For an example of bad publishing, let's take Atari's publishing w/ Gothic 2. The USA has YET to receive a version of Gothic 2's Expansion -- Gothic 2: Night of The Raven. And it aggrevates me to see Atari not publish one b/c the game, unfortunately, did NOT sell well in the USA! I would have no problem w/ taking that expansion game in its original foreign AUDIO language, as long as they provide me some English subtitles, if they have to. Or if they think the English translation of Audio would take too long to produce. That would be fine w/ me!
- <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/beyond.gif" alt="" /> in the German version has no voicactiing at all ... most probably "to expensive" for Ubi Soft, who at the same time supported Far Cry *very* much. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/silly.gif" alt="" />
Sounds more like Ubi didn't want to invest in <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/beyond.gif" alt="" />. That's "bleh", considering how the USA version has voice-acting.
- The "Deluxe" version of NWN has NO Patches at all ! - says an editor of a local gaming magazine.
Ick!
My version of NWN w/ all the expansions (SOU and HOTU), is updated to English Version 1.65, the newest edition.
Gothic 1 for PC, published by Xicat, had no patches. But, the game was already out overseas for a while and was all patched up. So, they translated that. So, that's fine.
Gothic 2 for the PC, USA Version, had NO patches. Well, that's probably b/c the game was already patched-up when it came here, since NOTR Expansion was out in Germany by then. They began stopping the patching of the original version of G2, once they began only patching the version w/ the expansion -- that's fine. Then, they released an SDK for that game -- in which you need the expansion to run the SDK. Oh, and SDK is in all-German, too.
I guess Atari saw no reason to bring NOTR Expansion over here, since the sales for G2 it weren't so hot. So, USA'll never really get that SDK translated, either (unless a fan translates it, like the G2 Expansion was done w/ a modkit). Only place I could really get it is from Ebay (there's got to be better alternative than that) or Pirahna Bytes -- and I really don't even want to even think about how much the Int'l shipping would cost me.
Indeed, Atari seems to be a bad publisher, taking from everything I've heard.
Ooooh -- another Atari annoyance: games w/ multiple game CD's coming in sleeves instead of jewel cases. They were one of the first companies I saw doing that.
Atari doesn't drive me as nuts as EA does -- not yet, anyways. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />
Another thing that bugs me in gaming: poor voice acting b/c the game is translated from one language to another. Why is poor voice acting hired often for foreign games, when translating a game? Well, we know why -- to save $, obviously. But if they are going to hire cheap voice acting, I think they just should forget that idea -- keep the game's AUDIO in its original language and give the player the option to be able to put English subtitles on.
I've written several times of the voices of the skeletons heard when in "Crusader of Might & Magic" the actual "Crusader" attacks them - they sound rather like a bunch of teenies exposed to their greatest idol ! <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/eek.gif" alt="" />
I almost fell from my chair, laughing.
This is what I'm talking about.
*shakes my head*
Games are often produced in English first (not forst [nice typo <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/silly.gif" alt="" /> ] ) - due to the "big market", which is english-language. Games are often translated later into other languages, it seems to me.
I would probably agree w/ this. PC Market is huge over here.
Everytime I look, I see more PC game developers emerging from overseas. I like this thought.
Overseas have always had lots of games for their console, but they really are starting to come out w/ them PC games.
Maybe Gothic 2 would've sold better if Atari, the publisher, marketed the game BETTER than they actually did.
I see this often with highly underrated games - <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/beyond.gif" alt="" /> in Germany, for example.
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Now this seems quite odd to me -- especially since the English version of <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/beyond.gif" alt="" /> has voice-acting! In my eyes, the lazy thing for the publisher to do would be to keep the English voice-acting in the game -- or whatever AUDIO versions exist, use the best one. Then the company could make subtitles in other languages like German, English, French, etc.
I think movies come out best in their original language for audio. Usually, it's the most effective b/c the company will invest on the best actors for their own language for acting.
I think the same applies to games & voice acting. But, gaming doesn't have live footage often, so there's an advantage here -- unless the movie is CGI generated or a cartoon. For a game, you could pay any old good voice actor who doesn't actually look like the character, but could do the voice for the role well. It's all about the voice fitting the role there. See GTA: Vice City -- Ray Liotta don't look like Tommy Vicetti, but he can play that role great.
