Petition for Spanish Translation of Final Fantasy XIV

Of localazing the prices nothing...?

Apoyando!!
Espero que sea pronto teniendo en cuenta la ambientación de la próxima expansión.

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Originally Posted by VirusOnline

But I do wonder. Supposing there is a go ahead and knowing how many different types of spanish there are (dialects, regions, idioms, nuances, etc) which would you use?

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I appreciate your perspective as a developer, and would like to offer mine as a linguist. I will be answering in two posts because my perspective turned out a bit too long. :p

With regards to the text:
It's true that localization means "to make something local", which by definition is not possible when releasing a localization to a linguistic population instead of a region. With that said, whenever products are prepared to be released to a population instead of a region, something called "Universal Spanish" is used: rather than a dialect, this is a standard of writing that removes any localism and uses lexicon shared by as many countries of one linguistic group as possible, so as to be readable by as many speakers of one language as it can. This is the Spanish used for technical and scientific papers, as well as in international journalism and non-country specific software releases, because you want to cast a net as wide as possible in terms of user availability. It's likely this would be the choice for the broader UI/UX of the game, as well as business and community communications. Some more localized nods could be inserted in text such as quest descriptions and journal entries (which in English do have occasional references to American and British pop culture, among other things); I guarantee that if the entire body of written text uses Universal Spanish as a framework with an occasional nod to popular Spanish or Latino IP, it would elicit a chuckle or a double take (or sometimes just ignorance) rather than a "this version wasn't made for me" reaction.

Following up from the prior post...

With regards to voice acting:
Most people have said we'd rather just have the game's interface and subtitles in Spanish because the real challenge to localization (not to mention the expensive part of it) would be voice acting. You can hide dialect and accent in text but not so much in voice acting.

However, if we work under the (very unlikely) assumption that this project's localization has a cozy budget to work with, there's three distinct possibilities:
a) The "representative" dialect is chosen by sheer numbers of speakers (which would tilt it towards a central Mexican dialect, since it has the most speakers per country and tends to be the one taught as "standard" in the States), OR
b) The "representative" dialect is chosen by market share (which would tilt it towards Castillian Spanish), OR
c) Real-world representation goes out the window, and creative adjustments are made to adjust for a fantasy setting, where the dialect is referential to a character's personality or nation/allegiance instead, and not adjusted to the player.

I personally think C would be the ideal solution, and I say something akin to this in my video-letter to Yoshi-P. XIV's voiced English version isn't also entirely off British English, it has plenty of voice actors with diverse linguistic backgrounds, with the result being that Eorzea presents as a pluricultural world where the lingua franca happens to be English. (For absolute clarity though, I think this is something only the English localization does; I have not played the game in French or German, and the Japanese version displays this pluriculturality through different means.)

The truth is that it would be a great advance to see the game translated into Spanish. Currently I don't bother recommending this wonderful game to my friends as it is not only in English, but it is in a rather complex and old English.

So... please Square Enix, it would be amazing to give Spanish-speaking people the chance to immerse themselves in this world.

Much love from Spain :)

We've been wanting this since 1.0. Please provide Spanish translations! Even if it's just the text! Voiceover would be awesome starting with whatever future patch but I also know how expensive it would be, so at the very least a text translation would be very appreciated. Signed, your Puerto Rican fans.

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Originally Posted by stellarCouncil

A large population of two continents speak spanish. It seems ridiculous to me not to localize it to spanish. In pure numbers and financial considerations, German, a language accommodated by the game, is less valuable than spanish at 96.58 million worldwide speakers, compared to the almost 500 million spanish speakers worldwide. While it would take a lot of work, and time, it is absolutely worth the money for the vast market it opens the game up to.

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And yet Spanish is a very ignored language, I saw many times video game companies ignoring our language, but adding other less spoken languages, and is something that I couldn't understand, no matter how much I try. :/

I am not a Spanish speaker but I fully support this idea. Best of luck!

