Feature Request/Suggestion - English (JP) Language option in Launcher

[Telkira]

If I were someone at Square-Enix who had the power to change how localization was done, I'd want to see some kind of research or statistical data to back up these claims. It's all too common for an individual to hop on a forum and announce that your average customer wants X, when in fact they've just assumed that other people align with their own preferences. For change to occur, they'll need to see something that convinces them that a pivot will improve their profits. That could be research data, it could be an outpouring of support for this claim on the forums, etc. But without something that feels tangible, they're unlikely to change direction or add new features.

I don't see how pivoting towards content parity between languages would harm their bottom line, nor do I see how implementing a secondary English language option that is simply a faithful translation of the JP script and devoid of all the fluff and revisions made by the localizers would make the game any less harmful.
I'd even (re)assert that the entire model of 'localizing' is built on a set of assumptions which are biased or fallacious. If a title is so unfit to be sold in a foreign market that it needs to be egregiously altered just to appease cultural sensibilities, then it probably shouldn't be sold in said market, but made available to those willing and able to partake via translating it, and nothing more.

Genuinely, if characters like Haurchefant were to have been released in all languages as he does in the JP script, there wouldn't be any backlash. People might express distaste, but certainly not anything more than the inclusion of Lalafells in the game already has, and continues to do so, with arguments about how the game itself sexualizes them, as they are adults.
I mentioned how the German and French audiences seem to be largely unaffected by this, considering how those scripts are largely consistent with the JP script.

If I were a gambling Lalafell, I'd place my money on Square-Enix having done some due diligence on the topics of translation and localization over their many years of offering goods and services across the globe; when there's money to be made, most multi-national corporations aren't simply winging it, and localization is a long-established concept that will have a measurable track record.

Regardless, with your interest in translation and localization, I bet you'd be interested in this story: https://www.polygon.com/2019/7/18/20...remy-blaustein

I think you're giving SE too much credit. I looked into the history of SE's approach to dealing with foreign markets and specifically with FFXI and FFXIV, much of the localization lead's (Koji Fox) positions were "the Japanese script is boring. What if I added this?" but going too far in the realm of content revisionism, to the point where whole dialog trees were being changed and characterization itself was being altered. You shouldn't want that, otherwise, why even bother allowing different regions to play together? Why not segregate/region lock since they'd be playing different stories?
One of the worst localizations I've ever seen was the recent Elyuden Chronicle game, and seeing discrepancies as egregious as those are in FFXIV genuinely makes me not want to play anymore.

[LilimoLimomo]

I don't see how pivoting towards content parity between languages would harm their bottom line

Adding what is in effect a new language to the game takes work that costs money, both for initially adding as well as updating over time.

If a title is so unfit to be sold in a foreign market that it needs to be egregiously altered just to appease cultural sensibilities, then it probably shouldn't be sold in said market

You aren't thinking like a business here. The question isn't one of moral or artistic sensibilities, it is as simple as "will this get us more money?" By adding a new market to sell your wares in and making your product accessible to that market, you add an additional source of income for your product.

If you want a financially motivated entity to make a change that you want, you need to be able to speak their language: the language of money.

[Telkira]

This game has never promised to have a "faithful translation", there are only localisations, the $14 USD/mo is providing you the localisation, making another version would obviously costs more than what they are doing.

Adding what is in effect a new language to the game takes work that costs money, both for initially adding as well as updating over time.
You aren't thinking like a business here. The question isn't one of moral or artistic sensibilities, it is as simple as "will this get us more money?" By adding a new market to sell your wares in and making your product accessible to that market, you add an additional source of income for your product.

If you want a financially motivated entity to make a change that you want, you need to be able to speak their language: the language of money.

I don't think that adding a second English language option would really drive into any expenses. The EN localization team has been very transparent at Fanfests, in blogs, interviews, etc. exactly how their process goes, and believe me when I say it, much of the work for what I'm suggesting has already been done.

