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Games, Games, GAMES!! (Besides iDOLM@STER, of course XD)
Setsuna:
--- Quote from: Yukibro on March 01, 2016, 12:08:56 am ---That... sounds like a mess. I'm not seeing much about HANS either, though I wouldn't ask about that here anyway. I was just curious about using patches on games you own through ninjhax.
As for Fates... well, I got Birthright to get myself into the series again, so I'm likely mitigating the problematic localization issues with an easier playing experience. But even then, I think there's some good and some bad to be had with Fates regarding the changes made. I really don't know what's up with that support, for example, but I think the changes with skinship are understandable. I haven't delved into it much, admittedly, but I do hope this makes Nintendo a bit more transparent in the future regarding localization and our acceptance of them.
--- End quote ---
Part of the problem re: trying to send the right message to Nintendo over localisation issues is the fact that most people don't realise what message you're sending to a company.
From a logistical standpoint, Nintendo (like all businesses) will heavily favour listening to their paying customers (cause they're the ones who keep them in business) over their non paying ones.
We also know that Nintendo doesn't have a 24/7 mindreading machine or NSA level spyware on every 3DS that allows them to track in perfect realtime without any sort of connection what every user is doing at every moment of the day either.
The only hard data Nintendo can get are a) the sales figures for every game (Cause that's how they make money, and profit is always measurable) and b) the usage for every game for any devices it CAN see (and I understand if you go CFW of any kind, you're not taking your 3DS online anyway due to banning/forced updates)
Sure, it can use online reactions but they're much more limited, since they'll compare the numbers vs the sales figures.
So it never made much sense to actually buy a censored version of the game if you do not approve of the translation - as far as Nintendo are concerned, you bought the censored version of the game and since you didn't send the game back via a refund (assuming you bought a retail cart), you liked it enough to keep.
Unless you actually wrote a letter to Nintendo with proof of purchase, there's actually no way for Nintendo to know you 'supported the game' while protesting the localization. Well, technically there IS a way, but that requires actual effort - enough people purchase the JAPANESE version of the game, and create a big enough spike of the Japanese title for Nintendo to warrant investigating why.
Of course, this requires real effort (Buying a Japanese 3DS and importing the game) and there still runs the risk of Nintendo assuming that the game does poorly outside Japan. (Once again, you'd have to still write the letter with proof of purchase if you want to be precise.)
Thing is, all the options I've seen so far in 'steering Nintendo down the right path' re: the relocalisation patch essentially incentivise Nintendo into doing more 'butchering' simply because as far as they can tell, the localised version makes lots of money (FE Fates from the sales records SMASHED the FE Awakening sales in the launch week) so clearly Nintendo should keep doing what it did, because you know, otherwise the games wouldn't sell.
Now, is there an answer to fixing this long term?
Sure, but it's a lot more complicated than just purchasing then patching the censored copy out to be more like the Japanese release. If anything, doing that just perpetuates the status quo, because you're literally telling Nintendo 'Keep making the censored copy, so we can buy it'.
Yukibro:
--- Quote from: Setsuna on March 01, 2016, 12:38:43 am ---Now, is there an answer to fixing this long term?
Sure, but it's a lot more complicated than just purchasing then patching the censored copy out to be more like the Japanese release. If anything, doing that just perpetuates the status quo, because you're literally telling Nintendo 'Keep making the censored copy, so we can buy it'.
--- End quote ---
Right, though I think one issue is that people aren't aware if there would be any issues until after they purchase the game and play it. There are more cases with people getting review copies of the game to show the game off before release, but those are also limited by whatever embargoes Nintendo puts on them, like how they handled Super Mario Maker before its launch. This reminds me that Club Nintendo did allow feedback when you bought a game and then opened up a post-play survey to let them know how you felt after playing it. I'm not sure if that's something they reliably checked, but it's the best equivalent to your suggestion of sending a letter with proof of purchase.
Like you said, it's a matter of being able to contact Nintendo in some way alongside actually supporting them through being a loyal customer. But if they can't take some other feedback to heart, I think that new loyalty program would be useful right about now to make it easier to get a message across.
