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[MagiusNecros]

Oh my! 2 Million dollars! That almost pays for the marketing campaign that the publisher is going to pay

Do you have any idea how much professional Japanese translators make a year? We're talking 6 figure sums... then you have to factor in programmers who will have to do a lot of work making all of that translation fit. Then you have to pay for 5-10 professional voice actors to redub the audio. Then you have to pay 5-10 game testers to go through your game inside and out. Then you have to pay licensing fees to Microsoft/Sony/Nintendo. Then you have to pay for certification fees.

Not to mention that "4 million" you quoted will be MUCH less because RETAILERS have to take their cut, distribution has to take their cut, packaging takes a cut. Even if you cut the last two because of only digital you still have to pay extra to whatever online service you use (an upfront fee for even displaying it, plus a cut of every sale, plus some extra to get your game featured on the store itself).

This entire thread is just a bunch of people being willfully ignorant on how much money it takes to localize and sell a game.

Most would not know how complicated releasing a game and how much more hassle there is to localizing one. Not all gamers are experts on how business and economy works.

 

[GameCenterXDS]

Yes, and then thousands of fans bought them!
Which is why TLS didn't even remotely come close to charting, and Xenoblade may or may not have squeaked in if it was tracked (its preorder numbers hovered around Mario Party's at GS, and Mario Party is not exactly a game with heavy preorders or a demographic who does most of their shopping at Gamestop.)
I know it makes you feel warm and fuzzy to demand something and then get it, but Rainfall is a pretty solid message to publishers that even if you build it, they won't come.

Yeah because they were released way after their prime and when the whole weight of the company was no longer behind the Wii. Nintendo had already begun transition to Wii U and they were caught in this deadzone. Rather had Nintendo been confident from the start and released these games properly like Nintendo of Japan did it would have been way different. Also just embracing the games better and not building this negativity around it from the start would help a lot, along with full marketing campaigns and all the treatments a normal release gets.

I feel they are going to treat Bayonetta 2 with the respect it deserves and will be a big success for them but they are still continuing to be really fucking stupid like when they didn't show The Wonderful 101(then Project P-100) at the main conference. It's decisions like this that make me wonder if Nintendo of America really understands what great content Nintendo of Japan is providing.

 

[SpaceBridge]

I'm just gonna buy shooters from EA, Activision and Ubisoft. Those guys know what's up...

 

[MagiusNecros]

I'm just gonna buy shooters from EA, Activision and Ubisoft. Those guys know what's up...

I didn't know they bought the rights to Turok. Thanks for the tip.

 

[GameCenterXDS]

I also hate how they always have to change the covers haha ^_^ I can't even believe some of the cover changes made over the years. The Japanese covers are almost without a doubt better designed and more creative and more in touch with the feel of the game than what the American side changes them in to. Not to mention all the really lame name changes made as well. Biohazard to Resident Evil? Its like someone played the game for 10 minutes and thought the mansion was the main focus of the game...

 

[blizzardjesus]

I get sad when these great games dont come out here. I buy more japanese developed games than western, better art and better stories. I dont even need the voice acting in english, subs are more than enough.

EX troopers not coming here is a sin against gaming. Namco is amazing for giving us Ni No Kuni with the book.

 

[GhostTrick]

I also hate how they always have to change the covers haha ^_^ I can't even believe some of the cover changes made of the years. The Japanese covers are almost without a doubt better designed and more creative and more in touch with the feel of the game than what the American side changes them in to. Not to mention all the really lame name changes made as well. Biohazard to Resident Evil? Its like someone played the game for 10 minutes and thought the mansion was the main focus of the game...

IIRC, the name change for Biohazard was due to copyrights.

 

[MagiusNecros]

Shame Lord of Vermilion will never be localized.

Just look at what happened to the 2nd game in it's subseries for PSP and Vita. Lord of Apocalypse.

I still have Arcana.

 

[Jarnet87]

How much do you think voice acting goes into the cost of making a game these days? They basically have to do twice the work since most games have the option of subtitles (in at least one language) as well. I could do without voice acting myself, I think it's one of the worst things to ever happen to JRPGs.

 

[beril]

Oh my! 2 Million dollars! That almost pays for the marketing campaign that the publisher is going to pay

Marketing isn't really related to the localisation and it's not a fixed cost. You can do a low profile release without much of a marketing budget and still make cover the localisation costs. No one is expecting to see AAI2 ads on skyscapers.

