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[JP]

For me, games are the same as films, I always want to keep the original voice acting with subtitles, it just makes far more sense to me. It also really helps to hide the terrible voice overs that many games seem top have.

 

[ash_ag]

Interesting results. I don't think there was any noteworthy doubt that a good number of people prefer playing games in their original form. As already mentioned, the fact that almost half of Japanese players will go with the dub if it's present is a much more interesting realization.

I personally tend to go with the original language, but that's not always the case. Games that offer an exceptionally good localization or language options that help with immersion often convince me to go with a localized version of the dialogue. Two examples would be:

• Remember Me: A game by a French developer, Japanese publisher, was promoted mostly via English channels. While the English option was default, I found the French dub to be superior in every way. It felt more natural and helped a lot with immersion. Incidentally, I don't speak French.
• Kingdom Hearts: Naturally, this is a Japanese game. However, opting for the voices Disney directly picked for each character often as way back as the original material itself is a very good idea. The original and Final Fantasy-based characters are also very well done.

As a non-native English speaker, I can also resonate with the point related to games helping with learning English. Video game text and audio both make an excellent source for practice. Any game can essentially become edutainment! (And that goes for learning other language too, of course.)

 

[Square2015]

Nobody likes their own language.

 

[petran79]

There's also the matter of most dubbed games that aren't called Final Fantasy not having the budget to get top-tier actors, because they can't afford to make their games union productions. That alone presents a great deal of segregation as far as what pool of actors of the companies can get, which as far as I can tell, doesn't exist in Japanese. Even companies like Compile Heart can get top-tier talent for their Japanese games.

One exception is eroge games and animation. There the actors are usually not known and they rather use pseudonyms.

 

[theprodigy]

I highly doubt it's the same over here, Japanese players know English way better than the other way around.

edit: wait this is totally a self-selected poll isn't it? worth about as much as Sanders "winning" the debate based on online polls then

 

[Lostconfused]

Nobody likes their own language.

Flaws are more obvious so it's easier to be criticize it and have a more negative opinion.

 

[Ratrat]

I highly doubt it's the same over here, Japanese players know English way better than the other way around.

Eh, Japan is terrible with English, in Asia especially.

 

[KTO]

Eh, Japan is terrible with English, in Asia especially.

Still way better than the average english speakers grasp on Japanese...
Also, speaking a language is a much different skill than reading and listening comprehension.

 

[Man God]

Everything animated is dubbed regardless of what language it is done in.

As long as you do a good job with the lip flaps there's really no difference presentation wise, which is why it comes down to the quality of the actors.

 

[Dragonslayer_023]

If you're watching anything dubbed, regardless of the original language or the dub language, you are fucking up.

 

[Philippo]

I always choose English when i can, it's head and shoulders above my language (italian) VOs.

 

[Trojita]

on the flip side, I don't know if I could play Disgaea 5 in Japanese. The English dub is soooooo good.

 

[Ratrat]

Still way better than the average english speakers grasp on Japanese...
Also speaking a language is a much different skill than reading and listening comprehension.

Its probably not 50% yeah. Though I think Japanese gamers play less western games than western gamers play Japanese games.

 

[SomedayTheFire]

subs are better but im lazy so dub life

 

[4Tran]

This looks more like a self-selected internet survey rather than a scientific one, so you shouldn't use it to draw larger conclusions about general Japanese gamer tastes. That said, it's not a surprising result: connoisseurs of a particular medium (e.g. foreign films) are likely to prefer it to be as close to the original as possible. While a redub can be good, it's still likely to miss out on bits of the original like word choice, cadence, pronunciation, and voice direction.

Personally, the only Japanese games I'd prefer to play in English are the Dynasty Warriors titles. And that's because the Japanese versions of the character names sound wrong.

 

[Inuhanyou]

Makes sense and consistent with how Niconico playthroughs usually are

 

[akira28]

a point. a point?

there's atleast a 3% margin of blah blah blah.

 

[Ratrat]

Makes sense and consistent with how Niconico playthroughs usually are

It might have to do with games being censored to hell and back and lack dual audio.

 

[Pizza]

That's cool, it's pretty much the same over here


I prefer some stuff with the original voice cast, I don't mind subtitles

 

[RedSwirl]

How is it with other countries? A while back I heard a pretty big proportion of people (or maybe just on GAF) playing AAA video games non-Anglosphere countries just listen to the English voices, even when there's a dub in their language. I wonder if it's just because a lot of those people are already pretty familiar with English from other media (including games that don't have foreign dubs) or are trying to improve their English.

