Investors or Consumers?

[SilverUchiha]

I was recording a podcast with a friend the other day and the subject came up of localization of games. We talked about how there are MANY games that are locked away in Japan that have yet to be released to the west digitally or otherwise. I mentioned how this frustrated me because there are plenty of people who would try those games if given the chance. And some (like Mother 3) have a growing following here outside of Japan and we'll never see it for a variety of vaguely established reasons (poor sales of Earthbound). I even said that most games that need translation would only need text translated as most fans of Japanese heavy games like that typically don't seem to mind Japanese voice acting (most, I've noticed, seem to prefer it).

My friend's argument was that this was all expensive and that companies like Nintendo don't want to invest all that money and work into something they don't think will make a lot of returns.

While that statement is true, the fact remains there are plenty of fans who will pay a lot for those games. Some will offer free fan translations to help speed up the release of those games. And the cost couldn't be lower with digital distribution being a much easier method to release games to the whole world. To me, I don't care about the expense. Companies should put the consumers first and get them the products they want. Even if that group is small, there's a chance for it to grow.

So pretty much my question to you is what do you think? Should companies be more concerned about the cost of such endeavors like localization? Or should they just release it to as many places as possible in the cheapest way possible in the hopes that they'll make enough sales to balance it out?

 

[Miss G.]

I think they should at least release it digitally, especially if they're older games. Less cost to them and a good choice for us. If they translate the text at least or some fans create a top notch translation, great.

 

[FalloutJack]

Gaming corporations tend to do things in extremes, like a baseball player only focused on home runs. This is bad for business in the very large sense and certainly in the long sense. It turns it all into a casino gamble, and YOU KNOW how many people win at those. To keep up the baseball analogy, all these companies should try to focus their strengths differently. Company A ahould nix the pop flies and focus on line drives. Company B who likes his homeruns should bunt every now and again just to make it to first base. We don't need everyone trying for homeruns that won't happen. We need good and reliable players who play the game. Homeruns are bonuses, special and clever things you weren't expecting, an incredible success. You can't crank those out on an assembly line!

 

[MysticSlayer]

I don't think they should invest in localization if they can't get at least a decent return on it (i.e. one that can help future development). It's really shortsighted of us to say they should localize a game that their analysts say won't get a good enough return (though in the case of Mother 3, I really wonder how they can imagine it won't get a good return). Doing so will harm their ability to continue delivering products to us, or delivering products of as high quality as we want. Personally, I'd rather see continued support from the developer rather than see them struggle due poor sales. Sure, I don't like how some games I wish would release here never make it outside of Japan, but at the same time, I don't want the company to have any issues with it due to lack of support over here. Now, if there is the demand for it (as there appears to be with games like Mother 3), then they should definitely go ahead and localize it, even if it doesn't receive the same returns as the biggest games on the market right now.

 

[TehCookie]

I think companies should put in as much as they think they'll get out. They shouldn't waste funds on a hopeful return, but scale to what they expect it to be. In larger more popular games like FF or Tales, they should go the full shebang and have physically releases with English VA. However games that would have a small fanbase but not enough for a full localization could still pass by with just English subtitles. I'm thinking of Idolm@ster in particular for that. If they don't spend a lot of money localizing it and people still buy it, they can make a profit. I don't think localizing should be all or nothing, they can scale it to the budget. That way companies are happy earning money and fans are happy to get the game. As you said in the OP, most people who want Japanese games to be translated don't mind spoken Japanese. The only ones that needs to be completely dubbed are the ones going for a larger audience.

 

[Maximum Bert]

I think they could make a bit more effort especially with ones that dont really need much localisation if any as a lot of japanese games have menus in english anyway. I understand why they may not want to localise a VN or RPG but it would be easy to localise a rhythm action game or fighting game for example and they could just release it digitally.

I think they are doing this with Project Diva F for PS3 so I will be checking that out as I havent bought a rhythm action game in ages.

 

[MeChaNiZ3D]

Well, I don't think they risk losing money over something and damaging the ability of a series to continue, but if there's a profit to be made, I think they should be accepting fan translations and other resources, and releasing in whatever ways are cost effective. Keeping games that would have turned a profit and have a following deliberately inaccessible is reprehensible, but as far as the choice to localise is concerned, I will understand if they're going to lose money over it that they don't, especially if many fans are happy to import to the extent that new sales would be dubious.

As for investors and consumers, I like to think that investors want what's good for the consumers, because that'll improve profits, but are just sometimes stupid about it. Like publishers, really.

 

[Something Amyss]

(poor sales of Earthbound)

Wikipedia lists the sales in the US as roughly half that of the Japanese sales. Considering the sales of Mother 2 in Japan were enough to merit a sequel and considered to have a strong following, I have trouble believing this to be the case.

The annoying part here is that they have an easy way to test the waters. Earthbound was released before the JRPG boom, so it might fare better after the fact. And considering the Virtual Console requires limited effort to release and there's no physical distribution issue. There's no translation cost, as it was already translated. There's almost literally nothing to lose. And if it still sells poor, despite being highly in demand, then forget Mother 3. They may even be doing this, but I'm skeptical about the VC release since it's been announced before. I'd love to see it, as the cost of the cart was prohibitive (which may have also impact sales)

Nintendo's a bit odd about this, and I doubt they're specifically trying to please investors. They don't seem to know what they're doing a lot of the time, to be frank.

To the title: Companies will invariably be beholden to the investors, as they're the ones who make the industry work in the first place. Being beholden to them to the exclusion of the consumer, however, is both wrong AND the standard business MO these days.

 

[SilverUchiha]

(poor sales of Earthbound)

Wikipedia lists the sales in the US as roughly half that of the Japanese sales. Considering the sales of Mother 2 in Japan were enough to merit a sequel and considered to have a strong following, I have trouble believing this to be the case.

The annoying part here is that they have an easy way to test the waters. Earthbound was released before the JRPG boom, so it might fare better after the fact. And considering the Virtual Console requires limited effort to release and there's no physical distribution issue. There's no translation cost, as it was already translated. There's almost literally nothing to lose. And if it still sells poor, despite being highly in demand, then forget Mother 3. They may even be doing this, but I'm skeptical about the VC release since it's been announced before. I'd love to see it, as the cost of the cart was prohibitive (which may have also impact sales)

Nintendo's a bit odd about this, and I doubt they're specifically trying to please investors. They don't seem to know what they're doing a lot of the time, to be frank.

To the title: Companies will invariably be beholden to the investors, as they're the ones who make the industry work in the first place. Being beholden to them to the exclusion of the consumer, however, is both wrong AND the standard business MO these days.

Like I said, the reasons have always come off as vague to me. I've heard that it was sales that were the issue, but I imagine there's more to it than that.