Why FFXIV: ARR needs spanish support (and likely other languages.)

I like to think that FFXIV: ARR is a worldly game. That it is inviting and welcoming for all. But there are a few gaping holes that SE needs to fill not just for diversity purposes, but because SE is missing out on a lot of revenue because of it.

Spanish is the 2nd most used language in the world according to the 2010 edition of the Nationalencyklopedin Spoken by over 405 million people (6.15% of the world population)

Most used by rank:
Mandarin #1
Spanish #2
English #3
Japanese #9
German #11
French #18

It is a widely used language in Spain, Mexico, United States, Argentina, Bolivia, Chile,
Colombia, Costa Rica, Cuba, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Puerto Rico, Uruguay, Venezuela, Equatorial Guinea and the Western Sahara...whew! That's a lot of places!
Sony ships to almost all of the places listed which means these places which means they have PS3's and 4's! All of these places obviously have PCs.

So please SE, add spanish support to the game and these forums. Not only will it help grow a big community even bigger, but it will bring in a lot more profit.

I don't see anything wrong by requesting Spanish Lang . So I'm happy with this too. I was surprised to see no Spanish anywhere

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Originally Posted by LegionFX

And besides, I'm already sick of seeing German or French only in party finder, seeing a full 8 player party and 7 speaking only German or French. If I would see Spanish also, I think I might shoot someone. xD

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Choosing only E on the duty finder and the first thing you see is "Salut"... That's usually enough for me.

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Originally Posted by LegionFX

Profit!?! Lol no, just loss. And since when does mandarin is the most spoken language. Sorry but that is just wrong. Either way I get the point, but still... The amount of human resources, and money to do that is not good for business. And besides, even 5 year old kids know English this days. And can you imagine the rage? More languages, more downloading time, bigger files to download, late patches because of lack of translation. It's just not practical.

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Actually it's not wrong. That is why SE brought FFXIV: ARR to China. It has the largest population of any other country on earth and mandarin is the main language (hence mandarin being the most used language in the world.) If SE is willing to bring FFXIV there and add mandarin to the Chinese version, why not Spanish to other versions?

Using the pretence that " Largest country in the world hence is the most spoken of all of them" is false and flawed beyond understanding economics. I am no professor on the matter nor am I going to look up regional facts but it is not the most used based of that pretence. If you are using that data to make a point, English is used more in the world then all of your rankings due to the face EVERY country in the UN (united nations) and others require English to be learned in grade school. It is the international language of the world.

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Originally Posted by Stridentzephon

Using the pretence that " Largest country in the world hence is the most spoken of all of them" is false and flawed beyond understanding economics. I am no professor on the matter nor am I going to look up regional facts but it is not the most used based of that pretence. If you are using that data to make a point, English is used more in the world then all of your rankings due to the face EVERY country in the UN (united nations) and others require English to be learned in grade school. It is the international language of the world.

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learnt =/= used. But that's beyond the point.

EVERY country in the UN (united nations) and others require English to be learned in grade school

That is... beyond wrong. Absolutely not true. In no way do all 193 countries in the UN require English to be taught, a very small number do.

And even in those countries that do teach some English in school, in many its like Americans taking high school French --- doesn't mean they can speak French. To use a FFXIV relevant example: Try having a conversation in English with people in Japan --- outside of a small number who were interested enough to keep learning and using it, most Japanese cannot speak English.

Spanish would make more sense to me than French or German, even just considering the NA and European players who speak Spanish.

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Originally Posted by Khyra

To use a FFXIV relevant example: Try having a conversation in English with people in Japan --- outside of a small number who were interested enough to keep learning and using it, most Japanese cannot speak English.

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This is wrong. Most japanese people can understand english well enough if written. And it's way enough to have basic conversations.

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Originally Posted by Khyra

Spanish would make more sense to me than French or German, even just considering the NA and European players who speak Spanish.

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French and German are the 2 main language apart from English for countless games in Europe release, I'm not sure why

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Originally Posted by Kuwagami

This is wrong. Most japanese people can understand english well enough if written. And it's way enough to have basic conversations.