 

[kswiston]

I would imagine that a much larger percentage of Japanese people have some rudimentary understanding of English than vice versa. People here are kidding themselves if they believe that anywhere close to 50% of US gamers are playing localized Japanese games with the Japanese voices. I doubt it is even that high for some of the stuff that NISA pushes out that does like 20-30k LTD sales, and that would include your entire target audience of people who prefer the original voices in games.

 

[Hastati]

I would imagine that a much larger percentage of Japanese people have some rudimentary understanding of English than vice versa. People here are kidding themselves if they believe that anywhere close to 50% of US gamers are playing localized Japanese games with the Japanese voices. I doubt it is even that high for some of the stuff that NISA pushes out that does like 20-30k LTD sales, and that would include your entire target audience of people who prefer the original voices in games.

It would be interesting to see some real numbers on the US side. Like, how many people who don't understand Japanese still watch anime in Japanese, etc.

As for Japan, my gut feeling is that there isn't much comprehension of english dialogue among the vast majority of players either. I think it's a very similar line of reasoning in either country, of a language other than your mother tongue sounding "cool," especially if you don't know how to speak it. Which is fine, it's nice that people are interested in other languages.

 

[Giever]

Western cartoons gave him a receding hairline, an extra foot of hair, acne, and, and scraggle face hair in under two months?

Shits potent.

Well, this is a stupid thing to bother clarifying, but I feel compelled: the comic actually says six months.

 

[Parakeetman]

GameSpark did a survey asking which voices between Japanese and English will you pick when Western games getting localized.

Results:
Japanese Voices - 49.51%
English Voices (Original) - 50.49%

Reasons for choosing Japanese voices:
-"Can't concentrate on playing the game when you need to read the subtitles."
-"Easier to understand when it's in Japanese voices."

Reasons for choosing English voices:
-"It's more fun to enjoy the game in original atmosphere."
-"It also helps my English study."

fucking lol 511 people hardly is a representation of "Japanese Players"

 

[Kamina777]

Ha ha it's funny but it almost never happens in that directon. The reasons are a can of worms I won't open.

 

[kswiston]

It would be interesting to see some real numbers on the US side. Like, how many people who don't understand Japanese still watch anime in Japanese, etc.

As for Japan, my gut feeling is that there isn't much comprehension of english dialogue among the vast majority of players either. I think it's a very similar line of reasoning in either country, of a language other than your mother tongue sounding "cool," especially if you don't know how to speak it. Which is fine, it's nice that people are interested in other languages.

The US is particularly apathetic to foreign language media (and the reading of subtitles) though. Look at the state of Foreign films here vs elsewhere in the world. Ditto with foreign language music. I doubt games are different.

 

[Majukun]

it's the same everywhere, original. dub is always better because all the others go through adaptation and something, either in meaning or interpretation

 

[SpacePirate Ridley]

They are BOTH the originals because the Developers themselves created the game with each voice in mind and it wasn't a localization team that got some voice workers to come dub the game. Not sure about the books, but as for the game, it was designed for both languages and so it received full care to be worthy in both languages.

So you are telling me there can be TWO different languages being good then.
As there can be a good voice director of another language out there that can make a good dub (even talking with the devs to make the dub).

You are basically telling me what I said, there no "original" voices for cartoons and games becuase they are ficitonal characters and there could be a various languages where the dub sounds great if taking care of.
Thats what sadly some of the thread are trying to deny.

Let the player/viewer choose what they want to hear, so if theres more than 1 voice work in a media, make the option for them, thats my stance in all of this.

it's the same everywhere, original. dub is always better because all the others go through adaptation and something, either in meaning or interpretation

That also happens with subs, only even worse (because you cant explain it in a short amount of time), you know that no?

 

[Aeana]

For me, games are the same as films, I always want to keep the original voice acting with subtitles, it just makes far more sense to me. It also really helps to hide the terrible voice overs that many games seem top have.

There's people in this thread doing meta commentary about people who feel differently, but this right here is the main reason for people getting kinda irritated in these threads. It's fine to have a preference, and prefer the original language and whatnot, but the bolded is just not correct. We aren't in the 90s anymore, and the majority of English dubs are pretty good now.

