Should SE make a language spoken census?

http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/forums/667/?order=desc&page=2#threads/289533

After seeing the thread above closed due to the OP asking a question in a different language other than the in-game languages, despite the fact that there were enough people who could answer his question in his language, I think that SE should make a census of languages spoken in each server and post the results to help those chose which server suits them best when it comes to language. It sucks to be a new player and not know where to begin your gaming due to language issues.

Any language used by the RMTs on their clients will automatically win^^

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Ultear_Milkovich

Any language used by the RMTs on their clients will automatically win^^

---

English everywhere then? It always mystifies me that the RMTs continue blindly using English on servers where the English-speaking population is tiny (and mostly made up of people from non-English-speaking regions who have settled on English out of necessity).

It's a pity that the thread the OP is talking about was closed (and that it attracted several dumb replies). I can see why S-E don't like it because it's hard for them to moderate if unsupported languages are spoken - it becomes one poster's word against another's - but it's nice to see smaller communities sprouting up and finding one another.

I imagine S-E have plenty of statistics showing where everyone is connecting from in spite of their client language. They won't know for sure how many of each group speak which languages proficiently, but they'll probably have a rough idea. The recent Fan Fest poll for the European region also gave them some data about a small subset of supported languages and how widely used they actually are within the community.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Serilda

English everywhere then?

---

Yes firend!

Yeah, I find that topic being locked a pretty crappy response considering how common Spanish is worldwide (look at how many countries speak it). Even worse is that they have Spanish translators listed in the in game credits, yet Spanish is not an acceptable language in the forums? It's not like they have a section for it here..

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by raela

Yeah, I find that topic being locked a pretty crappy response considering how common Spanish is worldwide (look at how many countries speak it). Even worse is that they have Spanish translators listed in the in game credits, yet Spanish is not an acceptable language in the forums? It's not like they have a section for it here..

---

They have Spanish translators for what? Because after a lot of people asking for a spanish translation, till now, Square Enix didn't care about Spanish translation. Even games like Star Ocean V and Kingdom Hears 3D wasn't translated. Knowing that Spanish is the third language after Chinese and English most spoken in the world I don't understand this.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by raela

Yeah, I find that topic being locked a pretty crappy response considering how common Spanish is worldwide (look at how many countries speak it). Even worse is that they have Spanish translators listed in the in game credits, yet Spanish is not an acceptable language in the forums? It's not like they have a section for it here..

---

I agree with you 100%. Not cool at all.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Xlantaa

They have Spanish translators for what? Because after a lot of people asking for a spanish translation, till now, Square Enix didn't care about Spanish translation. Even games like Star Ocean V and Kingdom Hears 3D wasn't translated. Knowing that Spanish is the third language after Chinese and English most spoken in the world I don't understand this.

---

I don't know why a Spanish translation team appears in FFXIV credits since there is nothing in game that I see translated. However, other games can have non-obvious translations - for example, set your PS3/PS4/Xbox360 to Spanish and pop in a game, and some will have English dub + Spanish game text (dialogue, skills, items, etc) - Final Fantasy 13 series being one example.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by raela

Yeah, I find that topic being locked a pretty crappy response considering how common Spanish is worldwide Even worse is that they have Spanish translators listed in the in game credits, yet Spanish is not an acceptable language in the forums? It's not like they have a section for it here..

---

You need to understand that the reason why it was closed was because the language used is not the language supported on this particular board. It's a forum rule. Like Serilda said, it can become one person's word against another when the mods here don't know the language. (It does suck for the OP though.) I think the best thing that can be done right now is for the Spanish speaking community to continue petitioning to SE for their own language specific forum. Sure they may need to hire some Spanish speaking moderators, but I think it'd be a decent investment at the end of the day and it would show Spanish speakers that SE sees them as an important demographic.

Considering the number of times I've seen Spanish speaking players try to post on the forums, I wish SE would branch out more and include more Spanish language support both in game and on the forums.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Sakuraluna

Considering the number of times I've seen Spanish speaking players try to post on the forums, I wish SE would branch out more and include more Spanish language support both in game and on the forums.