French and German are the 2 main language apart from English for countless games in Europe release, I'm not sure why

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French because it's spoken in many countries. German because it's the most widely spoken 1st language in continental Europe. spoken spanish just isn't that important in Europe.

Another point of view:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Languag...European_Union

English, German and French together make 41% of EUs native speakers, 51% of EUs people speak English, 27% German and 24% French. Only 8% native Spanish speakers and 15% who understand Spanish.

Servers are JP, NA and EU. SE never claimed to be present world wide.



And people might hate me for that one but:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of..._GDP_(nominal)

Germany and France have quite more money to spent than other countries in the EU, that might influence SEs opinion on getting on a local market as well. If I had to pick another market for SE I guess it would be Russia (lots of people, rising economic).

I do not speak Spanish, but I approve Spanish support!

As for Mandarin support... we don't really need that. The Chinese servers will probably be segregated from the rest of the world due to Chinese internet laws, so Mandarin support could stay over there.

When Spanish speaking countries require this, maybe you will get it.

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Originally Posted by Barboron

When Spanish speaking countries require this, maybe you will get it.

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Quebec tries so hard lol

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Originally Posted by o3o

Most Spanish speaking country's are not very into mmo gaming or are just plain scary/3rd world places. So bbasically they would lose money translating it

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http://mmorpghispano.net/ This is a website for Spanish speaking mmo players from around the world. Also, I am sorry you think 3rd world countries are "scary."

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Originally Posted by Stridentzephon

Using the pretence that " Largest country in the world hence is the most spoken of all of them" is false and flawed beyond understanding economics. I am no professor on the matter nor am I going to look up regional facts but it is not the most used based of that pretence. If you are using that data to make a point, English is used more in the world then all of your rankings due to the face EVERY country in the UN (united nations) and others require English to be learned in grade school. It is the international language of the world.

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I didn't say largest country, I said largest population (1.35 billion. 955 million of which speak Mandarin. 14.4% of the world population). Please read more carefully. Also, no the UN doesn't not make it mandatory to learn English everywhere...or anywhere for that matter.

Also, I find it funny that some of you are focusing so much on Europe and North America when talking about the Spanish language. Forget about South America? Sony brags about how much they sell to that whole continent all the time. I have personalty visited Chile myself. I highly recommend going there at least once in your life. Great country with wonderful people.

Isn't Spanish one of the languages that is regionally vastly different? I remember in college I met three native Spanish speakers (one from Spain, one from Mexico, and one from Venezuela) and they all spoke English but could barely understand each other's Spanish.

Idk if I encountered just a rare situation, but how do you translate a game into one language with such different regional dialects?

Problem with Spanish Speaker players is that:

1.- Devs places a spanish server but in EU, so ping-kills the Latin American players.
2.- Devs places a spanish server but in NA, so ping-kills the European players.
3.- Devs places both spanish a time after the launch of the game, players never transfer because they are too spreaded all over the other servers.

People tend to think spanish speaking players are minority or they don`t play invest that much (which is BS lol), but since devs never give or almost dont give support to them, we usually tend to scatter arround all the aviable servers between NA and EU, then people find "small pools" of spanish players and cant grasp the true population we actually have. For example in NA dataservers, spanish players focus on Cactuar and Hyperion, but you can find FC of several players even in JP servers (masamune i belive). Why is this? because the lack of spanish support and dedicated servers. All this, get us to the point where people think "there are not enough spanish players for a spanish client". Wrong. Probably, and only Devs have access to this data, we have more players than any, french and german speaking communities. Thing is, since we dont get dedicated servers, we are not "noticed". In FFXIV we could probably fill 1 NA and 1 EU server without problems.

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Originally Posted by o3o

Most Spanish speaking country's are not very into mmo gaming or are just plain scary/3rd world places. So bbasically they would lose money translating it

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http://media.giphy.com/media/gyltTPvict94c/giphy.gif

Can we just get any kind of customer support? I've had so many tickets closed without anyone ever talking to me. Go to the chat support? You get to the first person in line and then it magically closes as well.
Call them on the phone? And wait on hold for forever just for them to say "It's nothing we can do"
While Yoshi is bring over WoW game mechanics, can we get WoW's customer support too?