More work has to be done in choosing what to revise/rewrite to make it more consistent with what they've already done, arguably, localization is more expensive than faithfully translating, which explains why the German and French languages are more consistent with the Japanese script and face far less revisions, and what revisions are there are less egregious, and having what is basically just an English translation of the canon script might be helpful for ensuring that such contents are accurately and faithfully preserved in the coming years when SE finally decides to begin winding down the game's production.

It would make money because it would be giving players who do not like all of the revisions an option that's more accessible than learning Japanese. It would make players less likely to not renew their sub, and perhaps even contribute to a sense of value because it would instill the perception that SE cares about their input/views, and would move to accommodate their preferences.

I don't see how accommodating a preference that's well within their abilities is somehow something to argue against. It's not going to drive up costs, it's not going to divert resources away from other things. At worst, players would probably just have to wait a little bit longer for content releases, since the type of workload I'm suggesting is on par with QA testers launching the game in different languages with different cutscene/audio options set in the game options. You ever notice how some people load in faster than others in Praetorium? That's a biproduct of that.

If you do want enjoy the game in its original form as much as possible, the easiest way is to learn Japanese, nowadays there are plenty of resources free online for learning, it isn't much of a luxury as you might think.

It's not about having 'luxury', and I've looked into many of those. Actually learning a language is more complicated than just memorizing a bunch of words and their appropriate context, which is what a lot of these resources only teach.
I've already explained in previous posts that learning a second language is not a feasible ask for a lot of people, otherwise, I would have done so, or better yet, the need for localizing the game would be drastically reduced. And even then - it's a massive time and effort investment that a lot of people simply do not have the luxury of affording.

It's also not a sound rebuttal to what I'm suggesting, since it's less work on the devs to put out a language option that's more in-line with the source material than it is for those who lack the time to pick up a second language. And even if I did, I'd still be a vocal proponent of consistency that transcends the language barrier, as opposed to different languages having characters be re-written to fulfill a projected preference on the part of the localizers. It's not like they're adding a whole new language option to the game, either, it's still English.

You would also get to play with good voice acting from ARR if you were to rewind the story in Japanese.

I already play it with Japanese cutscene audio/dialog. Many people seem to like the EN voiceover, I don't. The VAs are all probably very lovely people and I wish them the best, but I'm not a fan of their performance in FFXIV. It's a JRPG, first and foremost.

The actual entitlement in this thread is coming from the person who wants their native language to have two dedicated translations when there are hundreds of languages that don't even have one.

You do realize that English is the only language option with the most amount of revisions that literally do not exist in other languages of the game, right? If you talk to most NPCs, view item descriptions, or read various other things in German or French and compare it against a machine translation of the Japanese script, you'll find that it's more consistent in that regard than it is in English, so calling me entitled for being displeased with that is a bit obtuse.
I don't see why you should be bothered. And yes, you are arguing in bad-faith like you're taking offense to the mere suggestion.

[PorxiesRCute]

I don't think that adding a second English language option would really drive into any expenses. The EN localization team has been very transparent at Fanfests, in blogs, interviews, etc. exactly how their process goes, and believe me when I say it, much of the work for what I'm suggesting has already been done.

Right. It would cost no money to pay the writers to write an additional script, nor to pay the voice actors to record twice as much dialogue. That would just be free.

It's not about having 'luxury', and I've looked into many of those. Actually learning a language is more complicated than just memorizing a bunch of words and their appropriate context, which is what a lot of these resources only teach.

Correct: As I mentioned before, you also need immersion. Which playing a video game in your target language provides. As does reading books and watching TV shows. Sorry there's no magic button to make you fluent without effort.

You do realize that English is the only language option with the most amount of revisions that literally do not exist in other languages of the game, right? If you talk to most NPCs, view item descriptions, or read various other things in German or French and compare it against a machine translation of the Japanese script, you'll find that it's more consistent in that regard than it is in English, so calling me entitled for being displeased with that is a bit obtuse.
I don't see why you should be bothered.