 

[oti]

They just like to hear the superior dub in a superior language with a culture far superior to their own.

 

[Holundrian]

Doesn't surprise me one bit. Only on the internet people are dumb enough to yell weeaboo, it's actually baffling.

Whereas I never encountered anyone in real life that didn't understand the sentiment of preferring the original, even people that don't like reading subs/prefer their mother language had no trouble grasping this concept.

And yet people get so upset over me not supporting something when it doesn't have the original language.

 

[NekoFever]

The only thing I'm militant about not watching dubbed is live-action movies. Animation is dubbed either way so I don't feel like I'm mangling someone's performance, and full performance capture in games is not yet the standard, so that's usually the same.

If a game is set in Japan or features Japanese characters, that's different and I'd prefer the authentic experience.

 

[Steel]

I'm easily distracted by subtitles in any language.

Bad sound mixing in games makes me turn them on sometimes, but then I find myself staring at the text instead of the actions of the characters.

It's the same when playing/watching in anything in a foreign language, I end up focussing on the text way too much. So a dub is almost always my preference. It would have to be really bad to make me prefer subtitles.

Pretty much.

 

[Joeku]

Dubs have gotten so much better over the last decade or so when it comes to games, it's not even funny.

That said, I almost never trust the sound mixing in games so I always have subtitles on anyway. Far too often distant dialogue get buried in background noise. Only time I have the subtitles off is games about conversations because I want to pay attention to the faces, like LA Noire or Her Story.

I really wonder how this survey would look coming out of the US, and how many people would use dubs because they really can't deal with subtitles.

 

[Recall]

Xenoblade Chronicles and Dragons Dogma Dark Arisen have horrific english dubs. By playing them in Japanese any irritating things i simply dont know about (due to not knowing the language) cant bother me and I tend to absorb story better through text rather than listening anyway.

Yakuza and Shenmue in English wernt that great either. Japanese and subs are exactly that suits me.

 

[Mizerman]

I'm easily distracted by subtitles in any language.

Bad sound mixing in games makes me turn them on sometimes, but then I find myself staring at the text instead of the actions of the characters.

It's the same when playing/watching in anything in a foreign language, I end up focussing on the text way too much. So a dub is almost always my preference. It would have to be really bad to make me prefer subtitles.

This.

Barring a few exceptions, my preference will always be dub voices.

 

[Parakeetman]

One thing that is right, is when one has to put up with reading subtitles, you do take a lot of attention off of whats going on within said scene. Its the unfortunate price that comes with original voice track for visual media.

Though do agree with the general notion that by far its more enjoyable to view / play something in its original language. As if said "dub" is done poorly becomes more distracting than anything.

The use of a movie for example, would never imagine / want to watch "Hero" (Chinese film) in English. Hell even something like the French action / comedy series "Taxi" would be weird in English. As there just are some things you cant do with simply dubbing voices over the original actors.

It can be the same for games depending on the overall quality put in.

Though thank god for gaming shit is nowhere near the level of bad that it was in the early days when games started to include voice tracks and dubbing became a thing.

Oh yeah one thing with a reverse situation, granted it was developed in Japan but the majority of the characters were Western creations would be Kingdom Hearts. Though I suppose since they have had Japanese VAs set style already in place for said Disney Characters its not really a fair comparison, to a project where said localization team has to do everything from scratch. Still was impressed with like Donald and Goofy speaking in Japanese though lol. Mickey you can hear more commonly than those two.

 

[infinit777]

I prefer English in all my games, I don't like reading subs. Interesting to see the near even split, I read somewhere awhile back that a lot of people in Japan prefer English dub audio on anime. And that some will wait for English dubs before watching a anime

 

[wiibomb]

Well, to be honest, I don't like the JP VA of MGS at ALL.. the english VA is pretty superior at least that series.

Of course, that's just my opinion, but seems Japanese guys think kinda the same.

 

[PSqueak]

Personally i preffer to play the game with audio in a language i can understand, the voice work of the dub would have to be astoundingly bad for me to switch to japanese, otherwise im fine with English dub work.

But then again, English is not my native tongue either, so what's my stand on games dubbed to Spanish? yikes, most of the dubs are atrocious, but there are some seriously good ones, Gears of War, Borderlands and L4D have amazing spanish dubs (extra points for Gears having one for Latin America and one for Spain), while other games are atrocities that Would make Ted Woolsey cry, like, dear goodness! MKvsDC is the biggest clusterfuck i have seen in a localization from character names being translated or untranslated at random, to making Darkseid have a high pitched voice as if Superman just super punched him in the balls.

