[MoonBird]

Originally Posted by Gonchi

Clearly, the fall of the Spanish Empire has been greatly exaggerated.

Yes... what I meant, was that english is far more understood language. I used wrong word when I referred to to spoken language. Of course I know that spanish is spoken elsewhere than just in spain. It should have been said "understood language." My apologies

[Marek]

Originally Posted by interrozitor

some thoughts from a german perspective.

Just a quick comment: although AdventureGamers.com is certainly not a German site (this should be obvious ) it's also not an American site. We're international, or more realistically we're pan-Atlantic. So I don't know if AG scores are a bit part of your theory. Anyway, no comments on the rest of your post, just wanted to get that out there.

[MoonBird]

Originally Posted by Marek

Just a quick comment: although AdventureGamers.com is certainly not a German site (this should be obvious ) it's also not an American site. We're international, or more realistically we're pan-Atlantic. So I don't know if AG scores are a bit part of your theory. Anyway, no comments on the rest of your post, just wanted to get that out there.

Good point. We're international. For example I'm from Finland... and what language do we speak in this forum? German? Nooo... We speak english And why...? well... I leave that up to you to come up with

[Terramax]

Originally Posted by MoonBird

Good point. We're international. For example I'm from Finland... and what language do we speak in this forum? German? Nooo... We speak english And why...? well... I leave that up to you to come up with

Because English is the only language you can actually speak better when you're drunk, FACT!

[Steve Ince]

Originally Posted by Terramax

Because English is the only language you can actually speak better when you're drunk, FACT!

Except if you're English.

[Terramax]

No, I tend to understand my friends better when we're all drunk too Hehehe.

[Martin Gantefoehr]

Originally Posted by ATMachine

The evidence is everywhere. More and more German studios are investing in the adventure genre. Telltale Games' partner in Germany spent more on hiring German voice actors (and ones with greater star power) than Telltale could afford for the English version. Even here in Adventure Gamers, all the latest articles are mere translations from a German adventure news site.

Personally, as a native English speaker with almost no German, I'm worried about the localization issue. Consider the case of Simon 4, where the English translation has been delayed for months while the German release came out on time. Or, even when localizations are released, there's always the issue of mistaken or even incompetent translations, not to mention the difficulty of translating humor.

I'd like to bring up a different aspect. I believe what we're seeing here isn't neccessarily a "Germanisation" of adventure games, but rather an Internationalisation of German companies.

dtp and other German publishers have grown considerably over the last years, from companies specialising in releases for German-speaking countries, to full-blown international operations. We're not only seeing new German studios being founded. We're also seeing more and more developers from abroad being brought in to work on projects (Hal, Noah, Steve, and others) and many projects from abroad getting world-wide deals by the now-international German publishing houses.

It's true, the German adventure game market is strong. But I believe an important part of the story is that the long neglected German development scene is finally reaching international ground and making international contacts. This year's GC clearly showed that. I've attended the show since it started out in 2002, and it's never been as international as this year.

Originally Posted by Terramax

Because English is the only language you can actually speak better when you're drunk, FACT!

Counter Evidence A:
Witness Steve Ince, York, United Kingdom, will testify in court that Martin Ganteföhr's English language skills degenerate from reasonably good to some fragmented proto-language mishmash under the influence of alcohol.

[beverheim]

So, the Germans dominate the adventure game industry recently. But how about the adveture gamers? Where are we from? Have posted a poll her: http://www.adventuregamers.com/forum...ad.php?t=20790

[Steve Ince]

Originally Posted by Martin Gantefoehr

I'd like to bring up a different aspect. I believe what we're seeing here isn't neccessarily a "Germanisation" of adventure games, but rather an Internationalisation of German companies.

I agree completely. But it's not just German companies. Look at the So Blonde project - I was writer and designer, the development company, Wizarbox, is French and the publisher is German. How much more international can we get?

Counter Evidence A:
Witness Steve Ince, York, United Kingdom, will testify in court that Martin Ganteföhr's English language skills degenerate from reasonably good to some fragmented proto-language mishmash under the influence of alcohol.

A combination of alcohol and tiredness was getting to us all and our great philosophical discussions about how to save the genre and make lots of money will be forever lost. Or until we again get drunk together.

[Jazhara7]

Originally Posted by ATMachine

The Whispered World.

Wait a second, does that mean "The Whispered World" is getting developed and published after all? Please say it is so! Please!



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[Melanie68]

Originally Posted by Jazhara7

Wait a second, does that mean "The Whispered World" is getting developed and published after all? Please say it is so! Please!



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Yes. (there's a thread about it in adventure that I bumped as well)

[Squinky]

A couple of days ago, I had a conversation with a friend who's a huge fan of Japanese RPGs, in which he stated that he always played his games with their original Japanese voices and English subtitles. He also went on to complain about this one game he played in which there wasn't enough room to fit the Japanese voice files, and how strange and jarring it was to hear American voices referring to each other using names, titles, and idioms that were clearly Japanese. It reminded me very much of this discussion.

Hence, if there is to be localization, I'd rather like it if the North American versions of European adventure games allowed for original-language voices to at least be present alongside the English voices, and have the option of selecting voices in one language and subtitles in another. (If certain games already do this, I'd love to know.) Also, if there must be localized voices, I'd at least like to hear the English spoken in authentic accents, rather than completely inappropriate ones. That would definitely lessen the strange-soundingness of foreign idioms.

Come on, let's break out of this stereotype of gamers as uncultured and therefore capable neither of reading nor understanding accents other than their own!

[Jazhara7]

Originally Posted by Melanie68

Yes. (there's a thread about it in adventure that I bumped as well)

SQUEEEEEEEEEE!!! Thank you! *glomps*


Now I'm really happy.


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[Crapstorm]

Squink, I agree with you. I would really like to see as much of the foreign games' cultural/linguistic characteristics preserved as possible. However, it won't happen. North American publishers don't even like to preserve the titles of European games.

[Israfel]

I wouldn't be that down on the possibility. As was mentioned, it's becoming increasingly common for American publishers to retain the original language for Japanese games--so if gamers ask for it enough, I don't see why a similar trend couldn't happen with European games.

[Harald B]

I'd prefer that the language being spoken be appropriate to the subject matter. I mostly agree that localization shouldn't involve dubbing, but for instance a german-speaking Sherlock Holmes with english subtitles is just silly. I would like to see a game like Undercover: Operation Wintersun feature subtitled german speech, though I doubt we'll see that happen.

[Vina]

As someone who use to just hop over to a place like ComPUSA and buy up all the cartoon AGs (I didn't even know what an AG was) I saw in the Lucas/Sierra glory days, it has been a little weird for me. Now when I try to get back into it, the genre's been declared "dead" in America and now everything seems to be coming out of Europe!

It's weird for me, not sure how else to explain it. But at least Germany's proving the genre is certainly NOT dead. And Americans still have that Penny Arcade game (technically an RPG/adventure but meh!), the Sam and max release (did that come out already?), and A Vampyre Story (okay, not really sure how that's going to go) as far as proper localization is concerned.