I'm literally not "bothered". If they chose to offer a second English translation, or chose to revise their translating style going forward, I wouldn't really care. I don't actively want it to not happen, I just recognize the reality that it won't, and I'm telling you why your "suggestion" is pie-in-the-sky wishing.

And yes, you are arguing in bad-faith like you're taking offense to the mere suggestion.

Ah, yes, "this isn't going to happen" is bad faith, but "writing two scripts and paying for twice as much voice work wouldn't incur any extra costs" isn't. Makes sense.

[Telkira]

Right. It would cost no money to pay the writers to write an additional script, nor to pay the voice actors to record twice as much dialogue. That would just be free.

If you had paid any attention to my post, you'd know that much of the work was already done in translating the JP script, text, etc. to English.
Also, no additional voice lines would need to be recorded. Players would just launch the game with JP voiceover/cutscene audio, since it would be transcribed from that content anyway.
Of course there's expense to be had in implementing this, but compared to adding a whole new language to the mix, it's a drop in the bucket, especially when they already test around these specific parameters for players who choose to play with specific settings. And considering that people are paying $14USD/mo to play this game, they certainly have the capital. That's more than what can be said about most MMOs.

Correct: As I mentioned before, you also need immersion. Which playing a video game in your target language provides. As does reading books and watching TV shows. Sorry there's no magic button to make you fluent without effort.

Telling people who are dissatisfied with the localization to just 'learn Japanese' is not a valid rebuttal to their criticisms, nor is it a valid dismissal of suggestions for how their criticisms can be accommodated (such as adding a separate EN language option).

I'm literally not "bothered". If they chose to offer a second English translation, or chose to revise their translating style going forward, I wouldn't really care. I don't actively want it to not happen, I just recognize the reality that it won't, and I'm telling you why your "suggestion" is pie-in-the-sky wishing.

You're arguing in bad-faith by saying just 'learn Japanese' and insulting me by calling me entitled. People tend to do that when they're bothered about something.
As for this being a 'pie in the sky' dream, I've seen them make changes in response to user feedback/requests. This is definitely feasible and do-able, and I won't stop arguing in favor of this for as long I intend to continue playing, because there's no way that this could harm anybody's experience.

Ah, yes, "this isn't going to happen" is bad faith, but "writing two scripts and paying for twice as much voice work wouldn't incur any extra costs" isn't. Makes sense.

See above. No additional lines would need to be recorded because it'd already be representative of the Japanese voiceover content, just translated rather than 'localized'.

Look I'll even attach a screenshot I found on Imgur.



By the way, this setting isn't just some tertiary feature.
Part of my argument about it being not outside the range of cost is because they already have to test features associated with this, such as the timing of spoken dialog in voiced cutscenes, in-action voiced dialog blurbs, and other things to make sure that it's properly timed (even though the spoken audio might not align properly with the subtitles).

Having a separate English option would simply revise this content to align not only with this, but also with other aspects of the JP script/text content.

[LilimoLimomo]

I don't think that adding a second English language option would really drive into any expenses.

If it was actually free to provide then you'd already be getting it, as that would improve the quality and desirability of the product at no cost to the company. The fact that it's not already in the product demonstrates that there's a meaningful associated cost.

[Chajii]

You ever notice how some people load in faster than others in Praetorium? That's a biproduct of that.

In total the difference between the shortest (JP) and the longest (EN) is only about a minute.

Actually learning a language is more complicated than just memorizing a bunch of words and their appropriate context, which is what a lot of these resources only teach.

Of course learning a language is more than just memorising stuff, you would also have to interact with the language regularly such as reading books, listening to music and watching videos in the targeted language, learning resources are only there to help you understand the language, you have to build your vocabulary bank and such through other means.