Setsuna:
--- Quote from: Yukibro on March 01, 2016, 01:48:56 am ---Right, though I think one issue is that people aren't aware if there would be any issues until after they purchase the game and play it. There are more cases with people getting review copies of the game to show the game off before release, but those are also limited by whatever embargoes Nintendo puts on them, like how they handled Super Mario Maker before its launch. This reminds me that Club Nintendo did allow feedback when you bought a game and then opened up a post-play survey to let them know how you felt after playing it. I'm not sure if that's something they reliably checked, but it's the best equivalent to your suggestion of sending a letter with proof of purchase.
Like you said, it's a matter of being able to contact Nintendo in some way alongside actually supporting them through being a loyal customer. But if they can't take some other feedback to heart, I think that new loyalty program would be useful right about now to make it easier to get a message across.
--- End quote ---
And this harkens back to the days when I was a games journalist...
Part of the problem is also simply the fact that games reviewing... is simply put, a complete mess (and not for gamergate/anti gamergate reasons either)
Embargos and the like exist to create a parity between publications - If IGN and PCGamer (as examples) got their review copy of a game 2 weeks prior, an embargo to a set date (Usually release or release - 1 day) this means they can't pull any review trickery in an attempt to get eyeballs (and subscriptions) by first review stupidity.
Namely, an embargo prevents the good old review wars I used to see, where magazines would deliberately rush a review (as in 'We'll publish any old thing to beat the other guy') because first past the post had advantages. (Namely, how the hell would you know said review was written poorly? You'd only find out after the game got released!)
Embargoing also allowed you to actually have a set period to actually review a game.
In theory, your reputation would be ruined if you tried the first past the post trick, but until embargoing became common practice, you'd be surprised how often that worked. (The wild west of the 90s...)
Of course, this only works if you have enough clout to severely punish any reviewers that broke embargo. It helps if you financially support the publication by say advertising as well as providing review copies - Piss off the publisher enough, and they'll cost your publication their operating money via their advertising spend as well as denying any future review copy.
The side effect of course is this - if you have the ability to punish for embargo breaking, you ALSO have the capability to punish for other reasons, like bad press, or even a score below a certain number, or if you didn't like the wording, or you woke up on the wrong side of a reviewer's bed or... you get the idea.
You'd be surprised how many media personalities (reviewers, youtubers etc) hide this reality though. They can't function without money and the source of the money is ultimately the publishers' advertising budgets.
So where does this really leave you for options?
Coordinate then mass deliver letters (Yes, physical mail is antiquated but it DOES have an advantage - You can postmark the damn things AND get receipts and they can't pretend they never got it if they try to claim otherwise!) to get your collective point across, inclusive of proof of purchase (so you have ACTUAL standing in the eyes of Nintendo).
That's more or less it.
Online campaigns tend to get discounted (Because you can fake up signature collections far easier than faking up a few thousand handwritten (or at least uniquely signed, addressed and stamped) letters cause there's an actual cost associated with them) and online communities tend to operate in an echo chamber vacuum when it comes to gauging actual sentiment (Namely, yes, you tend to get a collation of similar opinions, but you also tend not to get much follow through, because of said echo chamber effect, so if you assume that a rep was around, they'd be counting unique opinions... then matching that to the actual sales numbers and identifying the percentage.)
Of course, doing the above is no guarantee that anything will happen either - and I think this last point is the one that all the people up in arms (and generally, considering we've had issues re: localisation before) fail to consider. Or in short? You might lose because statistically, your group opinion is insignificant.
There simply may not be ENOUGH people out there to justify action - Sure, a couple of thousand sounds like a large number, but if that only equates to $80000 in sales for a game that cleared 2 million, would you risk the rest of the revenue (By ticking them off enough to not buy your next game) just in an attempt to make them happy?
It's easy to say yes, until I add this line - By the way, if you screw this up, you're fired from whatever job you're working at, or if you don't work one, kiss 80k for a year goodbye, and no, not being able to forecast the future is not a legitimate excuse to not get fired.
... You'd probably think it over just a little bit harder.
If that number was say 800k (say 20k people) with hard evidence (It's hard to deny an actual avalanche of mailbags addressed to your corporate office) you'd be able to at least point to the pile of letters and go 'Yeah, there's a lot of people pissed off over the latest FE. Maybe we should consider a few changes?'
We won't see that sort of activism though - that requires a lot of effort, and gamers are notoriously known for not being very good at expending effort as a group.
Yukibro:
Gotta say that's an interesting read... and I can't disagree with your points either. Especially the activism coordination. I don't see that changing anytime soon.
