Italian translation

Hi all! I open a new thread about an italian translation request cause for some reason I can't reply to the oldest ones, like I miss some kind of permission to do that.

It will be at least considered from SE to translate the entire game? Yes I mean the whole game, not only the subtitles, the quests or the gear, but the speaking too!
I know it have to be an hard and long work, but I think that the game will earn a benefit from this, cause many italian people will return in ffxiv or even decide to play from the start a full italian game!

I know we are a little part of the community too, still I hope that SE will consider this option!
Of course all I said is for others languages too (like Spanish :D)

P.S. Sorry for my poor english, I did my best :p

won't happen for the same reason there isn't a spanish/portuguese/insert other language here version. The support/costs are too high to justify the effort.

*Laughs in Yoshi-P*
Next question, please.

As you see on the amount of replys, there is no high demand on other translated versions.

German and France are always a bit different in each that matter because we get nearly everything translated and therefore have a good useable localisation infrastructure.
That makes everything faster, cheaper and more profitable.

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Originally Posted by Curisu

As you see on the amount of replys, there is no high demand on other translated versions.

German and France are always a bit different in each that matter because we get nearly everything translated and therefore have a good useable localisation infrastructure.
That makes everything faster, cheaper and more profitable.

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I think the issue lies elsewhere. With the size the entertainment media has reached nowadays I doubt countries such as Spain or Italy lack the capacity to localise XIV in an effective manner. I remember reading something about the Spanish and Portuguese localisation team being fused together or something along those lines a long time ago, which made things difficult, but I think that were just excuses, as everything they seem to say regarding issues they want to sweep under the rug.
In the end it all boils down to money and if they think it won't be profitable, they won't do it. But will it be profitable if they don't take care of their players? What came first, the chicken or the egg? Well, they are a Japanese company and very conservative at their approach so I guess people are not commenting because after all these years they have assumed it's a lost battle.

I'm an Italian myself and I understand that my native language is basically only spoken in my country, so the costs of translating an entire game with voice acting on top of it would not be worth the effort.
But I'm honestly baffled at the lack of a Spanish translation seeing as it is the second most spoken language in the world. Hopefully that'll change in the future.

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Originally Posted by Ranhansha

I think the issue lies elsewhere. With the size the entertainment media has reached nowadays I doubt countries such as Spain or Italy lack the capacity to localise XIV in an effective manner. I remember reading something about the Spanish and Portuguese localisation team being fused together or something along those lines a long time ago, which made things difficult, but I think that were just excuses, as everything they seem to say regarding issues they want to sweep under the rug.
In the end it all boils down to money and if they think it won't be profitable, they won't do it. But will it be profitable if they don't take care of their players? What came first, the chicken or the egg? Well, they are a Japanese company and very conservative at their approach so I guess people are not commenting because after all these years they have assumed it's a lost battle.

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Profitability will always be a part of the equation. XIV is no WoW when comes to raking in and being able to be resourceful in the language department. I believe Acitivison Blizzard(WoW) itself takes in tens of billions. Square Enix isn't even 10% of Activision Blizzard's net worth last I looked. So the smaller one's budget, the smarter they have to be. And thus there are a bit more factors at play here. Factors such as the economy of the countries of those native languages, what is considered to be the most popular languages in ratio to game culture in said country/language, the laws and customs of countries when it comes to games, even consider high piracy rates in some countries where copyrights cannot reach, as we have already said the profitability of redoing an entire game in said language, etc. It's easy to say take care of the players, but there is so much more involved. It's a process. And I will say Square Enix is one of the few game companies that tries and at this point in time there is so much happening that adding in another language that I imagine it would be considered extremely low priority especially considering it might not be profit worthy for supporting future development.

I truly do sympathize as I've had this experience and wish of other games. Games are something life changing and amazing today and being able to truly understand a game you're playing in your own language is something we don't truly realize until we come upon a game that we want to play that isn't in our language, especially in the RPG genre.

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Originally Posted by Imakun

I'm an Italian myself and I understand that my native language is basically only spoken in my country, so the costs of translating an entire game with voice acting on top of it would not be worth the effort.
But I'm honestly baffled at the lack of a Spanish translation seeing as it is the second most spoken language in the world. Hopefully that'll change in the future.

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i know Spanish localizations have a very bad rap due to their quality being... we'll be generous by calling it "sketchy" for years. Most of the Spanish-speaking players i've met would rather play in English than see a Spanish localization on par with what they expect from years of them being bad

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Originally Posted by SnowVix

i know Spanish localizations have a very bad rap due to their quality being... we'll be generous by calling it "sketchy" for years. Most of the Spanish-speaking players i've met would rather play in English than see a Spanish localization on par with what they expect from years of them being bad

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you are talking about latin spanish? bcs in spain we consider our localization work have pretty high quality, not free of mistakes of course but those are pretty rare.

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Originally Posted by shao32

you are talking about latin spanish? bcs in spain we consider our localization work have pretty high quality, not free of mistakes of course but those are pretty rare.

