Comments on: SCEAsia Rising?

By: Dr_Do-Little

Dr_Do-Little — Fri, 15 Mar 2013 17:50:52 +0000

Well the numbers (2!) you are giving tells a lot about how Home is nt the money making machine some think. I understand the cost of translation (Thats why I said “WOW” about the former Asian requirements) Again, I havent seen anything worth reporting from you guys so kudos to that. Only thing I wanted to say is it’s better to have a clumsy “inside” translation than blindly use a computer translator wich dont make sense most of the time. Again (again? lol) You did MUCH better than bigger dev or Sony on Home.
Back on topic.. Yes, given all this, technically and “economically” going in Asia. A country with something like 20 different language must be a real pain, esspecially for a small company.

By: Snake_the_Great

Snake_the_Great — Fri, 15 Mar 2013 17:16:27 +0000

More regions = more headaches, especially in the world of console development. Different countries have different rules, and following those rules costs time/money. Home developers have claimed that it’s not profitable to release content in the Asia region (that doesn’t include Japan).

By: deuce_for2

deuce_for2 — Thu, 14 Mar 2013 00:38:16 +0000

As a developer, you have to pay for the translations which adds to the cost to create the item. Asia is a much smaller market than the US. And French Canadian is smaller than Asia. So translation cost versus payback is really not worth it. We have paid for translation and done some Google Translate. It all depends.

It isn’t that we don’t care. How much would you pay for better translation to sell 2 more of an item where it sells for 0.99? As soon as it is more than $2, you have lost money. And some items we created have sold less than 2 in all of Canada, let alone in just Quebec.

It is honestly not a respect issue. It is an attempt to make money in the Home market, which is hard.

By: Dr_Do-Little

Dr_Do-Little — Wed, 13 Mar 2013 00:13:14 +0000

Wow! 4 asian (tonal)languages… I can understand it as being a difficulty…
Surprising this little colour vs color thing. You would not beleive the thing I read from computer translated french. I would not name some higly rated dev that are really bad at it. But Lockwood and Hellfire are among the best. No recollection of Game mechanics… so it must be ok
I was surprised how much the french ( from France) really didn’t cared about bad translation. Here in Québec (Canadian french speaking province) it is a very important and touchy matter.
I would suggest to any company to be respectfull of their intended customers. Translation is one thing, doing it right is another.

By: deuce_for2

deuce_for2 — Tue, 12 Mar 2013 22:07:31 +0000

Asia did change their policy to remove the requirement that things be translated into 3 types of Chinese and South Korean. Developers can now submit items as English Only. Which means anyone who is approved to submit items to them has less of a language requirement for Asia than for North America. I have even seen items kicked back for not translating American English into British English -- color vs colour.

For some of us, the issue is not desire but getting through the system. I could conjecture as to why we are not getting through to SCEAsia (or SCEE as well), but it would be a guess. My feeling is that once we have a killer item, things will change. Until then, we just send emails and hope.

By: Terra_Cide

Terra_Cide — Tue, 12 Mar 2013 18:16:02 +0000

You’ll note that this article focused on North American and European developers, of which Konami is neither. And let’s be frank here -- personal bias (including the perception thereof) in business is silly.

If I were a SCEAsia Home user, I wouldn’t be so focused on which developers *aren’t* bringing their items there, but instead focusing on supporting the developers who *are* bringing their items there, and making the numbers on their income statement for that region worth their efforts, if I wanted any chance of seeing more items (and possibly more developers) entering the market.

By: Jayson619

Jayson619 — Tue, 12 Mar 2013 17:09:05 +0000

Nice read; though I believe KONAMI will disagree with you; they have yet refused to release any stuff to us Asians not bcos of hurdle but for personal sickening reasons.