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Thread: Dutch subtitles

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  1. #1
    Player Midareyukki's Avatar
    Join Date
    Oct 2017
    Location
    Bozja
    Posts
    2,580
    Character
    Harun Asubra
    World
    Zodiark
    Main Class
    Warrior Lv 100
    Quote Originally Posted by bjorno94 View Post
    we can then argue that they can also add subtitle spanish and portuguese this is actually a large group of players that you miss out on and not everyone can speak english
    The issue is that comparing Spanish and Portuguese to Dutch is a different beast. Dutch is spoken in the Netherlands, South Africa (kind of, it's Afrikaans), and in Suriname. Plus give or take a few islands in SEA where the majority of people speak other languages anyway, it's not a native thing. Spanish is widespread across a whole continent and is the 2nd most spoken language, and Portuguese is spoken primarily in Portugal, Brazil, Angola, Mozambique, São Tomé and Príncipe and other countries\regions as a second language\creole, amounting to it being the 6th most spoken language. Those are areas with a high demographic number. Dutch is the 57th, and it's not spoken natively by that many people.

    One other aspect of the language for localization is its marketability. Portuguese won't be as marketable as Spanish is. And as much as Bengali is the 5th most spoken language in the world, it won't make it any more marketable than Portuguese or Russian who fall directly below as 6th and 7th respectively. Contrast to French (17th) and Standard German (18th), and you can see why they chose these languages instead. Moreover, they would have to assess the costs of getting localization teams for these languages, which will be hard to get in Japan, much less make internal teams for them. I doubt there are that many dutch speakers in Japan in comparison to Spanish speakers. And getting external teams for those languages is costly.

    It is unfortunate that your girlfriend cannot enjoy the game alongside you however. I've also had FC leaders who came from the Netherlands and Italy and couldn't really understand the story because their grasp on English was limited to what they've learned in school. And it's likely that there are people in South America or Africa who cannot enjoy the game because of language barriers. But it does seem to be a cost risk that SE isn't willing to take.
    (4)

  2. #2
    Player
    freekyfreezer's Avatar
    Join Date
    Aug 2022
    Posts
    42
    Character
    Katarina Malaguld
    World
    Shiva
    Main Class
    Machinist Lv 100
    Like already mentioned, not even Spanish, one of the most spoken languages in the "Western World", is represented. Also remember that all the dialogues and cutscenes make up hundreds, if not thousands of manhours of translating. It would of course be nice to see more access like that, but I fear it won't happen anytime soon, if ever
    (0)