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primarily, since i'm NA i'm far more exposed to Latin Spanish than Spain. i just remember watching Spanish anime dubs and them sounding worse than Peggy Hill's Spanish

Not enough of players from those regions and when national servers were a thing in MMOs it was those ones which died faster.
Game companies can see the data from where players connect. I'm from Nordic area and we have a lot of players but our nations have marginal population size so goodbye any hopes for translation.

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Originally Posted by SnowVix

i know Spanish localizations have a very bad rap due to their quality being... we'll be generous by calling it "sketchy" for years. Most of the Spanish-speaking players i've met would rather play in English than see a Spanish localization on par with what they expect from years of them being bad

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Well, there's this constant and fierce war between the supporters of the Spanish dub and the Latin one. Hydaelyn and Zodiark have been arguing over who left the kitchen lights on last night compared to this, so you might be talking about that.

i thought the hand motion emotes were Italian translations??

Would be interesting, considering how some italian translations are usually taken directly from the source (in this case japanese) in an attempt to make it as faithful as possible (exceptions may occur, like with the latest dragon quests), instead of how the english (not sure about the other versions) does by having variable freedom with certain words and aspects (like how several spells were changed from the japanese versions....some with weird names such as Elixir Field, which in japanese should be something like "Blue Energy Cannon", at least according to this page https://blog.kouhi.me/ffxiv-ability-localization/ ).

But frankly I doubt it. I don't think there are that many players of my language playing this game, so I doubt it's worth their time.

A shame, because I would've definitely given it a try to see how it would differ from the english version.

I play the game from 1.x and honestly i think that italian and spanish translations now are very important for the game.
FFXIV has a lot of contents and consequently a lot of lines of dialogue.
My english isn't perfect but i'm able to read and understand it.
However i have to say that the game it's becoming hard, sometimes it's required to lose a lot of time and the game it's frustrating, reason why my girlfriend and a lot of my friends abandoned the game (Now they are playing WoW).
Also i know a lot of friends that won't play the game because an italian translation is not available.
Maybe SE it's not Activision Blizzard, but is one of a major videogames company, i think that they should start thinking in others translations.
A full translation it's not required (not voices, interface or database translations) but at least a minimal translation containing dialogue, duty finder, and items description.
I think it's an investment that would bring a lot of people.

Please Square Enix hear our voices :)

I really don't understand why we don't have a Spanish translation which is the second most spoken language, and that can even bring people who speak Portuguese into the game, I'm Brazilian and here we can read Spanish even with some differences in words and spelling.

I really hope they can release at least one official Spanish translation (no voice acting required), that would be a great start.

edit:I guess we just will have problem to undestand what urianger says

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Originally Posted by Imakun

I'm an Italian myself and I understand that my native language is basically only spoken in my country, so the costs of translating an entire game with voice acting on top of it would not be worth the effort.
But I'm honestly baffled at the lack of a Spanish translation seeing as it is the second most spoken language in the world. Hopefully that'll change in the future.

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This is something I've also been confused by. Spanish is VERY widely spoken so it's been baffling to me that the game exists in German but not in Spanish... though perhaps they found that many people in Latin America and South America don't play JRPGs? That would definitely reduce a lot of the potential need to translate.

Simply put. Money. The reason there is German and French translations is economically wise, France and Germany are considered the two largest economies in Europe (even larger than the UK), and thus SE considers there is a much greater return on the high cost of German and French language localizations specifically for those countries. English is regarded as a de facto world language (and the EU it is officially a second language), so an English localization is also assured.

However, because regions where Spanish and Italian are spoken are considered less finanically viable marketing wise, SE believes the cost of translation and localization into Spanish and Italian are sadly not cost effective. Unfortunately this attitude isn't something that is easily changed other than threads like this letting SE know there is a viable market for such localizations. Make your voice be heard! Let SE know that Spanish and Italian language versions are wanted and will be cost-effective. As that is the only way to change the world. :D

But indeed i can't understand why a spanish translation is not convenient (and i'm italian).
Spanish is largely diffused language not only in Spain, i think a lot more than german or french.
Anyhow, i think that an italian translation can be convenient too, i heard of a lot of people here that doesn't play FFXIV for the language.
I hope that Endwalker can open this possibility.

It's about the money. Of the FIGS languages, French and German provide the most revenue.

https://www.localizedirect.com/posts...t-still-matter

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Originally Posted by Catwho

It's about the money. Of the FIGS languages, French and German provide the most revenue.

https://www.localizedirect.com/posts...t-still-matter

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You're right, French and German provide the most revenue.
But in (very interesting) url you posted, it's clear that Italian and Spanish market it is not to be underestimated.
So why not?! SE please.
Can be an interesting question for a Letter from the Producer.

Languages like Spanish and Italian and even Russian were asked for for few years by now and I think somebody even asked about the possible localizations during one of the Q&As. The answer wasn't positive (though it wasn't an outright "no", either). I don't think I'll be ever able to find that Q&A though, I'm afraid.