Do you have any idea how much professional Japanese translators make a year? Then you have to factor in programmers who will have to do a lot of work making all of that translation fit.

Did some googling, doesn't seem particularly high.

Say you have two translators, an editor and a programmer for 6 months. That should still come in at less than 100k.

Then you have to pay for 5-10 professional voice actors to redub the audio.

Or as I said before, just keep the japanese audio (though someone pointed out licencing costs, not really sure how that works), and there's also still plenty of games without voice acting.

Then you have to pay 5-10 game testers to go through your game inside and out.

True but with the game already relased elsewhere, you only really need to focus the QA on localisation issues. You could do a fairly quick QA session at the end of the project. Maybe have a smaller team do consistent checks during the development. Testers usually don't have a very high salary.

Then you have to pay licensing fees to Microsoft/Sony/Nintendo. Then you have to pay for certification fees.

Not 100% sure about packaged games, but the platform holders usually takes a percentage on each game sold, no fixed licencing fees. ESRB certification is 10 000$ for packaged titles (it's now free for downloadable games), that's like a few hudred copies you need to sell.

Not to mention that "4 million" you quoted will be MUCH less because RETAILERS have to take their cut, distribution has to take their cut, packaging takes a cut. Even if you cut the last two because of only digital you still have to pay extra to whatever online service you use (an upfront fee for even displaying it, plus a cut of every sale, plus some extra to get your game featured on the store itself).

This entire thread is just a bunch of people being willfully ignorant on how much money it takes to localize and sell a game.

I did say 50% to the publisher. Maybe it's less than that for retail games. More for downloadable games though. And no I don't think there's an upfront fee on any of the console DL services

 

[Disgaeamad]

Yes, I agree. These games that will never sell should all be translated, localised and produced by the publisher for our market at huge cost to themselves. It clearly makes sense.

1st reply does it again.

Also completely unrelated, but I never thought I'd see the day where someone on GAF has a Celtic related avatar.

 

[legacyzero]

Being a HUGE Earthbound fan, I never got the chance to play Mother 3

 

[redlemon]

I wonder would any of the larger Japanese companies try and create a separate 'label' for their releasing their niche games in the the west with it's own balance sheet. Kind of like how movie and music companies will release stuff on a different company name if it doesn't fit their image. I think someone might have tried it in the ps2 era in Europe. I remember some company releasing games like Mr. Mosqito under a label called 'fresh'. It might have been Ubisoft.

 

[Mandoric]

1st reply does it again.

Also completely unrelated, but I never thought I'd see the day where someone on GAF has a Celtic related avatar.

welp, thread stinx now

 

[Buttons]

I still hope Bravely Default gets a EU and US localisation, the game just seems amazing. And hopefully one-day we'll get Type-0 in one form or another, maybe Vita or PS3 remaster, I would love to play the game. ^^

 

[The Mana Legend]

I wish they'd give the games a chance at least on digital services so it would eliminate packaging costs. A lot of JRPGs that I'd like localized wouldn't even need voice acting to be enjoyed.

 

[Disgaeamad]

welp, thread stinx now

Get out of here mando I have a restraining order on you

 

[Callibretto]

I wish they just include english subtitle and menu in their jp release so I can simply import it. I'm guessing most of the cost in localization is in voice recording, licensing, packaging and distribution in western market or something.

 

[Kagari]

I wish they'd give the games a chance at least on digital services so it would eliminate packaging costs. A lot of JRPGs that I'd like localized wouldn't even need voice acting to be enjoyed.

This. However, they're afraid of losing retail sales I imagine... so that's why they don't.

 

[Toth]

Yeah the amount of content cut, the stuff in the novels, and the fact they started Type-1 Framework is something to take note of.

As for PSN release of Type 0, I'm sure that can also be pirated, which would hurt sales, and let's be honest a year ago more people were interested in Type 0 as opposed to now where only a small amount of hardcore fans of the game like me still follow it.

Can Type-0 even work on the 3DS? The game is two UMDs already.

 

[cj_iwakura]

Oh my! 2 Million dollars! That almost pays for the marketing campaign that the publisher is going to pay

Do you have any idea how much professional Japanese translators make a year? Then you have to factor in programmers who will have to do a lot of work making all of that translation fit. Then you have to pay for 5-10 professional voice actors to redub the audio. Then you have to pay 5-10 game testers to go through your game inside and out. Then you have to pay licensing fees to Microsoft/Sony/Nintendo. Then you have to pay for certification fees.

