Journalist needs comments from gamers

[Guest seana]

Hi,

I'm a UK-based freelance journalist and have been commissioned by US magazine Print (http://www.printmag.com/) to write a feature on the European gaming industry.

They want a piece looking at the cultural content of games produced in Europe. The EU, and the governments of France and the Nordic countries are all encouraging game developers to promote the laguage and culture of their country through the games.

I've interviewed developers and government officials but I want the views of gamers, too. I'd like to know:

1. Do any of you play games developed in your own country that use your language or contain cultural references unique to your country. If so, what game is it?

2. Do you think this is important? If not, why?

3. What games do you play?

All observations welcomed, whether informed, wry or rude. You can email me on sean.ashcroft@mac.com. Because this is to appear in print, I'll need full names.

Best,

Sean Ashcroft

[amc]

Is it ghostbusters 2?

[Xevious]

1. Do any of you play games developed in your own country that use your language or contain cultural references unique to your country. If so, what game is it?

Most games produced in the UK are written with a worlwide market in mind.

That being said, I did like playing as a British squad in Conflict: Desert Storm.

[Gwynster]

Is it ghostbusters 2?

Nah, it's Battletoads.

SeanA I think you should mention something about Ragdoll Kung-Fu, specifically the "6 Stellas And A Kebab Technique" that wins the day in one cutscene. I thought it had been made by Americans up until then, which was where I realised that nowhere else but in the UK could such a fine balance have been struck between a Belgian lager and a Turkish meat sandwich.

[SeanR]

I knew I should have registered Sean A-Z as aliases

I'll say this. MMORPGs are more popular in european countries that actually INVESTED in their telecom networks and can PROVIDE decent broadband.

Like Holland and Sweden...

[revlob]

The best example of referencing real life cuture that springs to mind is Albion, a PC RPG developed by Blue Byte back in '95. Awesome game, by the way, and one of my all-time faves.

Basically it's a sci-fi RPG, and some guys crash on a planet and discover the first alien race. But, there are also humans there! These humans turn out to be Celts from ancient Scotland IIRC (they were transported to this planet by magic). There was a bit of interaction with some of the NPCs, and you got to wonder around some celtic villages. When I completed the game I noticed during the credits they had hired a historical adviser for that section.

But, I'm not sure it relates at all to the original query, as it's ancient culture, in a somewhat obscure game, and Blue Byte are in fact German.

[Gwynster]

I'll say this. MMORPGs are more popular in european countries that actually INVESTED in their telecom networks and can PROVIDE decent broadband.

More popular than what, exactly?

Whatever you say, I bet you're wrong. MMOs need fuck-all bandwidth to play.

[Xevious]

I'll say this. MMORPGs are more popular in european countries that actually INVESTED in their telecom networks and can PROVIDE decent broadband.

Like Holland and Sweden...

Erm, you think that the Dutch broadband network's better than the UK's?

As for Sweden, you don't think it's more to do with the fact that it's cold out?

[SeanR]

Erm, you think that the Dutch broadband network's better than the UK's?

As for Sweden, you don't think it's more to do with the fact that it's cold out?

8Mbit for the less than the price I'm paying for 512Kbit. THREE FUCKING YEARS AGO?

Yeah, I'd say so B)

[Xevious]

8Mbit for the less than the price I'm paying for 512Kbit. THREE FUCKING YEARS AGO?

Yeah, I'd say so B)

Ah, you're going on price alone. I see.

[SeanR]

More popular than what, exactly?

Whatever you say, I bet you're wrong. MMOs need fuck-all bandwidth to play.

You're a unpleasant individual who seems to have problems conversing with others politely.

Look at S.Korea 24Mbit connections ago-go and all they do is play MMOs

Ah, you're going on price alone. I see.

no, that they were able to offer faster speeds years ago because they'd actually spent money upgrading from copper cable before they "needed" to, if you get me.

The infrastructure was already in place.

[Raff]

As has been said, most European games are made mainly to appeal to a US market, because it's bigger obviously. It's quite disheartening.

Games by Rare used to be very British feeling though, although their latest game couldn't be a further departure from that.

Not only that, but games written in languages other than English are always localised for North America, and then this version will be sent to the UK almost unchanged. So you get American words and figures of speech which often feel very out of place, and in kids games they can possibly not be understood at all. I don't think I've ever encountered a game that had any significant American to British localisation.