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Originally Posted by Talke

I appreciate your perspective as a developer, and would like to offer mine as a linguist. I will be answering in two posts because my perspective turned out a bit too long. :p

With regards to the text:
It's true that localization means "to make something local", which by definition is not possible when releasing a localization to a linguistic population instead of a region. With that said, whenever products are prepared to be released to a population instead of a region, something called "Universal Spanish" is used: rather than a dialect, this is a standard of writing that removes any localism and uses lexicon shared by as many countries of one linguistic group as possible, so as to be readable by as many speakers of one language as it can. This is the Spanish used for technical and scientific papers, as well as in international journalism and non-country specific software releases, because you want to cast a net as wide as possible in terms of user availability. It's likely this would be the choice for the broader UI/UX of the game, as well as business and community communications. Some more localized nods could be inserted in text such as quest descriptions and journal entries (which in English do have occasional references to American and British pop culture, among other things); I guarantee that if the entire body of written text uses Universal Spanish as a framework with an occasional nod to popular Spanish or Latino IP, it would elicit a chuckle or a double take (or sometimes just ignorance) rather than a "this version wasn't made for me" reaction.

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Originally Posted by Talke

Following up from the prior post...

With regards to voice acting:
Most people have said we'd rather just have the game's interface and subtitles in Spanish because the real challenge to localization (not to mention the expensive part of it) would be voice acting. You can hide dialect and accent in text but not so much in voice acting.

However, if we work under the (very unlikely) assumption that this project's localization has a cozy budget to work with, there's three distinct possibilities:
a) The "representative" dialect is chosen by sheer numbers of speakers (which would tilt it towards a central Mexican dialect, since it has the most speakers per country and tends to be the one taught as "standard" in the States), OR
b) The "representative" dialect is chosen by market share (which would tilt it towards Castillian Spanish), OR
c) Real-world representation goes out the window, and creative adjustments are made to adjust for a fantasy setting, where the dialect is referential to a character's personality or nation/allegiance instead, and not adjusted to the player.

I personally think C would be the ideal solution, and I say something akin to this in my video-letter to Yoshi-P. XIV's voiced English version isn't also entirely off British English, it has plenty of voice actors with diverse linguistic backgrounds, with the result being that Eorzea presents as a pluricultural world where the lingua franca happens to be English. (For absolute clarity though, I think this is something only the English localization does; I have not played the game in French or German, and the Japanese version displays this pluriculturality through different means.)

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Wow, thanks for the explanations. They make a lot of sense. I'd agree that C sounds like the best result as well and in my experience it exists only for English localization. I don't think I've ever "read" or heard a Canadian French accent in the French version, but it's been quite a long time since I've switched to English. But I definitely see where you guys are coming from, though if I'm being honest, I would love a voice option. And I think SE can afford it haha.

What a great and heartfelt video. I really hope someone at SE, if not YoshiP himself, has watched it. It really makes me wonder why statistics show that spanish speaking countries do not bring in comparable revenue, especially considering population and the fact that spanish is a major global language. Now that I think of it, I don't even see a lot of games these days having a spanish option and I wonder if this is a huge factor into that. Lack of accessibility would certainly affect revenue and make companies make certain decisions away from certain markets as a result. But I'm pondering here lol.

Thanks again for the explanation and good luck guys!

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Originally Posted by VirusOnline

Wow, thanks for the explanations. They make a lot of sense. I'd agree that C sounds like the best result as well and in my experience it exists only for English localization. I don't think I've ever "read" or heard a Canadian French accent in the French version, but it's been quite a long time since I've switched to English. But I definitely see where you guys are coming from, though if I'm being honest, I would love a voice option. And I think SE can afford it haha.

What a great and heartfelt video. I really hope someone at SE, if not YoshiP himself, has watched it. It really makes me wonder why statistics show that spanish speaking countries do not bring in comparable revenue, especially considering population and the fact that spanish is a major global language. Now that I think of it, I don't even see a lot of games these days having a spanish option and I wonder if this is a huge factor into that. Lack of accessibility would certainly affect revenue and make companies make certain decisions away from certain markets as a result. But I'm pondering here lol.

Thanks again for the explanation and good luck guys!

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99% of the AAA games, have Spanish option, and a big chunk of indie games too. (The only indie games I didn't see a Spanish translation are the ones that are only in English because, very very small company) is true that most of the games doesn't have Spanish dub, but text is always a thing. Is just Square Enix who did this to us many times: Kingdom Hearts 3D for example, wasn't in Spanish when the rest of the tittles had an Spanish translation, also the Star Ocean saga, I think I only saw one of the games with a Spanish translation. (The ps3 one) and that's all.
Even Atlus, and Sega who usually hasn't Spanish, now are releasing all their games, with our translation: Persona 5 Royal, Yakuza saga... etc..