Not to mention that "4 million" you quoted will be MUCH less because RETAILERS have to take their cut, distribution has to take their cut, packaging takes a cut. Even if you cut the last two because of only digital you still have to pay extra to whatever online service you use (an upfront fee for even displaying it, plus a cut of every sale, plus some extra to get your game featured on the store itself).

This entire thread is just a bunch of people being willfully ignorant on how much money it takes to localize and sell a game.

Oh, and localization QA is just so talented. That's why Virtue's Last Reward and Rhapsody DS were completely bug free.

Oh wait.

And marketing, really? Most niche publisher 'marketing' amounts to a few emails and some youtube uploads.

I could do better marketing for free.

Heck, they should just give out review copies to gamers for QA. We're obviously better at it than people who do it for a living.

 

[SatelliteOfLove]

"This ain't no charity."

What's wrong with a PSN release that would easily be Vita compatible? Little cost, maximum reward.

That brings up two of the things that confuses me about SE's corporate outlook: Type-0 and BD are hallmarks of the Square side of the company's output, yet they seem gunshy about localizing or promoting them. It makes me wonder if they're going a heavily Eidos-centric output for foreign releases, with only numbered FFs and a random selection of other titles complementing it.

The other thing is a lack of good PR figures ala Aram Jabbari to pitch these. It's almost as if they feel if it doesn't warrant an 8-digit cost carpet bomb marketing blitz it gets nothing, and this when they've long since left the salad days where they were kingmakers with sales based on company name alone.

Heck, they should just give out review copies to gamers for QA. We're obviously better at it than people who do it for a living.

It may be headed that way, if the events of the last few weeks are warning signs.

 

[GhostTrick]

Can Type-0 even work on the 3DS? The game is two UMDs already.

Sure ! I mean, 3DS cartridge goes up to 4GB (maybe 8GB). Considering its more than enough to put 2 UMD, but also that those 2 UMD shares some data, space is not a problem.

 

[Reveirg]

they fail to realize that with Namco Bandai, it took convincing for them to even get that game localized.

Truth be told, in the latest 2 years, Namco Bandai is probably the smallest offender here...

 

[lunchwithyuzo]

Can Type-0 even work on the 3DS? The game is two UMDs already.

3DS and Vita games both max out at 4GB at the moment, which is about 1GB more than 2 UMDs total.

 

[Durante]

This entire thread is just a bunch of people being willfully ignorant on how much money it takes to localize and sell a game.

Then why are there 3 people companies localizing and selling games? It think there's tons of fat to cut. In fact, it may be mostly fat.

It will probably get better when digital distribution takes over and more companies that refuse to adapt die out.

 

[DSix]

And to think that back a generation or two, everything decent could get localized and have pretty good sales in the west.

This gen really sucks donkey cocks.

 

[GhostTrick]

Then why are there 3 people companies localizing and selling games? It think there's tons of fat to cut. In fact, it may be mostly fat.

It will probably get better when digital distribution takes over and more companies that refuse to adapt die out.

Yep ! That's something ironical because small companies like XSeed, Aksys or Atlus bring RPG, niche titles or heavy-text games... but Capcom or Square Enix can't bring AA games ?

 

[AtomskEater]

I wish larger companies like SE and Capcom could have small side teams dedicated to localizing and releasing these more niche games, even if it's just a fairly quiet DD only release. The smaller team wouldn't interfere with teams working on larger releases, and heck maybe they could even be pulled over to the larger projects as needed. Not sure how much money it would take, though, which seems to be the biggest sticking point. Large (well... all, actually) companies want to see large profits.

I realize it's not feasible to release everything ASAP, and I'm used to lots of interesting games staying in their countries of origin. Still, cool-looking games like EX Troopers apparently being labeled as "not for overseas consumption!" stings.

 

[Toth]

Sure ! I mean, 3DS cartridge goes up to 4GB (maybe 8GB). Considering its more than enough to put 2 UMD, but also that those 2 UMD shares some data, space is not a problem.

Okay then but can the DS produce the same graphic output as the PSP version? Maybe even cleaner?

 

[Dunan]

The only thing that I can see changing it is that translations softwares make huge progess and can translate anything in the right way.

Translation software is indeed making amazing progress, but it will never be good enough to translate game dialogue (or any dialogue) without line-by-line human oversight.

Part of the appeal of any game is the quality of the writing, and if the writing you're reading is garbage -- and, let's not kid ourselves, all machine-translated text is garbage in the year 2012 -- the game just isn't fun.