Ontopic: Yeah spanish support doesn't really hurt anything if they can afford it.

Reasons for different translation :

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OaiSHcHM0PA

http://stopthesethings.files.wordpre...he-money01.gif

(german and french are due to laws)

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Originally Posted by LadyVal

Isn't Spanish one of the languages that is regionally vastly different? I remember in college I met three native Spanish speakers (one from Spain, one from Mexico, and one from Venezuela) and they all spoke English but could barely understand each other's Spanish.

Idk if I encountered just a rare situation, but how do you translate a game into one language with such different regional dialects?

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You are right. As someone who lives in Puerto Rico and has friends from Spain, Mexico, Colombia, etc., I can confirm that there is a pretty big difference. I guess that this is one of the main reasons why it would be very hard to translate into Spanish.

P.S. o.o to those who think that there aren't that many Spanish speaking players in this game, or gamers in general, you'd be surprised.

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Originally Posted by o3o

Most Spanish speaking country's are not very into mmo gaming or are just plain scary/3rd world places. So bbasically they would lose money translating it

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Replying to you because you are spouting nonsense. Blizzard had WoW translated to spanish since forever, and many, many, maaaaaaaaaaaaaaany southamerican people play this game, and a lot of people here in Spain do. Get off your high horse, quickly.

Also if there's to be a Spanish translation, just like WoW, its has to be an Spanish from Spain one, since everyone can read and comprehend it.

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Originally Posted by Kuwagami

French and German are the 2 main language apart from English for countless games in Europe release, I'm not sure why

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Since you don't know why, I'll enlighten you.

Did you know Germany and France have LAWS that you can't publish a game in there unless it's localized? No?

Well there you go.

I don't wanna ruin your parade but what you are saying and your source is saying are 2 diifferent things.

You said its the second most language.
Your source saids its the second most native speakers.

These are 2 completely different things since a ton of countries you will have people learning and understand english.

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Originally Posted by o3o

Most Spanish speaking country's are not very into mmo gaming or are just plain scary/3rd world places. So bbasically they would lose money translating it

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^ the sad truth
most of the southern americas do not have affordable internet access (some even barely afford food)

and those that do live there and can afford internet? they speak english or french anyways :)

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Originally Posted by Shori

^ the sad truth
most of the southern americas do not have internet access (some even barely afford food)

and those that do live there and can afford internet? they speak english anyways :)

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Apart from sounding very discriminatory, you really don't know how wrong you are. I'll leave it at that.

Edit: Daily post limit reached.

Yeah because Brazil and Peru are the 100% of South America. You'd like to research how many people from there actually played WoW (paying), and how many in not-so-legal servers, but both having 100% perfect internet connections.

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Originally Posted by Eckhart

Apart from sounding very discriminatory, you really don't know how wrong you are. I'll leave it at that.

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not wrong as i've been to brazil and peru in many aid trips. have you?
also editted post to include french

# of speakers != # of gamers

I am in full support of Spanish localization.

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Originally Posted by Darki

Actually it's not wrong. That is why SE brought FFXIV: ARR to China. It has the largest population of any other country on earth and mandarin is the main language (hence mandarin being the most used language in the world.) If SE is willing to bring FFXIV there and add mandarin to the Chinese version, why not Spanish to other versions?

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Yes, but mandarin is only the most speaken language inside of China. Not the most speaken language in the sense of amount of countrys who have it as a national language

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Originally Posted by Alexander_Dragonfang

Problem with Spanish Speaker players is that:

1.- Devs places a spanish server but in EU, so ping-kills the Latin American players.
2.- Devs places a spanish server but in NA, so ping-kills the European players.
3.- Devs places both spanish a time after the launch of the game, players never transfer because they are too spreaded all over the other servers.

