DOAX3 officially not being localized for the west

[NiPah]

Sounds to me like a company deciding that the US market for the game is too small to make the localization profitable. Then someone makes a BS excuse so the fans are upset at someone else.

Hmmm... What evidence do you have of this?

OT: This is pretty troubling. Hopefully this doesn't become a trend or anything. Not that I was planning on buying the game myself, I'm sure other people in this region of the world would have liked to buy it.

I think the evidence is a thing called capitalism. This wouldn't be the first time a company has done this kind of thing.

Yeah the company that's released 3 vita games this year, and huge sellers like nobunaga's ambition can't sell enough to warrant a US release because of capitalism, let's forget about the statement made by the company and go with capitalism.
KT doesn't give two shits about capitalism, they do care about their rep and if they think bad PR might hurt their company image you're damn right they'd hold release, but if you think KT couldn't turn a profit on a DOAX release you're having a laugh.

 

[Level 7 Dragon]

As an outsider, the whole situation seems to be silly to me. First, the company has the right to not localize a product with or without a good reason. Second, it seems like the potential for a scandal became the scandal in itself.

Guys, remember when God of War was banned in Saudi Arabia because of pagan references, deicide and having the word "God" in the title? And if the creators of the game would be send to jail if they ever attempt to visit the kingdom? After that incident, many became afraid to localize for Arabia.

Compared to that, this whole issue seems ridiculous.As an outsider, the whole situation seems to be silly to me.

 

[WindKnight]

Why do you need new box art? Or do you just mean putting the title of the game in English? Have you seen the box-art they've used up to now? It's the kind of thing amateurs could knock out without too much bother. Also DD.

How much does submitting for certification cost exactly? Honestly enough to give Tecmo a headache?

The box art (and maybe the disc) need to display the age rating, and not in a way that can be removed. That means the box sleeve will at least need to be printed fresh, and may require freshly pressed discs.

 

[Sexual Harassment Panda]

Why do you need new box art? Or do you just mean putting the title of the game in English? Have you seen the box-art they've used up to now? It's the kind of thing amateurs could knock out without too much bother. Also DD.

How much does submitting for certification cost exactly? Honestly enough to give Tecmo a headache?

The box art (and maybe the disc) need to display the age rating, and not in a way that can be removed. That means the box sleeve will at least need to be printed fresh, and may require freshly pressed discs.

OK. I was still talking largely about DD as a cheaper means of feeling for interest.

How much does submitting for certification cost exactly? Honestly enough to give Tecmo a headache?

Nope. It's pittance. Most expensive part of localization is employing the people who work on it, ie. salaries/pay. Also licensing, though I guess that would mostly only be japanese VO in DOA's case. I'm not familiar with the japanese talent in the games, but I don't think there are any "celebrities" that would have a high foreign distribution fee.

The game itself isn't text or lore heavy, a good translation wouldn't take long, so only a few months of wages would have to be paid. English VA in DOA5 is standard anime fair, somewhat on the cheap side. Meaning localization would be relatively cheap to begin with.

(Part of the reason why a series like Yakuza doesn't get localized more is because of all the celebrities and real companies that have their brand in the game, which all have to be paid a licensing fee if you wish to publish Yakuza in foreign regions. Also, a fuckton of text, lore, and Sega's general desire for a quality translation means that too ain't cheap.)

And that makes me wonder what quality of the english is in the asian version. If it's not a thrown together cheapo english thing made for Hong Kong, but is of the quality one would expect, then a lot of legwork has already been paid for. Tecmo is more than willing to localise games that are quite niche, with sales numbers routinely <50000 units, let alone one of their flagship properties. The "it was too expensive to localize compared to what it would sell" argument rings hollow once you consider all these.

Also bears repeating to anyone reading, vgchartz is useless and those sales numbers would be more than fine for these games if they were real.

That's interesting. Thank you.

I was really rather hoping for a western release of the latest Yakuza spin-off called "Ry&#363; ga Gotoku Ishin!" I would settle for a simple set of subtitles on a game like that, but I guess I can't fault them too much if they have so many other pressures as well as keeping themselves to a high standard.

I could totally believe that a game like that is a far bigger undertaking to localise than DOA: Xtreme, which would be very content-lite.

 

[go-10]

maybe I'm a bit late for this thread as I don't fully understand what's going on but from what I've gathered the game is getting released because of cultural differences and Western audiences not really being all that cool with playing games that have sexy women in them, specially when some of them are borderline jail bait, so TK isn't releasing the game and Play Asia said that it's SJW's fault and people are making a big deal out of that comment for whatever reason.

