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Publisher Atlus "devastates" people who imported Demon's Souls
Atlus announced a pre-order incentive for the upcoming Playstation 3 action RPG Demon's Souls under the following headline: "PATIENCE IS REWARDED: ATLUS EXPANDS DEMON'S SOULS PRE-ORDER BONUS TO INCLUDE FULL SOUNDTRACK; IMPORTERS DEVASTATED".
The "importers" are the folks who couldn't wait to play the game which has already been released in Asia. Therefore, they paid about eighty bucks for a Korean version with a fully functional English language option. They'll be missing out a free soundtrack and 40-page art book the rest of us get when we pre-order the bona fide American version Atlus will release on October 6th. However, on that day, devastated importers can come over to my house. I'll put on the soundtrack and we can flip through the art book together. Oh, wait, no we can't. I'll be too busy playing Demon's Souls, much like they've been doing for months now, taunting me about how good it is. In fact, I won't even answer the door when they come over.
In the press release, Atlus identified themselves as "defenders of the macro-transaction (i.e., pay once, get everything)". Hear, hear. There's nothing quite so lovable as a plucky niche publisher!
Atlus has also posted an informative breakdown of what it takes to localize a game brought over from Japan.The overall, start-to-finish procedure of publishing a localized game...might not be apparent to everyone. So here it is, the answer to the question on many people's minds: why does it take so long?
In other words, so this is why I'm not playing Demon's Souls yet!
By Chris Nahr at 11:17 AM ON 07/31/09
But Demon's Souls already has a perfectly functional English mode... so what's there to localize, other than the manual? This Atlus post does not seem to apply to this game.
By Ross Macpherson at 11:25 AM ON 07/31/09
Functional, but occasionally lacking in polish. The dialogue is mostly good, surprisingly good sometimes, but the item descriptions are often imprecise or outright misleading. To take one example (I don't think this is a spoiler, but be warned): there are several items called Description Noun Soul - Unknown Hero Soul, is one kind of these - for which the description reads "Turns the User Into a Soul". In fact, they give the user some souls, which are the game's unit of currency and experience.
I finished the game for the first time a couple of weeks ago and am already beginning to feel like replaying it, which is something I rarely do. The music for World 3-3 is so good that I'm considering pre-ordering another copy just for the soundtrack.
By Rock8man at 12:00 PM ON 07/31/09
Tom, you forgot the biggest reason us importers are actually jealous! The 150+ page guide book! The wiki that's online is useful, but it would be really handy in a game like this to have information for weapons and equipment available in a guide.
By Chijts at 12:01 PM ON 07/31/09
"... while the assigned translators play the game thoroughly."
Dude, I'm on the wrong course!
Seriously though thanks for linking this, it's a cool insight into what goes on. Now I can see why it takes (sometimes) a year or so before UK gets to see a game - because the extra european languages must really add to the time. Damn it.
By Bahimiron at 12:53 PM ON 07/31/09
Man, I only played $55 for it and have easily gotten an art book and soundtrack's worth of enjoyment out of it.
So nyeah.
By Joshua at 2:28 PM ON 07/31/09
I might get this game again, actually.
Some people going over the existing translation is a good thing (but honestly the existing translation is no worse than most translations out of Square and Nintendo releases), but I hope they don't change the voice overs. The voice acting in this game is phenomenal - better than a huge chunk (arbitrary number here - 70%) of American games.
By Ginger Yellow at 4:19 PM ON 07/31/09
There seems to be a fairly simple way to avoid this problem, to the extent that it is a problem. Don't put an English version on your Japanese release. If you're worried about losing sales in the rest of Asia, how about localising it for them?
By malkav11 at 2:29 AM ON 08/01/09
They didn't put English on the Japanese release. It was the general Asian release, and I would imagine that one was in English because it was easier to localize once for English than over and over again for the dozens of languages and dialects spoken in the area.
By Chris Nahr at 5:12 AM ON 08/01/09
Oh, so the English version is actually being re-localized for the Western market? I wasn't aware of that. Sounds like they could save a lot of effort by doing a proper English version the first time around, though... just saying!
By Tom Chick at 5:47 PM ON 08/01/09
Actually, the English option on the Asian release pre-dated Atlus' deal to publish the game in the US. The game had been out for a while before Atlus picked up the rights to publish it here.
Tom Chick:
Actually, the English option on the Asian release pre-dated Atlus' deal to publish the game in the US. The game ha...More »