Though I'm curious considering your background and experiences mentioned so far, have you had any personal gripes with localization? Of course, I'm assuming here that you ARE playing localizations, so correct me if I'm wrong.
Setsuna:
--- Quote from: Yukibro on March 01, 2016, 05:43:34 am ---Gotta say that's an interesting read... and I can't disagree with your points either. Especially the activism coordination. I don't see that changing anytime soon.
Though I'm curious considering your background and experiences mentioned so far, have you had any personal gripes with localization? Of course, I'm assuming here that you ARE playing localizations, so correct me if I'm wrong.
--- End quote ---
I've had plenty of issues with localisation. I've played games that could brick consoles, and believe me, that's one hell of a gripe to have. I've also seen flat out rewrites that are worse, gameplay mechanics that got removed, and also revamped gameplay that you'd be kissing the feet of the developers for, and rewrites that are actually BETTER than the source.
Bear in mind, I don't just do the Japanese -> English divide. I've done Chinese, Russian, French and Korean, so you sort of see everything.
In all honesty, each version of the game should be treated as unique until proven otherwise. There's usually differenting standards (Pokemon for instance doesn't support features that could be constituted as gambling in EU/PAL until they removed the minigames from all regions) and some of them make the game better or worse.
Some things you'd probably want out (Like oh, being able to brick your console) other things you'd probably want to keep in (things you like) and other things that you're glad they removed (Things you don't like)
I'm not big on censorship on principle - mostly because frankly, if a game idea is bad, the market will react (sooner or later) by making sure the game has poor sales. (If something in a game isn't to your liking, but they keep making sequels? Clearly there's enough OTHER people out there who disagree with you. The game isn't trying to wedge your money out of your wallet though with a shotgun, so if you don't like it, don't be a customer. The game dev or publisher can't force you to buy the game, but you ALSO don't get the right to hold them up at gunpoint either.)
So truely tasteless stuff won't sell enough to justify the effort, time and money required to produce the content, short of force used by say a government.
So if you're a game dev who believes people want a petting game with a fifteen year old in a bikini, go for it. Just don't be surprised if the market as a whole disagrees with you and sends you broke.
All that said, it's also up to the developer and publisher (and other third parties) to decide what risks they're going to take. As I said, you can't force a game dev to do what YOU want either. (They can just go 'We're not going to make anything at all' which is the choice they're allowed to make.) You can incentive them beyond belief (by throwing money at them) but if they don't want to take the risk by releasing a version of a game with a 15 year old girl in a bikini you can pet, that's their choice.
If you want to actually encourage Nintendo to put in the features of the JP FE into the next translated FE, buy the Japanese cart (then by all means fan translate it if you must, or learn Japanese) and then with your Japanese proof of purchase (take a picture, you don't need to actually post the receipt) write to Nintendo of America clearly stating that you would like to purchase Fire Emblem localised except it didn't contain the features (or quality in translation) to your liking.
If Nintendo of America get enough OF these letters, they'll go 'Wait, we're losing all these sales to the Japanese side. Maybe we should consider a change in tack'.
Of course, they may also decide to just go screw it, the masses aren't worth listening to, but that's their choice, and unless you command the US army, you're probably not going to change their mind.
So given all the above? I consider each game on the merits of what it has to present at the TIME of release. Same with any additional content (DLC/Expansion packs/otherwise).
If I don't like what I see, I don't buy. If I believe I see something worth the money? I commit to purchase. If I don't think it's worth the current price point, I wait until the price drops TO a price point I like. If I like what I see BEFORE the game comes out, I preorder.
I see all the advertising, sneak previews and the like, and make a decision based on what I see. I don't rely on reviews mostly because I know how the game is played (as an ex gaming journalist) so I collate my own sources and make calls based on that.
So I have a street copy of Fates. I make sure I buy from a place that gives me a 7 day return policy, but I didn't preorder the game.
I haven't returned it yet, and I've put in a few hours. I haven't devoted a major block though, but I haven't wanted to return it yet. That should tell you something about what I think about the game.
If you want to ask specifics about what I think of the game, feel free.
(In comparison, I preordered Xcom 2 back in December. I've done about 200 hours since release. You can probably infer what I think of Xcom 2 at least broadly. Same goes for Atelier Sophie (Although not quite to the hour length), even though I don't even own a PS4 and I borrowed one which since got returned. Granted the specifics may reveal bits I like/dislike but no game is perfect.)
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