It would be feasible if it was done from the start. Translating a game when it's 7 y.o. means it will need separate serves (a reminder that Chinese and Korean localisations are behind "Global" for at least 1 patch). Translation and voice acting is expensive, time consuming process, and looking at how they are always kind of low on budget, the chance of getting a new language as part of global version is pretty low because in order to do so they'll need to catch up this soon 5 expansions gap. Are you ready to give up all of your progress for the sake of playing in your first language? Will this server even be profitable all things considered? Because tbh if game was suddenly translated into Russian as a separate release I would just ignore it completely, as I'm not interested in giving up a 7 years progress.

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Originally Posted by Halivel

Languages like Spanish and Italian and even Russian were asked for for few years by now and I think somebody even asked about the possible localizations during one of the Q&As. The answer wasn't positive (though it wasn't an outright "no", either). I don't think I'll be ever able to find that Q&A though, I'm afraid.

It would be feasible if it was done from the start. Translating a game when it's 7 y.o. means it will need separate serves (a reminder that Chinese and Korean localisations are behind "Global" for at least 1 patch). Translation and voice acting is expensive, time consuming process, and looking at how they are always kind of low on budget, the chance of getting a new language as part of global version is pretty low because in order to do so they'll need to catch up this soon 5 expansions gap. Are you ready to give up all of your progress for the sake of playing in your first language? Will this server even be profitable all things considered? Because tbh if game was suddenly translated into Russian as a separate release I would just ignore it completely, as I'm not interested in giving up a 7 years progress.

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I'm a software developer and i know how works a database. I can say that's not necessary create a new character or change server (even if usually when other languages are added to client, other servers are also created with free world transfer possibility).
The comparison is spontaneous, but WoW was translated after 6 years from the launch and data wasn't lost.

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Originally Posted by Slice

I'm a software developer and i know how works a database. I can say that's not necessary create a new character or change server (even if usually when other languages are added to client, other servers are also created with free world transfer possibility).
The comparison is spontaneous, but WoW was translated after 6 years from the launch and data wasn't lost.

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I'm not speaking about the loss of data nor do I speak about creating characters, I'm speaking about localization process alone. As a non-native English speaker I saw dozens of games localized in my country, and barely any of them caught up in patch schedule if the initial gap was more than 2 years. WoW is probably the only example I know about, and our game market isn't exactly small. Also, again, Chinese and Korean versions of FFXIV are still behind despite being released in 2014 and 2015 respectively. Believing that new language will suddenly find out its way on a global server when there are two versions still being behind despite being released not much later than Global one is... very optimistic. I'm all up for new languages being added on a global server, but all factors considered, while it's not impossible - the chances are low.

Blizzard's annual revenue was 8.09 billion $ in 2020, Square Enix's was 2.4 billion, almost 3.5 times lower. Blizzard works mainly with products they develop themselves, Square Enix also is a publisher of such media as manga and movies along with non-SE games, leading to additional costs being spent not even on their own products. Their income isn't even close to be comparable, and it has a direct impact on how much they can do.

yes the main problem is keeping up with the amount of new material being produced.

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Originally Posted by Halivel

Translating a game when it's 7 y.o. means it will need separate serves (a reminder that Chinese and Korean localisations are behind "Global" for at least 1 patch).

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China and Korea servers being behind global has nothing to do with language and everything to do with strict media laws from the governments of both China and South Korea

The only thing we can do is to hope.
The chances are low but we can let hear our voice to SE through topic like this.
I'm hoping in announcement about Endwalker.

something major like a new language announcement would have been in the initial showcase that's already happened. since there was no mention, there's little chance anything is going to happen. same with people hoping for XBOX support.

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Originally Posted by Gameronkeyboard

I really don't understand why we don't have a Spanish translation which is the second most spoken language, and that can even bring people who speak Portuguese into the game, I'm Brazilian and here we can read Spanish even with some differences in words and spelling.

I really hope they can release at least one official Spanish translation (no voice acting required), that would be a great start.

edit:I guess we just will have problem to undestand what urianger says

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The amount of people speaking it has nothing to do with how many players are from those regions and it's not worth it for many companies.

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Originally Posted by DrWho2010

something major like a new language announcement would have been in the initial showcase that's already happened. since there was no mention, there's little chance anything is going to happen. same with people hoping for XBOX support.

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Yeah, this is true. We should not expect these things for 6.0.
On top of what you've mentioned, much of Yoshi P's recent famitsu interview (link at end) repeatedly touched on them focusing on ending the main storyline.
They considered adding a new mode of travel (akin to flying / swimming) or maybe just something funky for the moon, but axed it all because it might be a detraction.
Yoshi said the devs discussed a big graphical update, but decided to put it on the back burner as such a large project would get in the way.
Big projects like XBOX support or adding a new language are solidly being put aside for now.

https://www.akhmorning.com/news/fami...ng-the-new-job

I really hope we'll can have game in italian too. The story is beautiful, but the English used is not scholastic, and therefore not necessarily intuitive.