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It's about language support, not own servers.
In the launcher, before you login, you can choose the client language. English, german, french and japanese. People want that SE put also spanish there.

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Originally Posted by Eckhart

Since you don't know why, I'll enlighten you.

Did you know Germany and France have LAWS that you can't publish a game in there unless it's localized? No?

Well there you go.

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Oh really? I find here in germany enough games with only english text.
Example Hyperdimensional Neptunia: text is english, voice is english and japanese, the only german text you find on the cover.

I guess why SE have FF games with german text is to increase the sells in europe. There are 3 countries with german speakers (germany, austria and switzerland)

I'm just being honesy. And yes some Spanish speaking country's are scary. Mexico has been voted the most dangerous country in the world a few times and doesn't seem to be getting any better.

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Originally Posted by o3o

I'm just being honest. And yes, some Spanish speaking countries are scary. Mexico has been voted the most dangerous country in the world a few times and doesn't seem to be getting any better.

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And you believe that justifies not making a Spanish version?

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Originally Posted by Gramul

And you believe that justifies not making a Spanish version?

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I'm not really opposed to it. But it's true. Some just have bigger issues to deal with then paying for an MMO

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Originally Posted by o3o

I'm not really opposed to it. But it's true. Some just have bigger issues to deal with then paying for an MMO

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Living in a dangerous country does not mean that every square inch of the country is dangerous you know. Mexico City itself is actually quite safe for example.
I mean it's not like every citizen spends their lives cowering in fear from drug lords.

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Originally Posted by Ayamia

Choosing only E on the duty finder and the first thing you see is "Salut"... That's usually enough for me.

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lol sometimes I greet in français even if the others greet in English. Just because. I clearly understand and speak English.

I'm Italian and I admit it would be nice to have the game translated in my own language. However, I prefer have it English and struggle a little to understand the text rather then having a game translated in poor Italian or badly Italian.
On the PS Blog, when they were talking about the PS4's version of FFXIV, they released a post to introduce the jobs system. Scholar was translated with the English equivalent for "Student" = if this is what I should expect from an Italian version (not to mention the amount of mistakes they could make when translating skills descriptions etc), then please don't bother.

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Originally Posted by Alexander_Dragonfang

Snip

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Well, yeah, actually I'm the only spanish speaker player in my FC in Hyperion. I, however, know that there're many LS and FC of spanish speaker players, mostly in Cactuar. I'm pretty much a minority there. I'm impressed SE didn't give spanish support. I'm from Argentina and I never had ping issues anyway. Let alone the lag, unless it's server-side, I rarely have lag.

On a side note, people should know that the spanish speaker countries are not that bad and they should not believe what their local media says. Gosh, people think we live in a jungle here... gais, pls

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Originally Posted by Kuwagami

This is wrong. Most japanese people can understand english well enough if written. And it's way enough to have basic conversations.

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Incorrect - Most know the requirement to pass High School, only those interested in continuing it will know it towards a more fluent level. So she wasn't wrong at all. If you're throwing out quite a lot of "day to day" English, especially these days, they won't know what the heck you're talking about, just like not even native JP speakers understand the newer 'slang' style talking at times of their own language.

It's like saying everyone in america knows spanish well enough if it's written if you chose not to continue it after your foreign language credit in middle/highschool - chances are you'll know bits and pieces but unless it's your native language, you can't legitimately tell me everyone who grew up in america knows spanish well enough to hold full blown convos from the little they learned to graduate without any further study.

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Originally Posted by Gramul

Living in a dangerous country does not mean that every square inch of the country is dangerous you know. Mexico City itself is actually quite safe for example.
I mean it's not like every citizen spends their lives cowering in fear from drug lords.

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But the thing is there have to be enough people willing to pay for it to happen. Since they haven't even announced a Spanish vesion, it might be because it's not worth the money.

All about money. Because translating an MMO isn't exactly cheap.

No offense but most Spanish speaking countries are not a huge market of this game.

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Originally Posted by Evangela

No offense but most Spanish speaking countries are not a huge market of this game.

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That's exactly right. Plain and simple.