Por favor traduzcan el juego, y pongan emotes de comer bocadillo de chistorra y morcilla

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Originally Posted by Niena

Por favor traduzcan el juego, y pongan emotes de comer bocadillo de chistorra y morcilla

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Un furnishing de Paella!

Señores de Square Enix, permítanme la licencia de escribir en mi idioma materno ya que en este hilo va de eso precisamente del idioma español.

Creo que después de mas de 40 paginas llenas de opinión e información hay poco más que añadir, solo queda hacerse la pregunta de; ¿Por qué? Creo que la respuesta esta clara y se contesta ella misma, Square Enix es una empresa y como tal los gastos/ingresos y resultados son lo que mandan en el actual sistema de mercado en el que vivimos y en lo que tengo poco o nada que objetar.

Ahora bien;
¿De verdad resulta tan incomodo plantearse este cambio en el idioma del juego?
Como he dicho antes la empresa esta para obtener beneficios, esta claro, pero ¿Qué hay de la idea de cuidar al cliente?
¿Hasta que punto somos importantes para ustedes?
¿Nunca ha estado sobre la mesa una traducción sobre el juego?
Resulta por lo menos extraño, ya que los demás Final Fantasy sí han llegado con su traducción?

Son ya 10 años desde que se lanzo FF XIV y la comunidad hispano hablante ha demostrado su total fidelidad en este proyecto como en los de otros productos que ustedes gestionan.

Y como ultima reflexión agradecer a ChocoFeru por traer el debate en este momento, creo que ha sido el momento justo para hacerlo, ni antes ni después. Muchas gracias a ti y a toda la gente que hace posible la Comunidad Hispana, creo que por gente como tú SE debería replantearse la dirección del juego, no solo de cara a los fans sino también por el propio juego, que aunque esta envejeciendo bien, habría cosas que cambiar, aunque eso es otra discusión.

Un saludo y nos vemos por Eorzea.

Nuevamente dandole apoyo a la causa uwu ♥

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Originally Posted by rxantos

The reason German and French were translated where the laws of their respective countries that require that any game being sold needs to have a version on their language.

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Are you sure about that?

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Originally Posted by ACE135

Are you sure about that?

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Why do you think most games are released with support for these languages in Europe?

German here, that law would need to be rather recent.
As Disgaea and Persona as franchises only had a german package but a english game for the longest time.

Anyway while i doubt it will happen.
I wish the entire spanish speaking community good luck for it. :D

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Originally Posted by Sotaris

Why do you think most games are released with support for these languages in Europe?

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Because the markets are big and games wouldn't sell well if they weren't in their respective languages.

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Originally Posted by Ayalu

German here, that law would need to be rather recent.
As Disgaea and Persona as franchises only had a german package but a english game for the longest time.

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Star Ocean 5 comes to my mind. It had a french localizaction but not a german one, Germany got just the english localization. But France is a bit different because there are a lot fewer people who understand english and sales would be even lower than in other countries if it was just in english.

I think these laws doesn't exist, or not as we think they work!

Final Fantasy XI lost the French and German translations, even ingame, all previous transpations wiped out, and the game is still selling in these countries.

The excuse to do it was that FFXI had few players on that language, wich I can understand. On FFXIV's case, and only counting the Spanish community (not the latino) I can see similar numbers from the French and German community, even bigger sometimes.

If we count the latino community, wich is even bigger in numbers and potential users, it would be 100% profitable to translate FFXIV.

Just here to boost this thread and add my support for a Spanish localisation!

This is what it feels to play in Spain.

We're even excluded on the giveaways, yet we pay our sub like everyone else :(
That's why we're asking for a space in this game!

https://i.imgur.com/xXYnZGP.png

It sucks, they kept all America, except for Canada and US, out of the sweepstakes. They make an expansion based on Latin America but: no regional pricing, no translation to European Spanish and Latin Spanish, and even we're at disadvantage when raiding: our ping makes our GCD clip. Still, we have to pay 13USD in a currency that's not ours, but we're not take into account as the others.

Its important to not stop beeing loud about it.

In march i took a short look at the Ragnarok Origin-Release in all of america. Spanish and portuguese translation, a lot of full servers, chat overflown with activity, whales and just a lot of gamers like you and me. I do not see any reason why a big game as FF14 is shouldnt get a translation into spanish as soon as possible. Modern tools makes this easy and fast to do.

