Like, you would think that a video game aimed at small children, would be available in the language that small children in the country it’s sold in would actually be able to understand, but apparently not? I guess their thinking is “why bother with localization when we can just make the parents translate all the text on screen for us”
Which does cover a pretty substantial share of the world’s population, yes, and it is a good thing that the game is available in more than just one or two or three languages, but it’s also like… By my measure, that doesn’t cover any of the Nordic countries, nor does it cover Greece, nor the former Yugoslavia, nor most countries of the former Eastern Bloc except Russia and Belarus, nor Mongolia, nor any country in Central, West, South, or Southeast Asia, nor the vast majority of Africa, nor a sizable part of Oceania and the Caribbean region, and that’s not even getting into microstates and minority languages.
And sure, in a lot of cases if oneself does not speak one of these 11 languages natively, one can still get by in one way or another — it’s a Mario game, so there’s next to no text that one absolutely must be able to read in order to play. But should one really have to “get by” when playing a game? Games like SMBW, I think could be great for helping people develop their reading skills, so why can’t these be reading skills in one’s own language?
For a game like this (without much dialogue) more languages should definitely be involved.
Nintendo has always been kind of stingy when it comes to translation. They’re getting better but it’s not nearly good enough.
This is why fan translations are important, but of course Nintendo is so much against romhacking and distribution that it impedes progress in that area.
Imagine if game companies saw a fan translation and were like “We’ll buy that and release it”. We’d have mother 3 in English by now and several other languages.
This is why I’m not a fan of such strict copyright laws.
Like, you would think that a video game aimed at small children, would be available in the language that small children in the country it’s sold in would actually be able to understand, but apparently not? I guess their thinking is “why bother with localization when we can just make the parents translate all the text on screen for us”
It’s available in Japanese, English, Spanish, French, Portuguese, German, Italian, Dutch, Russian, Korean, Chinese (Simplified), Chinese (Traditional)
Which does cover a pretty substantial share of the world’s population, yes, and it is a good thing that the game is available in more than just one or two or three languages, but it’s also like… By my measure, that doesn’t cover any of the Nordic countries, nor does it cover Greece, nor the former Yugoslavia, nor most countries of the former Eastern Bloc except Russia and Belarus, nor Mongolia, nor any country in Central, West, South, or Southeast Asia, nor the vast majority of Africa, nor a sizable part of Oceania and the Caribbean region, and that’s not even getting into microstates and minority languages.
And sure, in a lot of cases if oneself does not speak one of these 11 languages natively, one can still get by in one way or another — it’s a Mario game, so there’s next to no text that one absolutely must be able to read in order to play. But should one really have to “get by” when playing a game? Games like SMBW, I think could be great for helping people develop their reading skills, so why can’t these be reading skills in one’s own language?
You’re right.
For a game like this (without much dialogue) more languages should definitely be involved.
Nintendo has always been kind of stingy when it comes to translation. They’re getting better but it’s not nearly good enough.
This is why fan translations are important, but of course Nintendo is so much against romhacking and distribution that it impedes progress in that area.
Imagine if game companies saw a fan translation and were like “We’ll buy that and release it”. We’d have mother 3 in English by now and several other languages.
This is why I’m not a fan of such strict copyright laws.
Edit: sorry for the rant
Hey no need to be sorry for ranting, I 100% agree and I think about this exact topic perhaps concerningly frequently
I just came across this and thought I’d post it
https://www.gamedeveloper.com/production/nintendo-s-systemic-policy-of-miscredting-is-harming-external-translators