Phantasy Star Online 2 Hacked for Being Japan-Only

[Spartan212]

Is the same person really creating different accounts to try and fool everyone in this thread?

 

[chadachada123]

I was trying to think of why Sega would make their game Japan-only, but then I realized that recording forces in English along with translating everything else would cost a fair bit of money when they don't have much of a way to know just how many English-speakers would play it.

It's somewhat understandable, though I can imagine being pissed if I was a fan.

 

[Denamic]

Things get so overblown.
There's literally hundreds of thousands of gamers out there, and this is just the actions of a handful of people, if that.
It's not really that different from some teenage punk kicking over a trashcan because he felt like it.

 

[kouriichi]

I was trying to think of why Sega would make their game Japan-only, but then I realized that recording forces in English along with translating everything else would cost a fair bit of money when they don't have much of a way to know just how many English-speakers would play it.

It's somewhat understandable, though I can imagine being pissed if I was a fan.

In all honesty, its something they could do in a week. Any real fan of a game will happily help pay to get it shipped over here, but most of the time its ignored. Monster Hunter fans would joyfully throw their money in a bin to pay for an English release. There are plenty of professional translators out there, who would happily translate every aspect of the game in a single night. Most japanese games that never make it overseas have english patches, but can only be applied if you have a modded system, which is terrible when all the legwork is done for them.

In less then a week, they could Monster Hunter portable 3rd HD completely translated, put on the PS3 marketplace, and get sales going, without it costing them a dime, because the fans would back the entire cost with a smile on their face. But big companies would never, and will never do this ): Its basically saying "The fans have the power to control our sales", which is something no big gaming company wants these days. They want control over their games, the market of their games. And when sales go down the drain, or its impossible to meet the unrealistic goals they set, they blame the fans or the pirates.

Just look at Dead Space 3. They want to sell 5 million copies. They wont reach that goal. Its completely unrealistic looking at past sales figures, and their even killing the franchise itself by changing it even more from its origins. And when they fail, the first place they will go is the fans and pirates, even though what they want is completely insane.

TLDR: I can understand these fans being pissed and wanting to take real action. Petitioning doesnt work, offering to raise funds doesnt even get a glance, and the crys of real fans are completely ignored. While i dont think what they did was "right" in anyway, SEGA is taking their sweet time on something that can be done in a month or two. Im sure they have a dozen "reasons" why they dont, but none of them are really truthful. They could have PSO2 overseas by October, maybe November if they really wanted to. But that would be giving fans to much control over the product, and no big company will let that happen these days.

 

[Twilight_guy]

This is why gamers can be the worst kind of people. They think that they can extract revenge on companies for not doing what they want and see games as a right. Here's how it works: a company does whatever the fuck it wants and you decided if you do or don't like it and choose to purchase or not based on this. You are not the one holding the power and a gun to the developer's head. If they want to sell crap and go down in a flame of stupidity you don't have the right to force there hand. You don't have the authority to try and force them to make a business decision even if you think it makes them money and is right. Scumbag gamer sub-group is full of scumbags.

 

[joshuaayt]

Oh, come on. A tonne of legitimate reasons to screw with Sega, and they pick "The game they are openly planning on giving us isn't here yet"?

Meanwhile, I can merely weep at my longing for Valkyria Chronicles 3.

 

[lacktheknack]

This goes beyond biting the hand that feeds... this is chewing it.

 

[ResonanceSD]

I'm on the hacker's side on this one.

You'd think, given PSO being a world renowned game, that Sega would have a more timely manor to set up English access than this.

Any company that region locks is a company I really only want to do business with whilst grinding my teeth into dust.

Step 1, in order to show displeasure with a company releasing games in your region slightly later than Japan, because you're the very definition of "self-entitled", hack the game so that the company feels incredibly poorly towards you and potentially ignores you in all future releases

Step 2, find someone else to make your plans for you, you idiot.

 

[Naeras]

I thought they already announced that PSO2 would get an english version?

 

[iblis666]

Kind of sad that this is how I find out that this game even exists.

What? What the hell? WE'RE GETTING THE GAME, albeit sometime next year. There was absolutely no reason for this.

You don't know Americans very well.
We don't DO waiting.

exactly, if we cant wait a week or really even a day for an official translation of an anime what makes them think we would wait a year for a game

 

[NiPah]

I'm on the hacker's side on this one.

You'd think, given PSO being a world renowned game, that Sega would have a more timely manor to set up English access than this.

Any company that region locks is a company I really only want to do business with whilst grinding my teeth into dust.

