Since you have a degree in linguistics, you will know the sorry state of our compatriots when it comes to speaking foreign languages, let alone a full RPG in english!
The italian localization would be aimed at those people, who will not play/buy the game otherwise, I don't think it's a matter of conquering new markets. On the fact that french/german/spanish are way more appealing commercially, we all agree, but that's not the point.
Also, at its present state, I think that D:OS2 is far from being a niche title, and Larian is no longer an indie, unknown developer. I'm not saying they are on AAA levels, but for sure Larian is reaching a similar status, both in respect from the playerbase and publicity from the magazines. Consider all the awards won by the first chapter, the overwhelming amount of advertisement, the positive reviews, the sale figures, and especially the incredible kickstarter campaign for this game.
It goes without saying that an Italian translation would help to reach more players in our country. I totally agree with that. The point I was trying to make is another one: I don't think that reaching more Italins is worth the investment of time and money for a medium size studio like Larian. Sadly the numbers are pretty straightforward in this regards: classic RPGs sell poorly in Italy. They always did.
Why? I don't know for sure. I can make an educate guess: Probably in Italy the gap between popular genres (FPSs, action games, sport games, etc...) and niche genres (classic RPGs, strategy games, adventures, etc...) is wider than abroad; the high incidence of piracy plays a part for sure; the fact that we don't like reading that much (a sad but well documented fact) too. Probably there are other and more subtle reasons, but the numbers are numbers.
Could one really compare all this to titles like PS:Torment or Arcanum? Not at all, in my opinion, because despite being now revered as "masterpieces", "legends" etc., they actually bombed at release, and went by almost unnoticed, with poor reviews and pathetic sale figures.
Actually Planescape: Torment is among the highest rated RPGs ever ((
http://www.metacritic.com/game/pc/planescape-torment) and Troika games got good-to-great reviews when they were released (
http://www.metacritic.com/game/pc/arcanum-of-steamworks-and-magick-obscura ;
http://www.metacritic.com/game/pc/the-temple-of-elemental-evil ;
http://www.metacritic.com/game/pc/vampire-the-masquerade---bloodlines). None of them was a commercial success - that's true - but not because of the cold critical reception.
Diablo and especially Baldur's Gate are in my eyes way more fitting comparisons, because we are talking about well received games made by developers with good names but not AAA for sure back then. Blizzard North was not the current Blizzard, and Bioware pre-BG was not EA, so to speak. Still, they included our market, even with questionable tranlations, but at least they didn't cut us out!
Allow me to disagree 1) Because both titles were a conscious attempt to widen the RPG audience, so they needed to be as accessible as possible 2) Because they were published by well established publishers like Interplay and Blizzard Entertainment.
Moreover, if you want a contemporary comparison, I mentioned Pillars of Eternity by Obsidian. That (amazing) game also came from a kickstarter campaign, and the financial situation of Obsidian was much worse than Larian's, still they included the official italian localization. Why should Larian, in its present form, exclude us? I don't find a reasonable answer, especially considering what happened with the italian patch of the first title, but I don't want to talk out of my ***, so it would be cool to hear official Larian words on this matter.
I don't think that before the release of D:OS Larian Studios was in better shape than Obsidian Entertainment (Sven stated in his blog that he basically asked any single bank in Belgium for a loan), but aside for that, the comparison is fitting. I actually think that Pillars of Eternity was translated in Italian because of its supposed commercial appeal. As the spiritual successor of Baldur's Gate it should have sell better than D:OS I. Things went the other way around, though, and now Larians have a wider audience to serve with this sequel. But is it wide enough to make the Italian translation worthwhile? I still don't think so.