Am I understanding things right?

if so why is there so much talk about not ordering things from Play Asia? Where else would I buy imported games from?

 

[zion505000]

With the sales figures of the past two games as they are, it really makes no logical sense to not release this game in the west. They might as well cancel it.

I wonder if this is some kind of publicity thing to get people talking about it, not unlike HATRED's gaining so much publicity with their violence. They're basically making a game that will be rare to the west which, (if the past sales figures are accurate indication) is a market that IS profitable for them.

 

[NiPah]

if so why is there so much talk about not ordering things from Play Asia? Where else would I buy imported games from?

People are angry with Play Asia because they said the game isn't being released in the West due to SJWs, the game can be bought from any number of import shops but PA is just one of the better known ones. You could even buy the game from the Japanese Amazon website, you'd just have to make an account.

 

[NiPah]

With the sales figures of the past two games as they are, it really makes no logical sense to not release this game in the west. They might as well cancel it

We don't know the sales figures of the last game, nor due we know if the sales data from a 360 exclusive would even be indicative of a PS4 release which has traditionally had a better install base for more Japanese centric games, couple this with KT putting out some extremely niche titles (aka vita remakes of niche JRPGs and the nobunaga series complete with collectors editions) this year alone and the theory goes out the window.

 

[boag]

Neither do you.
So, why act like you do?

I'm not the one who made the assertion that the company did this move for the sake of profit. Not that it matters, because within the same post you just quoted, I provided evidence that points to the contrary of his assertion.

How did you manage to miss the... uhh... you know... all the evidence I provided from regional sales charts and reports of English localization elements?

The more I think about this, the stranger it seems. Why cut off the game from the biggest audience? Is it really a localization issue, when there's english subtitles already in place? Is it the sheer cost of providing physical copies, to a region where it sells more than it does within Asia? This just doesn't make sense to me.

Its probable that they think whoever wants it will import it, and that way they dont have to deal with the usual outrage bullshit.

 

[Amir Kondori]

Sounds to me like a company deciding that the US market for the game is too small to make the localization profitable. Then someone makes a BS excuse so the fans are upset at someone else.

Hmmm... What evidence do you have of this?

OT: This is pretty troubling. Hopefully this doesn't become a trend or anything. Not that I was planning on buying the game myself, I'm sure other people in this region of the world would have liked to buy it.

I think the evidence is a thing called capitalism. This wouldn't be the first time a company has done this kind of thing.

Yeah the company that's released 3 vita games this year, and huge sellers like nobunaga's ambition can't sell enough to warrant a US release because of capitalism, let's forget about the statement made by the company and go with capitalism.
KT doesn't give two shits about capitalism, they do care about their rep and if they think bad PR might hurt their company image you're damn right they'd hold release, but if you think KT couldn't turn a profit on a DOAX release you're having a laugh.

They have since come out and confirmed what I wrote.

 

[NiPah]

Sounds to me like a company deciding that the US market for the game is too small to make the localization profitable. Then someone makes a BS excuse so the fans are upset at someone else.

Hmmm... What evidence do you have of this?

OT: This is pretty troubling. Hopefully this doesn't become a trend or anything. Not that I was planning on buying the game myself, I'm sure other people in this region of the world would have liked to buy it.

I think the evidence is a thing called capitalism. This wouldn't be the first time a company has done this kind of thing.

Yeah the company that's released 3 vita games this year, and huge sellers like nobunaga's ambition can't sell enough to warrant a US release because of capitalism, let's forget about the statement made by the company and go with capitalism.
KT doesn't give two shits about capitalism, they do care about their rep and if they think bad PR might hurt their company image you're damn right they'd hold release, but if you think KT couldn't turn a profit on a DOAX release you're having a laugh.

They have since come out and confirmed what I wrote.

They've done nothing of the sort, what they said roughly translates to "what he said is not what we said" it's purely a null standpoint, it doesn't mean what he said was correct, it doesn't mean what he said was incorrect, and it was in no way confirming they didn't localize the game because they didn't think they could make a profit.
It's company PR 101, don't stir the pot, you can bet the CM got chewed out for that statement, but they'd never come out and say something like this.

Look if you still believe TK couldn't make a profit off a small release like this but can still irk out a profit from 3 rereleased vita titles and a tiled war game staring a Japanese general no one in America knows about then you're better versed in niche game markets then I'll ever be, and I've been following KT since they purchased the GUST developers for their Altelier series.