But you don't have to do business with them when they're region locking with plans to make it available for all in the near future. I'm sure there is a reason Sega is region locking their game, I'm sure it's not because they want to piss off a huge fan base, stunts like this only makes people scared to trust Sega, resulting in less money for Sega, and a prolonged wait for Americans because they have that much less money.

Most issues with region locking it because of over litigious Americans, you can blame our shit "sue the fuck out of him for using this copyrighted slogan" lawyers for that.

 

[Steve Waltz]

In all honesty, its something they could do in a week. Any real fan of a game will happily help pay to get it shipped over here, but most of the time its ignored. Monster Hunter fans would joyfully throw their money in a bin to pay for an English release. There are plenty of professional translators out there, who would happily translate every aspect of the game in a single night. Most japanese games that never make it overseas have english patches, but can only be applied if you have a modded system, which is terrible when all the legwork is done for them.

In less then a week, they could Monster Hunter portable 3rd HD completely translated, put on the PS3 marketplace, and get sales going, without it costing them a dime, because the fans would back the entire cost with a smile on their face. But big companies would never, and will never do this ): Its basically saying "The fans have the power to control our sales", which is something no big gaming company wants these days. They want control over their games, the market of their games. And when sales go down the drain, or its impossible to meet the unrealistic goals they set, they blame the fans or the pirates.

Localization is not as simple as you're making it out to be.

All of the text needs to be coded into the game. If the assets (art, text, audio, cinematic, etc.) are not localization friendly and well organized in the code, developers are going to spend a lot of time hunting down and reformat all the assets for translation. Changing the code also requires a good amount of time and money in Q/A and linguistics testing. The UA also might have to be changed to fit the other languages.

That's why it's ideal to localize the game as it's being made. It's also why a lot of triple-A games are released in the major regions roughly around the same time these days. Localizing a completed game is like performing surgery. You're opening it up and changing code, replacing art, recording new audio, altering the UA. Cutting stuff out, putting stuff in... That takes a LOT more time and money than localizing a game as it's being built.

"Less than a week?" That would be an unplayable mess of bugs, glitches, and typos. Niche games like Monster Hunter are risky to localize after completion because they don't hit a wide audience. Same with Ace Attorney Investigations 2 (and believe me, I'm still crying over that one). Capcom's just being careful with their money.

I was trying to think of why Sega would make their game Japan-only, but then I realized that recording forces in English along with translating everything else would cost a fair bit of money when they don't have much of a way to know just how many English-speakers would play it.

It's somewhat understandable, though I can imagine being pissed if I was a fan.

Seeing as how an EU and US version of Phantasy Star Online 2 has been announced so soon after release, the game might have been made localization friendly, with well organized code, a scaleable UA, use of icons instead of text, etc. Just wanting the game released in Japan ASAP and then work on localizing to other countries after the initial release. Of course that's a blind assumption.

 

[harvz]

this is so painful to see, hacking them because localization and testing takes time and money from a company which isn't doing too well.

"Less than a week?" That would be an unplayable mess of bugs, glitches, and typos. Niche games like Monster Hunter are risky to localize after completion because they don't hit a wide audience.

Monster Hunter is only Niche because, sadly, they do it to themselves. From what I've seen, they refuse to sell the PC/360/PS3 versions of the games because the games dont sell well, on the Wii and portable systems, which as we know these consoles largely sell for casual/quick/party games.

I would guarantee that if they were to release it on proper console/PC, they would be able to build a Scrooge McDuck style vault, ripe for the diving into gold coins, for every employee, even the janitor who cleans the public toilet on the ground floor.

 

[ConanThe3rd]

This goes beyond biting the hand that feeds... this is chewing it.

But this is not a hand that feeds. If anything it's a hand that keeps food away from us whilst shoving it down the throat of another. A little Hand chewing when the hand is participating in shenanigans is A'OK by me.

All I'm saying is understanding a market for PSO 2 could have saved Sega a lot of grief in this regard. Hell, say 3 months and I don't think this would have happened.

 

[Divinehero]

these hackers are just plain stupid.... ESPECIALLY cuz this is a MMO. during the time we're stuck waiting for it to come here the game be gettin patched and refined making it a better game for us when we get it unless stupid crap like this makes sega change their minds

 

[John Hegedus]

FOR ALL THOSE PEOPLE OUT THERE, SAYING WE WILL HAVE THIS GAME BY NEXT YEAR. LOOK AT THE DATES IN WHICH U POSTED THOSE REMARKS AND LOOK AT TODAYS DATE. ENOUGH SAID.

 

[ConanThe3rd]

Sega don't have the game out, ergo, no, your argument isn't worth the bites on the server.

Come back to me when Sega stop screwing off.