Hello!
While not directly interested in a translation for my language myself (I believe I'm doing well enough in English), it would clearly be a great thing as it would allow to have different communities of players with different languages and groups organized around that (a bit like in EVE) - For example, I am confident that like, 3 out of 4 people in my country are completely unable to play such a game in English only.
I don't know what is the state of the German translation, but I know that this is a good thing, as Germans, I think, have the biggest PC gaming community in Europe.
But one language I think is essential for instance, because of the huge difference of its alphabet, while they have an ENORMOUS PC gaming community, is Russian.
Because of the enormous language differences (and cyrillic), a lot don't speak English, while they're... well, a goddamn lot.
Now, I know that, from a programmer's view, different languages, countries and communities are absolute HELL. (now I don't agree with the conclusion of that video at all. This is a lazy point of view, and excludes a LOT of people, especially in videogames, so you have people who would play but can't on one side, and the devs not getting money from them on the other. The most played games are translated in a LOT of languages, and they sure profit from it! Just like websites ... all the major ones are translated in at least all the major languages.)
I don't doubt that proper translation will come for the most important languages (and maybe some more?) but ... it has to be done properly.
Why? Because the ones that have bad translations, made in an attempt to earn more players by not spending anything and using online translators... just don't work. Sometimes they even get the opposite effect, they get *hated* by the community using that language.
I have a lot of catastrophic examples, but the most recent one I have covers all these problems, is actually ~
Our dear Star Citizen, which I really regret backing, because not only every new announcement the devs make would make Peter Molyneux say "Woah woah calm down with this bullpoop", not only because no progress is made and they give jukeboxes for the people who paid for some pdf files instead of fixing the broken flight model, but also now because they did some MAJOR errors.
1 - It's google translated.
Wondering what this all means? Me too!
This is basically a gigantic clustercopulation and I have no idea what any of it means.
Which now leads to the best point:
2 - The game chooses its language based on OS variables and this cannot be changed.
That's right, people are too dumb to figure out how to change a damn language, right? Let's force them to use "their" language we translated using google! There is no way to change that. Well done, you broke your game.
I have countless examples. X rebirth also had its great moments, with a ship literally translated into "flying ", "Pulsed laser" becoming "Maser pulsé" (turning English words into French adding "é" ... oh and what about maser instead of laser? Well on the French keyboard, you have L next to M. That's why. Yeah, typos in your HUD, constantly.)
Key things to do when making a translation:
- Pick people skilled at translating. Not people from your country but people who come from the country that uses the language you want to translate your game to. Why? Because it takes much more skill to write in said language than understanding the source.
- Keeping voices in English and text in the user's language, and having subtitles is not only a very valid thing, but also sometimes extremely appreciated. People tend to prefer the original voices and if they have trouble understanding them, the text is here for them. Normally the way to go is to have two languages options: one to pick the voice language and one to pick the text/subtitle language. Now that's a top tier solution.
- Translating is a human thing. Unless you have the intention of making an artificial intelligence, you will never, ever make a proper translator, period.
I am not saying it is a priority, but it would be neat to have some languages properly translated. It's actually better to do less, but with a good quality.
IMO the most important languages would be:
English (ofc), German, Russian, Spanish, French, quite possibly Chinese.
IDK about the rest but then I suppose Italian/Dutch would clearly be a good thing.
While not directly interested in a translation for my language myself (I believe I'm doing well enough in English), it would clearly be a great thing as it would allow to have different communities of players with different languages and groups organized around that (a bit like in EVE) - For example, I am confident that like, 3 out of 4 people in my country are completely unable to play such a game in English only.
I don't know what is the state of the German translation, but I know that this is a good thing, as Germans, I think, have the biggest PC gaming community in Europe.
But one language I think is essential for instance, because of the huge difference of its alphabet, while they have an ENORMOUS PC gaming community, is Russian.
Because of the enormous language differences (and cyrillic), a lot don't speak English, while they're... well, a goddamn lot.
Now, I know that, from a programmer's view, different languages, countries and communities are absolute HELL. (now I don't agree with the conclusion of that video at all. This is a lazy point of view, and excludes a LOT of people, especially in videogames, so you have people who would play but can't on one side, and the devs not getting money from them on the other. The most played games are translated in a LOT of languages, and they sure profit from it! Just like websites ... all the major ones are translated in at least all the major languages.)
I don't doubt that proper translation will come for the most important languages (and maybe some more?) but ... it has to be done properly.
Why? Because the ones that have bad translations, made in an attempt to earn more players by not spending anything and using online translators... just don't work. Sometimes they even get the opposite effect, they get *hated* by the community using that language.
I have a lot of catastrophic examples, but the most recent one I have covers all these problems, is actually ~
Our dear Star Citizen, which I really regret backing, because not only every new announcement the devs make would make Peter Molyneux say "Woah woah calm down with this bullpoop", not only because no progress is made and they give jukeboxes for the people who paid for some pdf files instead of fixing the broken flight model, but also now because they did some MAJOR errors.
1 - It's google translated.
This is basically a gigantic clustercopulation and I have no idea what any of it means.
Which now leads to the best point:
2 - The game chooses its language based on OS variables and this cannot be changed.
That's right, people are too dumb to figure out how to change a damn language, right? Let's force them to use "their" language we translated using google! There is no way to change that. Well done, you broke your game.
I have countless examples. X rebirth also had its great moments, with a ship literally translated into "flying ", "Pulsed laser" becoming "Maser pulsé" (turning English words into French adding "é" ... oh and what about maser instead of laser? Well on the French keyboard, you have L next to M. That's why. Yeah, typos in your HUD, constantly.)
Key things to do when making a translation:
- Pick people skilled at translating. Not people from your country but people who come from the country that uses the language you want to translate your game to. Why? Because it takes much more skill to write in said language than understanding the source.
- Keeping voices in English and text in the user's language, and having subtitles is not only a very valid thing, but also sometimes extremely appreciated. People tend to prefer the original voices and if they have trouble understanding them, the text is here for them. Normally the way to go is to have two languages options: one to pick the voice language and one to pick the text/subtitle language. Now that's a top tier solution.
- Translating is a human thing. Unless you have the intention of making an artificial intelligence, you will never, ever make a proper translator, period.
I am not saying it is a priority, but it would be neat to have some languages properly translated. It's actually better to do less, but with a good quality.
IMO the most important languages would be:
English (ofc), German, Russian, Spanish, French, quite possibly Chinese.
IDK about the rest but then I suppose Italian/Dutch would clearly be a good thing.
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