans will get one. at november 9th, we get a german tomi, made by daeadalic entertainment. isnt that great? oh, and i forgot, we also have the two bones in german and sam&max season 1 + 2.
i love germany.
Well done, selfish guy.
What about the others ? You learned english while playing ? That's amazing, good for you. That doesn't mean everybody is able to do so.
Don't get me wrong, I also learned everything by myself. But we are not alone.
I mean, I know so many people who get frustrated because they don't understand what's going on or what they have to do, you can't blame them for that... Not everybody is good with foreign languages.
Just because it's easy for you, me, and many others, doesn't mean anybody can do it. (If it was that simple, I think there wouldn't be that much people who suck at english ...)
Then, for Giant Tope, we're talking about Back to the Future.
If Telltales isn't able to do anything for "people that aren't american" well then expect a lot of complaints. Universal should have never picked them up.
A series that has millions of fans everywhere, obviously those fans, with the internet, will know about it. Wouldn't you be disappointed if you learned that you couldn't play it because you don't matter for those people ?
It's expensive ? Sure it is, but obviously with such a huge licence, they're probably gonna sell a lot of them. And they won't sell much of them outside of America is there is no translation (and let's not talk about subtitles since I think this game needs voices for each version).
BTTF is the childhood of so many people, you can't just expect them to think "ok, I'm not American, I can just go screw myself, no problem ^^".
I really hope Universal will help them with the localisation process.
But there's no way Europeans, and Asia, should just get screwed over.
And when you put everything into a game, you're not thinking "wow this can only work in America", you're actually trying to get it out everywhere ...
We REALLY don't know yet!
...and Season 2 had the most desastrous dubbing EVER. It's not all well...
cool bro. you keep missing the point that telltale is aiming for an american audience first. also translation is expensive. it's like complaining that a butcher isolates his vegetarian market because he doesn't sell vegetarian options. he may have the means to do veggie substitutes, but that doesn't change the fact that meat comes first.
The problem here is that they don't make an original game, they're using a licence that everybody in the world grew up with...
Excuse us to think the impossible, that they could actually do something for the millions of people that aren't their "primary audience" ...
Most vegetarians grew up with meat. Just sayin'. You're being ridiculous. Would I like Telltale to translate their game to every language ever? Yeah. That would be really nice. Is it practical or easily viable? Hell no.
Here is one thing to think about: there are hundreds of languages in the world; should Telltale have the game translated into all of them or are any of them more important than others? And if so, what criteria should Telltale use to determine the importance of a language? Should Portuguese-speaking people have to play the game in English because more people in the world speak French or Spanish than Portuguese?
Since Daedalic Entertainment is releasing the German version of TOMI, wouldn't it be more productive to contact them and show them your interest in seeing them get the rights for a German translation of Back to the Future from Telltale?
And since Telltale gave the rights for the German version of TOMI to Daedalic, it's probably not too far-fetched to imagine that they would be willing to give out similar rights (for TOMI and/or other games) if (serious) companies in other countries showed interest in releasing translated versions of the games in their country.
Telltale has never spoken outright against having their games translated and if there ever was a game that would warrant translations because of its huge international fanbase, it's Back to the Future, but Telltale does not have the budget of LucasArts (for example) and can probably not afford to translate the game themselves, no matter how positively their sales would be affected.
As has been mentioned before (and repeatedly) in this thread, translations cost a lot of money and Telltale is, after all, an American company whose primary market is the American one.
So, start writing to the Daedalics of the world and let them know that a translated version of Back to the Future: The Game would be a huge success in your country (if done right
Indeed they did. Fact is, they don't want the meat while BTTF fans do want the game so, then again, your exemple is lame.
You're being a pain in the ass.
Cauz Games being translated into several languages is a thing YOU NEVER SEE right ? Pfff ... And we're not even talking about huge games...
Name a single game based off a movie that wasn't translated... None (or the movie was really crappy).
Guess that with such a successfull movie, people would understand that some translations are expected.
It has millions of fans for God's sake. If the game is good there's no reason not to do it. TellTales might be "small" (it got bigger though) it's far from being some kind of "indie dev"...
I'm not saying it doesn't cost anything, nor that they should make them right away, but not expecting them at all ? Well then we're gonna fight my friend, I think it's stupid, that's it. Many people would buy a good game out of the movie they love, right ? Especially with all the lame movie adaptations we can see nowadays...
As for Mac Fly77, well, Spanish is pretty important, French has Canada and, well, France, Portugese has Portugal AND Brazil (so it's needed), then you got German, Italian...
I think the main europeans languages is a minimum.
That's why I'm concerned that it's not the case for ToMI and, seemingly, not for BTTF which is their biggest licence.
If you check Wikipedia's page for languages by total number of speakers (based on data from 1997), you will see that French (my native language, by the way) is only #13 for native speakers...
Doesn't that mean that the people who speak one of the first 12 languages are equally (if not more) deserving of a translation?
Back to the Future is a huge franchise and there is (IMHO) a 99.9 (and some more nines after that) % chance that the game will see translations in several other languages but there is an equally big chance that Telltale will not do the translation themselves and a translated version has a similarly big unlikelihood of being released at the same time as the English version.
In the not too distant future, after Telltale has made tons of money from the sales of Back to the Future and Jurassic Park, maybe they will be able to afford translations in every major language but in the meantime, I'm afraid that non-English speakers will have to rely on third-party companies for translated games.
But it wasn't available in each language as it was being released, was it? I believe the translations came later. Because translations take time, money, and energy, all things that a fairly small and independent company like Telltale only has so much of at a given time.
First the problem was that Telltales is a small company. Ok. When I say that a lot of games are translated(made by smaller companies than telltales), the NEW problem is that Telltales is an american company and they focus on Usa. Lol.
Finally, I'm sure Telltale will sell the localization rights to companies that consider it a profitable business. Telltale won't do the localization themselves because, as mentioned, it is a ridiculous burden to bear since they have everything else to do as well.
C'mon mods make a sticky info thread about the translations so we don't need to go through dozens of separate topics over and over again year after year...
Most important, this.
I remember back when they were published by GameTap and I couldn't play their games. Oh those days.
These are the advantages of internet distribution. I'd really love to see statistics one day!
You're going to "fight" someone because he "expects" something different to happen than you do? That's not very civilised, is it?
Given the popularity of the franchise, a full translation of the game in other languages has a high probability because of its profitability.
The less English they speak, the less probable it is that they turn up in this forum, don't you think?
One Russian who at least tries is crazy fan bttf, who tries to communicate in this forum despite rather low capabilities in the English language. If someone offered him a Russian version of the BTTF game, he wouldn't decline.
Yuosa point is well seen.
I think the point that matters is that it's doable but has not been one through all those years, not for the releases of the episodes and also not for the DVD version afterwards. Due to at least missing subtitles it's a lot less fun playing the games for instance together with your kids and i'm pretty sure it also would help adults to understand things more precisely either generally or at least in specific situations.
You can reach out for the pulitzer once you have it running at all but so far we got zero support for foreign countries which honestly is quite dissapointing considering the size of TTG, the history of adventure games and again that others are doing it.
How big do you think Telltale Games is?