 

[charlequin]

I would imagine that a much larger percentage of Japanese people have some rudimentary understanding of English than vice versa. People here are kidding themselves if they believe that anywhere close to 50% of US gamers are playing localized Japanese games with the Japanese voices. I doubt it is even that high for some of the stuff that NISA pushes out that does like 20-30k LTD sales, and that would include your entire target audience of people who prefer the original voices in games.

Yep, there's a reason why even dedicated niche titles from XSEED, NISA, etc. have English voice acting even when they're aimed square at the Western-otaku market.

it's the same everywhere, original. dub is always better because all the others go through adaptation and something, either in meaning or interpretation

Unless someone's playing with Japanese voices and text (and I really wish a lot more games would offer this option) the idea that they're getting any kind of unfiltered original meaning is pretty silly -- all the meaning they're receiving in play is what's conveyed in the adapted, translated text. Wanting to experience works in their original form is admirable, but there's no shortcut -- if someone wants to do this, they have to actually learn the language.

That said, I almost never trust the sound mixing in games so I always have subtitles on anyway. Far too often distant dialogue get buried in background noise.

Yeah, for auditory reasons I basically can't play games or watch TV without subtitles -- so I actually have no problem enjoying a game with its only voice track in another language, and I do appreciate that games developed for multi-language often have better subtitle support than Western titles do.

 

[Recall]

It is a little odd how we individually can't enjoy the things we enjoy without having to justify every step.

Everyone is different and so as many options as possible the better.

 

[NinjamicWZ]

I watch things with subs if I'm going to be paying close attention to it the whole time. I watch with dubs if I'm going to be multitasking.

Games, I don't think I've ever bothered to switch to original Japanese voice acting, but games with only JPN VO and English subtitles are totally fine to me.

I watch/play everything in general, English or otherwise, with subs turned on just because I don't like things obscenely loud especially if the audio levels mean dialogue is barely audible compared to bombastic screaming and explosions.

Pink hair don't care.

 

[L Thammy]

Over 50%? That's almost 100%!

 

[Majukun]

Yep, there's a reason why even dedicated niche titles from XSEED, NISA, etc. have English voice acting even when they're aimed square at the Western-otaku market.



Unless someone's playing with Japanese voices and text (and I really wish a lot more games would offer this option) the idea that they're getting any kind of unfiltered original meaning is pretty silly -- all the meaning they're receiving in play is what's conveyed in the adapted, translated text. Wanting to experience works in their original form is admirable, but there's no shortcut -- if someone wants to do this, they have to actually learn the language.

That's exactly what I'm saying, if you know the language, it's better to go with the original dub.. of course that is not always possible.. but i suppose those Japanese players understand English
that being said, sometimes the original dub is able to better convey the personality of a character just thanks to the tone and interpretation of the original actor

 

[A Pretty Panda]

And almost .5% over 50% at that.

 

[foxuzamaki]

There's people in this thread doing meta commentary about people who feel differently, but this right here is the main reason for people getting kinda irritated in these threads. It's fine to have a preference, and prefer the original language and whatnot, but the bolded is just not correct. We aren't in the 90s anymore, and the majority of English dubs are pretty good now.

This this this this this this this this


Hell, even in the 90s you can get dubs like yu yu hakusho

 

[StoneFox]

How do they feel about Japanese games that never had Japanese voices to being with like Resident Evil?

 

[Hypron]

Not that different to german speakers, I've started consuming any media in the OV if possible since I was 15. I can't stand german dubs. It's gotten so bad it felt foreign reading the witcher books in german.

That's me too, except with French except of German.

I also enjoy listening to other languages; even disregarding quality, it'd be boring to listen to everything dubbed in one language.

 

[Sakura]

I also prefer Western games in English audio, there is a pretty clear difference in quality. For Japanese localisations of western games it feels like it is always the same dudes doing the dubs.

Well, to be honest, I don't like the JP VA of MGS at ALL.. the english VA is pretty superior at least that series.

Of course, that's just my opinion, but seems Japanese guys think kinda the same.

I'm not sure how MGS would apply there. They are talking about localised western games. I'm not even sure the Japanese release of MGS includes English audio. I didn't see an option in there for Ground Zero at least, unless I missed it.