Do you have any idea how much professional Japanese translators make a year?

You'd be surprised as how little they sometimes get. When I started as a financial translator for a major Japanese bank, I got US$30k, which sounds tolerable, but that was for a 12-to-14-hour day. And that was with a boss who loved "correcting" my correct English into ungrammatical English before sending it out for publication. Glad those days are over.

 

[GhostTrick]

Okay then but can the DS produce the same graphic output as the PSP version? Maybe even cleaner?

Sure ! I mean 3DS is more powerfull than PSP, it's not a secret.

 

[gamergirly]

I got a feeling......yeah yeah

That Bravely Default will make it over

That Square Enix won't be an asshole

That tonight we'll be playing Bravely Default

I got a feeling......YEAH YEAH

That tonights gonna be a good good night......

 

[fates]

and they do not want to release something which weakens the company's overall brand image.

That is hilariously ironic when talking about Square Enix's western release philosophies.

 

[Toth]

Sure ! I mean 3DS is more powerfull than PSP, it's not a secret.

Then I guess the question is if the 3DS is a profitable system in the west and in Japan to warrant a port. The original game was already a success in the east so slap on some more content and you will see some good numbers. The western market may be the more challenging one.....though he 3DS still has not had a main RPG franchise game on it, other than ToA's port.

 

[lunchwithyuzo]

Then I guess the question is if the 3DS is a profitable system in the west and in Japan to warrant a port. The original game was already a success in the east so slap on some more content and you will see some good numbers. The western market may be the more challenging one.....though he 3DS still has not had a main RPG franchise game on it, other than ToA's port.

It also had Kingdom Hearts, which did in line with the previous DS and PSP series entries overseas. Has Paper Mario coming up soon, and then next year it gets Fire Emblem, Etrian Odyssey and likely some others (Megaten, PokéDungeon, Rune Factory, Inazuma Eleven, etc).

And while the ToA port didn't push big numbers, it did evidently exceed Namco's projections and ended up selling not much less than ToGf even.

 

[LiK]

Niche or not, they should be given a chance. SE and Capcom aren't poor small companies who can't take a risk. Take a chance or just let someone else do it. Example: Sony didn't think Demons Souls would sell well outside Japan so Atlus did it and it sold better than expected. Also Nintendo gave The Last Story to XSEED.

 

[Eusis]

Then I guess the question is if the 3DS is a profitable system in the west and in Japan to warrant a port. The original game was already a success in the east so slap on some more content and you will see some good numbers. The western market may be the more challenging one.....though he 3DS still has not had a main RPG franchise game on it, other than ToA's port.

If it helps the 3DS's growth path seems to be about the same as prior Nintendo handhelds, versus the Vita that's more like a twitching corpse at this point (unfortunately).

I think of the companies that got bigger over the last few decades Square might've been the most problematic. Capcom got big on a wide variety of games that are easy to sell in high numbers or faded in popularity everywhere (fighters, Resident Evil, formally Mega Man) and similar applies to Konami, most of the stuff they're now passing is stuff they either never released or never localized anyway. Then there's companies like Activision, EA, and Ubisoft that have been very big for a long time anyway. But Square, a lot of what made them special was their focus on a niche genre (JRPGs) with some solid branches beyond those, but now it seems they're too big to properly cater to their old fanbase beyond the occasional bone. I do hope that the likes of Bravely Default really aren't THAT risky and a lot of the games skipped before were largely due to the platforms (PSP and DS) being in their death throes or overrun by piracy, but we'll see I guess.

HOWEVER, I also wonder how the talk of the market contracting could change things. Seems like if large parts of the new fanbases disappear they will need a more balanced approach, and while I want more of the old Square Enix to be able to resurface I don't necessarily want the Eidos stuff to disappear, not when they're doing a better job with that than Eidos did before. But I guess we'd just have to wait and see HOW the market contracts and how everyone responds, maybe SE will just become a social software company!

EDIT: Though as pointed above we have had games licensed out. I can see why you'd ignore licensing out the few games you're overlooking when you're still targeting that market, but if you're leaving a lot of games behind, fairly big ones at that, then maybe they should start seriously consider licensing those out to smaller companies that will address the fanbase that you can't afford to cater to anymore!

 

[AlberichMX]

After reading the thread, there is only one solution in my mind: Wait for fan translations or make a support/donate campaign for a fan translation group.