---

It costs money. Many folks may not think that's a big deal, but it is. You have to hire people who have some degree of credibility to do the job of moderating and be fluent in multiple languages, where there is a minimum of English and/or Japanese and the language in question. A year of Spanish in high school isn't gonna cut it, despite what some special folks may want to believe.

Before you can even hire someone, you need to go through the channels/departments to create the position (not hard given it already exists for other languages), find someone qualified to advertise said position in the other language (as well as possibly write it up in your own), then advertise the job, and all of this also costs money. You then have to go through the typical interview process to find someone who not only qualifies but would be a good addition to the team. You don't want some stuck up d-bag to start causing problems. All of this takes time and money. For as simple as hiring might be for a small private entity, it's typically a totally different beast with an internationally large one.

Then there's the need to figure out where the line is drawn. Just because there might be a small amount of players who speak a certain language, doesn't mean they must branch out and support it. There's a reason why in the case of the forums, we have separated communities based on language. Someone posting in a language other than English, on the English forums, will have their thread deleted/locked/moved, depending on what it is. The same happens if someone posted on the Japanese forums in a language other than Japanese. Likewise for the French and German forums. It's just a way to keep things structured and organized, typical protocol and nothing personal.

A language like Spanish, for as widespread as it may be, is hardly even a thing in Japan. Heck, most of them may never even see a native speaker of any foreign language outside of English in their entire lives. When you look at their target demographic, Spanish-exclusive speakers are not a significant concern of theirs lol. Unless the company and their subject service or product is being marketed to a specific group of people, they are not obligated cater to outside audiences.

It would be nice to see every form of division be catered to, but that's just not realistic lol.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Xlantaa

They have Spanish translators for what? Because after a lot of people asking for a spanish translation, till now, Square Enix didn't care about Spanish translation. Even games like Star Ocean V and Kingdom Hears 3D wasn't translated. Knowing that Spanish is the third language after Chinese and English most spoken in the world I don't understand this.

---

They make costa del sol is perfectly writteng XD.
Now for real i think i see another spanish words over there but well if they don't translate the game at least have our section of the forum for the ppl how need help is fine.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Welsper59

snip.

---

I get that it costs money. As I said, I have seen enough players attempt to post in Spanish here on the English forum that I have to wonder if there is enough of a Spanish community here for it to be considered. Spanish posts seem to be a somewhat regular occurrence.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by shao32

They make costa del sol is perfectly writteng XD.
Now for real i think i see another spanish words over there but well if they don't translate the game at least have our section of the forum for the ppl how need help is fine.

---

That's a difficult thing to really run with. You open the flood gates and unless someone on-staff knows the language, you could very well have something that does not belong. Imagine if someone posted some propaganda that summed up to demanding the murder of world leaders lol. Plus, you tend to annoy the people who don't know the language, when you have two barriers collide.

Imagine coming to a forum of your language but mixed with others as well, and all you were to ever see is pages of threads in Hawaiian with maybe a bit of English (or any other language you may understand) sprinkled around. Said understandable threads may end up being some close ended "Look at this picture!" type of post too, rather than a well thought out topic. You're probably not going to bother lol.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Sakuraluna

I get that it costs money. As I said, I have seen enough players attempt to post in Spanish here on the English forum that I have to wonder if there is enough of a Spanish community here for it to be considered. Spanish posts seem to be a somewhat regular occurrence.

---

It's just one of those unfortunate limitations that people have to simply deal with. Spanish speakers are in the same place as any other language that is not supported. The need for a support of a language is based on the demographic only being able to speak that language. A rather significant amount of people who can speak Spanish, can probably speak one of the other supported languages decently, if not fluently in the locations that this game is being sold for. For those who can't, there are many others in the same multilingual boat.

It'd be like if I didn't understand Japanese but decided to play PSO2 (maybe legitimately if I lived in Japan). Sega is not obligated to support English speakers needs simply because I'm not their target demographic and supported language, even if I were to spend real money on the game. It may be supported, I don't know the technicality on PSO2, but just run with me on that lol. That sort of thing is entirely on the consumer when they participate in something that isn't intended for them.

translating a game to another language means u need to "support" that new language, Sever(s), GM , tech ect....and isnt optional , once u have a mmorpg in X language u need a whole team to keep it.