You do realize that English is the only language option with the most amount of revisions that literally do not exist in other languages of the game, right? If you talk to most NPCs, view item descriptions, or read various other things in German or French and compare it against a machine translation of the Japanese script, you'll find that it's more consistent in that regard than it is in English.

If it is as you stated that German and French localisations are better in your opinion, consider trying those 2 languages as they are easier than learning Japanese to a English speaker.

Telling people who are dissatisfied with the localization to just 'learn Japanese' is not a valid rebuttal to their criticisms, nor is it a valid dismissal of suggestions for how their criticisms can be accommodated (such as adding a separate EN language option).

If you are dissatisfied with the localisation, you could ask for improvement of the localisation (such as why the tooltips of Sacred Soil and Passage of Arms can't be written normally as 10% mitigation like other 3 languages).

Telling people to 'learn Japanese' is simply a suggestion, I could even suggest a person that is satisfied with the EN localisation to learn Japanese and suggest them to try out the game in JP; suggesting people to try the game in JP (with the step of learning Japanese) is merely giving an option.

You specifically might not consider it as worthy of the effort you have to put in but some others might actually consider it as a good reason to start learning a language (I am mentioning this because you stated that you yourself are already playing in JP, hence this suggestion wouldn't apply to you specifically).

[Telkira]

If it was actually free to provide then you'd already be getting it, as that would improve the quality and desirability of the product at no cost to the company. The fact that it's not already in the product demonstrates that there's a meaningful associated cost.

A lot of other features could be described just the same way, such as corrections to various parts of the game's text content, many of which do get posted here, meet the criteria of a defect, but do not get fixed, at least not until much later or until the right person viewing the thread takes a look and escalates it.

What I'm providing is feedback that - hopefully - will drive some sort of internal discussion and change, because it would make the game better.

In total the difference between the shortest (JP) and the longest (EN) is only about a minute.

It's a little bit longer than that, but it's still very much noticeable. And given how literally nobody likes being forced to sit thru the same cutscenes over and over, it still makes it go a tad faster when everyone runs it with that setting enabled.

Of course learning a language is more than just memorising stuff, you would also have to interact with the language regularly such as reading books, listening to music and watching videos in the targeted language, learning resources are only there to help you understand the language, you have to build your vocabulary bank and such through other means.

Right - but even with all of that, it's still a difficult task for a lot of people. If SE could help bridge that gap by accommodating these preferences, then it would be astronomical in helping appeal to fans who want a faithful, authentic experience while also garnering good will with said fans.

If you are dissatisfied with the localisation, you could ask for improvement of the localisation (such as why the tooltips of Sacred Soil and Passage of Arms can't be written normally as 10% mitigation like other 3 languages).

I would, but simply having a translation would solve that issue along with many others, like the ones in my OP. What I'm suggesting would instill a philosophy of "content consistency" so that way these functional aspects, like spell/weaponskill/ability descriptions being consistent across languages, and not fluffed up in English.

Telling people to 'learn Japanese' is simply a suggestion, I could even suggest a person that is satisfied with the EN localisation to learn Japanese and suggest them to try out the game in JP; suggesting people to try the game in JP (with the step of learning Japanese) is merely giving an option.

It's not 'just a suggestion', though, especially when it's done in bad faith.
Any time someone has issues with the way Japanese media is localized, those who are content with it just dismiss their criticisms with 'learn japanese' instead of actually sitting there and thinking "okay, this is different and that may be a problem" and refusing to think about the art that they consume as being flawed.

You specifically might not consider it as worthy of the effort you have to put in but some others might actually consider it as a good reason to start learning a language (I am mentioning this because you stated that you yourself are already playing in JP, hence this suggestion wouldn't apply to you specifically).

Learning Japanese is something that I would like to do, believe me, but as I've said before, not everyone has the luxury of just being able to pick up and learn a whole new manner of communication. It's just not feasible for most people, when it's more than feasible for SE to diversify their offerings to give people content that is consistent across the board.