 

[AColdDay]

How much of the cost do you reduce if you release these niche games digitally? Obviously bringing these games to retail doesn't make any sense, but once you cut out the % you would pay to retail, the costs of pressing disks and creating boxes, cut out the marketing costs, and just cut the costs down to translation and digital release, what % of the overall cost have you slashed?

The downside to this is that releasing digital cuts down the total audience size you could sell to, but I guarantee that the audience that is buying these niche games are also the ones buying games digitally anyways.

 

[Aquamarine]

How much of the cost do you reduce if you release these niche games digitally? Obviously bringing these games to retail doesn't make any sense, but once you cut out the % you would pay to retail, the costs of pressing disks and creating boxes, cut out the marketing costs, and just cut the costs down to translation and digital release, what % of the overall cost have you slashed?

The downside to this is that releasing digital cuts down the total audience size you could sell to, but I guarantee that the audience that is buying these niche games are also the ones buying games digitally anyways.

The costs you save by having a digital-only release is marred by the fact that a MUCH smaller percentage of people buy games digitally.

 

[Eusis]

The downside to this is that releasing digital cuts down the total audience size you could sell to, but I guarantee that the audience that is buying these niche games are also the ones buying games digitally anyways.

However that audience is ALSO the one that places more value in physical packages.

It's the irony of the whole damn thing, the games that sell the best you could probably push to the masses digitally if you made it visible and appealing enough, and they're the ones that will usually skimp on packaging costs the most. Meanwhile niche games tend to sell to audiences that like decent LEs, manuals, and goodies but are being chased out to some extent by retailers. Or in the case of the Vita at least manuals actively forbidden by SCEA (or so it seems).

 

[MidnightScott]

The fear of increasing non-localized games that I had a year ago is becoming real

If Yakuza 5 doesn't make it over I will have a mental breakdown

But...I must carry on BELIEVING!

Yakuza 3 didn't do too well and 4 & Dead Souls both came over. I think SEGA will release 5 here most likely. I think companies need to program their games just in case a localization comes down later on instead of rebuilding from scratch.

Project X Zone may come over if it does well in Japan according to (i think it was) the producer.

 

[t26]

After reading the thread, there is only one solution in my mind: Wait for fan translations or make a support/donate campaign for a fan translation group.

Donating campaign for a fan translation seems like a bad idea.

 

[Toth]

Ack! double post

 

[Aquamarine]

Donating to a fan translation seems like a bad idea.

Fan translations are incredibly laborious. They take an incredible amount of dedication for a couple of talented programmers and Japanese translators.

Very few organizations have the drive + talent + patience to make that happen. Donating money to that is like throwing it away...there's no direct correlation between your donations and the timely release of a quality product.

And of course, it's always an illegal project. Fan translation operations run the risk of getting shut down, especially if they're making a profit out of it through donations.

Honestly it's better to just learn Japanese...that way you never have to worry about fan translations in the first place.

 

[patapuf]

The costs you save by having a digital-only released is marred by the fact that a MUCH smaller percentage of people buy games digitally.

it's one thing if those games were on pc or on Phones, but they are mostly on 3ds/psp where the amount of people that buy digital is even smaller than on other platforms

 

[Vamphuntr]

I wonder what the Type-0 team is doing right now. They probably moved to another project so they could also be too busy to code in a localization that would bomb anyway.

SE latest portable offerings didn't do well in NA at all. KH 3DS had a worse opening than the PSP BBS and Theathrythm bombed hard. Fairly sure their Vita game mega bombed as well.

Anyway you will eventually see the game in English some day as part of a collection or a remaster. We eventually got FFV years later after they had localized it (even if it was a poor localization) so you will see FF Type-0 some time in the future on another platform.

 

[Eusis]

I wonder what the Type-0 team is doing right now. They probably moved to another project so they could also be too busy to code in a localization that would bomb anyway.

If we're lucky they're on porting the game to another platform. Or maybe someone else is doing that and they're just making content to make that new version appealing to the Japanese (and maybe sort of an apology for making us wait so long, but that's definitely secondary). The game almost certainly wouldn't bomb IF released on the right platform(s), and we know the PSP is not the sole platform it can go on at launch now. Really that's the only way I'd be optimistic for the PSP version: they port it to 3DS, maybe Wii U or something thanks to new system novelty and the lower threshhold to release versus PS3 or 360, and if it's a straight-ish port they just put the original on the PSN because why not scoop up a few thousand extra sales?

 

[GhostTrick]

Oh, title changed.