But dont lost hope , lots of games didnt have spanish language at release (WoW, Aion ect)

btw im from Spain ;)

This is why a census or survey should be made to see what languages are spoken within the game. I've ran into many Brazilian players talking Portuguese which was something I never expected, but there they are. A survey should be made to see what languages to support.

One thing I learned recently is that the United States has the 2nd largest group of Spanish speakers in the world behind only Mexico and surpassing Spain & Colombia. That's a huge market opportunity right there they are missing out on. With Mexico & Spain alone would be good enough reason to add Spanish, but you got Latin America and Spanish Speaking U. S. citizens, too.

Yeah, I get that things don't come free, and moderation is a valid concern.. but they could fund French/German but not Spanish? :( Besides, do moderators actually read through all topics, or just those reported? If it's low volume, you'd think one mod would be enough.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by raela

Yeah, I get that things don't come free, and moderation is a valid concern.. but they could fund French/German but not Spanish? :( Besides, do moderators actually read through all topics, or just those reported? If it's low volume, you'd think one mod would be enough.

---

For sure they don't read all threads since there is a French post in the English Fate area, but it's still there for the longest.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Antonio_Xul

This is why a census or survey should be made to see what languages are spoken within the game. I've ran into many Brazilian players talking Portuguese which was something I never expected, but there they are. A survey should be made to see what languages to support.

One thing I learned recently is that the United States has the 2nd largest group of Spanish speakers in the world behind only Mexico and surpassing Spain & Colombia. That's a huge market opportunity right there they are missing out on. With Mexico & Spain alone would be good enough reason to add Spanish, but you got Latin America and Spanish Speaking U. S. citizens, too.

---

That's generally not how this sort of thing works. A survey is only good to let you know who can speak what, but it doesn't let you know if that's all you can speak, nor does it encompass enough value to determine the whole. Suggestions and such for a want of X language will take time to come to fruition, if it ever does, since justification for funding and getting said funds takes time and A LOT of convincing. Unlike the west, Japan does not come into contact with Spanish much, if ever in their lives lol. Hell, where I live, the only exposure to Spanish is what I see on TV/movies, online, and what little broken gibberish friends back in high school learned. Given where the games are being sold too, it's not the primary language.

In the areas that things are marketed, a common language is determined for a business and its local patrons. For example, I live in Hawaii, one of the more culturally diverse locations in the US. The common language on the mainland is no different than it is here, English. Businesses here need to cater to that, for that reason, and that's really the minimum.

If the businesses target demographic happens to involve a lot of people that can only speak a different language, they may consider supporting that language. Not a whole lot of people speak exclusively Hawaiian here, and no English. Likewise, a lot of locals do not speak exclusively Tagalog and no English. While the folks who do not speak the common language are certainly a fair amount of the population, they're likely not the businesses target demographic if it's not supported (at the time).

Transition that over to a video game like FFXIV. I'd wager that the majority of people who play this game, speak the common language for the country that this game is sold in. Of course, you're going to get the exceptions to that, but that's a rather small amount of people to the entire population of the game who do speak whatever the common language is for the location. As huge as you might think the market opportunity might be, it really isn't because of this fact that a lot of folks are at least bilingual when it comes to being on this game and speaking a language that isn't supported. At least within a business sense, for as unfortunate as it may be that every language in the world is not supported, this is generally why.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Antonio_Xul

I've ran into many Brazilian players talking Portuguese which was something I never expected, but there they are.

---

That is their official language.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Mirili

That is their official language.

---

What I meant by that is that there were Portuguese speakers, period. Everyone knows Brazilians speak Portuguese.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Xlantaa

They have Spanish translators for what? Because after a lot of people asking for a spanish translation, till now, Square Enix didn't care about Spanish translation.

---

For this https://xmail.square-enix.com/fe/vie...s/email16.html

Lately I've been receiving emails from SE in Spanish because of my usual IP address, basically they translate news and promos to Spanish to lure people, but omit the fact that there's no Spanish UI.

The free trial website is also available in Spanish, but again omitting the fact that Spanish is not supported, also this one website is not translated by SE, they mirror Wikia, but the emails and probably press releases are translated by SE.

http://www.ffxiv-freetrial.com/sp/

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Antonio_Xul

What I meant by that is that there were Portuguese speakers, period. Everyone knows Brazilians speak Portuguese.