You have my support. :)

EUROPE REGION: AUSTRALIA. Thank you.

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Originally Posted by Niena

EUROPE REGION: AUSTRALIA. Thank you.

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Australia even takes part in the Eurovision Song Contest. xD

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Originally Posted by ChocoFeru

Thanks again for the awesome support you guys are giving!!

The Spanish Community was very happy to hear that Yoshi-P readed this petition :)

We're here to help and provide anything Square-Enix might need to make this petition a reality!

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Pardon my ignorance, how did he confirm he saw the thread? This is exciting news! :D

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Hello, Mexican-American here o/

I have asked for a Spanish-language localization since way back in 2014. I even approached Koji Fox about it at the NA Fanfest 2014, and back then, he pretty much confirmed it was due to costs/marketing.

But it has been 10 years since, and this game is a lot more popular than it was back then, so hopefully, that means we will get a localization. I myself would love to play this game in Spanish, even though I am fluent in English as well.

Square Enix is a very small indie developer, so small that FFXIV has been in early access for 11 years. Even putting game text in a free translator is a big ask that could take up to 6 years to implement.

Solo quiero recordar que en esto tambien esta involucrada la comunidad Latina, no unicamente la comunidad española

Hi! Here showing my support on this. More languages means more people, and that's always a good thing on MMOs!

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Originally Posted by Vilhem

Pardon my ignorance, how did he confirm he saw the thread? This is exciting news! :D

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Hello, Mexican-American here o/

I have asked for a Spanish-language localization since way back in 2014. I even approached Koji Fox about it at the NA Fanfest 2014, and back then, he pretty much confirmed it was due to costs/marketing.

But it has been 10 years since, and this game is a lot more popular than it was back then, so hopefully, that means we will get a localization. I myself would love to play this game in Spanish, even though I am fluent in English as well.

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An Spanish gaming news site had an interview with Yoshi-P for the media tour, where they talked about this

I'm shocked that it isn't a thing already... it should be!

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Originally Posted by ChocoFeru

This is what it feels to play in Spain.

We're even excluded on the giveaways, yet we pay our sub like everyone else :(
That's why we're asking for a space in this game!

https://i.imgur.com/xXYnZGP.png

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probably due to laws/legal. I mean there is a lot of European countries not on that list.

Is sad seeing the amount of pre-hispanic references in dawntrail and that they do not take into consideration our language. :l

Posting just to add to the asking for a spanish translations, I cant convice many friends to play because they will only play in spanish... so much popular chinese games are getting translated, and yet...

Apoyo totalmente la iniciativa!! Es una pena que un público tan fiel y seguidor de la saga como es el español y latinoamericano no pueda, a pesar de entender el inglés, poder captar todos los matices de la historia como corresponde o simplemente jugar de forma relajada y disfrutar la historia sin verte obligado a traducir a la par. Y otros directamente ni se plantean empezar por no entenderlo.

Creo que la excusa de "es que la historia es muy extensa y larga para adpatar a un nuevo idioma" palidece cuando otro MMO muy famoso por su intenso lore tradujo al español totalmente los textos hace dos años.

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Originally Posted by Dainn

Solo quiero recordar que en esto tambien esta involucrada la comunidad Latina, no unicamente la comunidad española

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Este es un post que hicimos con varios usuarios de nuestra comunidad. En FFXIVESP también hay latinos, por mucho que tenga ese "ESP" al final, es una comunidad que engloba a todo hispanohablante que quiera formar parte :)

En él también pedimos una traducción genérica tanto para Españoles como Latinos! El objetivo es ir todos a una :D

Concuerdo con Choco. Yo soy latina, no española, y con ayuda de Choco comencé un pequeño subreddit (más bien inactivo ahora porque es difícil encontrarnos cuando el mainsub ya existe y tantos hispanoparlantes estamos acostumbrados a vivir asimilados entre angloparlantes); se llama r/FFXIV_hispano no en relación a la comunidad española, sino al idioma que todos compartimos. Si desean, los invito a participar en ese foro también.

If this ever happens please use the Japanese script as base and not the english one. Thanks.

Immediate disclaimer: I am not hispanic nor do I speak the language, but I will chime in agreement and support! I am honestly surprised we don't have Spanish as an option, considering how widely spoken it is, but have French and German. More language options are always good.

Some of my friends won't play cause they can barely understand english or any of the languages available ;;