I assume it must be even worse for people on the continent with so many languages, although at least they usually get their own text translation which could potentially be better than our American text.

[Xevious]

no, that they were able to offer faster speeds years ago because they'd actually spent money upgrading from copper cable before they "needed" to, if you get me.

The infrastructure was already in place.

It's more like the fact that the cable networks were offering an alternative backbone, and before privatisation the network was very inefficiencyly dimensioned.

And xDSL needs to run over copper, so any fibre local loops has a very strict upper speed limit in terms of cost efficiency.

[Hello Goaty ♥]

European games are obsessed with USA gangsta rap culture.

[Gwynster]

You're a unpleasant individual who seems to have problems conversing with others politely.

Look at S.Korea 24Mbit connections ago-go and all they do is play MMOs

It's the internet. Go die in a fire.

I think the Korean MMO addiction is more of a national psyche thing than 'they play games because they have fast internet'. You know better than most people as a CS player, you don't need bandwidth to play anything online, you just need low latency. Everywhere has low latency these days, so your reasoning must be faulty.

I know that if I had 24Mbit for absolutely nothing, or even getting paid to have it, I still wouldn't want to play Lineage II. It's just not a desire that translates.

In Sweden gaming is popular simply because of the wildly generous benefits that citizens can get. It's just not that difficult to just play games all day there and not work, according to the swedes I know in the WoW guild Nihilum.

[Alex W.]

I don't think I've ever encountered a game that had any significant American to British localisation.

This has been a concern of mine since Animal Crossing DS's bewildering talk of "hump day" and various other US lingo. NoE don't have British English localisation at all, if you check the credits - it's NoA who get credited.

Edit- Usually it's not a big deal, but untranslated US idioms in an ostensibly localised game are really confusing.

[Raff]

Yep, I read an interview with a guy from Treehouse on Planet GC a while ago....

...here it is: Interview with Nate Bihldorff of Treehouse (NOA)

This is the interesting bit:

PGC: A couple of our international readers were kind of curious. There's English English, there's American English and there's Australian English. Do you need to consider all the different English slangs and vernaculars when scripting a game, or do you just make it American English and then just distribute the games elsewhere and have them deal with it?

Bihldorff: That's a good question, and probably one a little bit better suited to NOE, who ends up doing localization and distribution for the UK, and for I assume Australia. For me, when I sit down I'm worried about one thing, which is the North American version. So I'll write for that audience. I'm certainly not going to be adding...I'm spelling 'favorite' with an 'o', not with an 'ou', worrying about what they're going to be doing in England. I think that when NOE gets it, it's sort of their call as to whether or not if they're just going to throw it out in England with American spellings, or if they're going to take the extra step. You can probably tell better than I could if they've done that on certain projects where they go back and make just subtle differences in the British spellings. I have no idea what they do in Australia. I wouldn't even begin to know any Australian slang that I could slap in there. It would probably be something ridiculous like...

He doesn't seem to appreciate that there's anything different between NA English and British English other than the odd bit of spelling. And he's in the localisation/translation buisness! Not only that, but there clearly is absolutely no interaction between NOA localisation staff and NOE localisation staff (if they actually exist), and doesn't even know of the existence of Nintendo Australia.

You couldn't make it up...

[pretentious_helvetica]

Lazy Freelance Bloke Gets Gaming Forum To Do His Job non-shocker.

[Guest seana]

This has been a concern of mine since Animal Crossing DS's bewildering talk of "hump day" and various other US lingo. NoE don't have British English localisation at all, if you check the credits - it's NoA who get credited.

Edit- Usually it's not a big deal, but untranslated US idioms in an ostensibly localised game are really confusing.

Can I ask what NoA stands for?

The beauty of GTA is that it offers American content with British sensibilities. Lots of the comedy in Vice City referenced '80s Brit culture; in fact, I'd say Americans missed out on a fair chunk of VC's humour.

San Andreas took greater inspiration from early-Nineties California, which removed much of the former underlying spirit of my culture.

What does GTA stand for?

[JoeK]

Can I ask what NoA stands for?

What does GTA stand for?

It worries me when your research hasn't stumbled across those two acronyms yet...

Unless you're taking the piss (then I hate you), they stand for

Nintendo of America

and

Grand Theft Auto.

sigh

[Gerald_D]

This thread's clearly gonna go down the bog now.

[Mike S]

Hopefully.