---

Some people think we speak spanish. :p

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Antonio_Xul

What I meant by that is that there were Portuguese speakers, period. Everyone knows Brazilians speak Portuguese.

---

so you were surprised to see brazilians speaking their native tongue well ok

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Antonio_Xul

This is why a census or survey should be made to see what languages are spoken within the game. I've ran into many Brazilian players talking Portuguese which was something I never expected, but there they are. A survey should be made to see what languages to support.

One thing I learned recently is that the United States has the 2nd largest group of Spanish speakers in the world behind only Mexico and surpassing Spain & Colombia. That's a huge market opportunity right there they are missing out on. With Mexico & Spain alone would be good enough reason to add Spanish, but you got Latin America and Spanish Speaking U. S. citizens, too.

---

It's hard for a survey to really indicate when another language's support is needed, though. Taking that same example of Spanish speakers in the U.S., there are certainly a great many Americans who speak Spanish as their primary language. But among them, how many also speak English fluently, or if not yet fluently are at least trying to learn it? (Some of the later may use games to provide a fun way of practicing it.) In Mexico, the proportion of Spanish speakers who also speak English is probably lower than among the Spanish speakers in the US (where it can be really hard to get a decent job without being able to speak English well).

SE would gain more market share by catering to groups who speak another language exclusively, or at least without also speaking any of the game's supported languages. Those people, however, are ones who aren't likely to have the game in its current version, because they'd be unable to read its dialog, instructions, or menus, making it very hard to play. So a survey among people who have the game won't include the people so excluded from it by its current language options.

Well, the original intent of this thread was to have a survey to see the percentage of who speaks what in each server so new & old players can choose which server best suits their language needs. Let's just keep it that. If they want to support a new language, that is cool, but in the mean time, we do need to at least give players an idea of the language population in each server.

Well, I can tell you from experience that translating games into Spanish/Portuguese usually does not pay off for a company on the long run. The MMO company I work for has translated many games in the past to Spanish/Brazilian Portuguese (Brazilian Portuguese is actually quite different from continental Portuguese so it should be distinguished) and these were usually the first territories to be closed because they did not make enough revenue to justify the translation cost.

That is true for F2P games and should be true even more for P2P games. Why? Simple, people that really want to play the game will be doing so already and pay their sub. There is not much additional revenue (aka mog station, merchandise etc) that can be expected from these regions.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Mirili

so you were surprised to see brazilians speaking their native tongue well ok

---

Well... I don't speak my own native tongue inside the game. I use English. I'm pretty surprised when I run into another Nordic player and see them either use their native language in an official chat (say, yell, shout etc) or have search comments in their native language. Admittedly, I doubt there are anywhere near as many Nordic players as there are Brazilian, and that's not even one country but five, but I can still see how it can be a surprise if it's not something you see on a daily basis. (Or if it is on a daily basis and you know it's not the same two-three players, it can be a surprise regarding how many there are.) *shrugs*

no the only census they should do is how many accounts log in and in which servers. anything else is a waste of time

Well maybe they need to post in the correct section then. English forums use English there are also Japanese, Français and Deutsches sections that use those languages.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Lexia

Well maybe they need to post in the correct section then. English forums use English there are also Japanese, Français and Deutsches sections that use those languages.

---

And.... Spanish forums are where? ^^; Can't find said thread now, but from comments in this thread I've concluded that the thread in question was in Spanish (or Portuguese, I suppose, since those two languages can look almost identical to people who don't speak either).

I'd be kind of interested in the results of a 'spoken/native language' census, and think that if the results indicate a significant portion of the players share a language not represented by the game or on the forums, SE might want to look at creating at least a smaller forum section for that language. Even if it's just one sub-forum in the English section (since I'm guessing that's the client language the majority of "non-represented" players use).

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Noxifer

And.... Spanish forums are where? ^^; Can't find said thread now, but from comments in this thread I've concluded that the thread in question was in Spanish (or Portuguese, I suppose, since those two languages can look almost identical to people who don't speak either).

---

It was Spanish. He wanted to know if anyone else played from his region of Mexico, and what server they would be on.