Category: Localization Woes (Page 1 of 2)

Blizzard to Canucks: No Looking Over Your Neighbor’s Shoulder

April 3, 2008 / Damion Schubert

My Canadian coworkers got a kick out of this: our gaming neighbors to the north do not have to pay an entry fee to enter Blizzard’s arena tournament. However, they do have to sharpen their number two pencils.

Canadian residents are not required to pay an Entry Fee in order to enter. Instead, Canadian residents may enter by submitting a 250 word typewritten essay comparing the video gaming culture in Canada to the video gaming culture in the United States on 8 ½ x 11 inch paper and mailing their essay to Essay Entry for The North American Blizzard Entertainment Arena Tournament, P.O Box 18979, Irvine, CA 92623. Essay entries must be received no later than March 31, 2008 in order to be eligible. Essay entrants represent and warrant that the essay is their original work and does not infringe the rights of any third party. By entering, essay entrants hereby grant, without further consideration, all right, title and interest in and to their essay to Sponsor.

Also, it is not an acceptable excuse that your sled dog ate your homework. I kid! I kid! Anyway, it’s nice to see a new growth industry for gold farmers.

Next Week, China Bans Unregulated Griffin Flight Paths

August 29, 2007 / Damion Schubert

True story: once upon a time, I pitched a game idea to China that revolved heavily on player created content. Their response was to reject it, because the game leaned heavily on players voting on good content vs. bad content. China doesn’t like games that espouse democracy.

Cut forward to this article: China bans real-life reincarnation (thanks Amber). Continue reading

WoW To Add Flesh To Bones in China

June 29, 2007 / Damion Schubert

According to WoW, the art for the ‘Scourge’ race will be redone in the Chinese version of the game. El articulo:

The9 (Nasdaq: NCTY) changed the looks of the Scourge race in its licensed MMORPG World of Warcraft (WoW) on June 26, reports Southern Metropolitan News. Scourge are an undead race that in previous versions showed part flesh and part skeleton. The9 modified the look to show no skeleton, and changed scourge corpses from bones to tombs. The9 claimed that it made the change because the original look of the Scourge race was too scary and thus unlikely to pass new Chinese censorship review.

Apparently, They’re Really Sick of Killing Onyxia Over In China

June 15, 2007 / Damion Schubert

From this article (emphasis mine):

A promoter for The9’s (Nasdaq: NCTY) licensed MMORPG Soul of the Ultimate Nation (SUN) was recently attacked by a player of The9’s World of Warcraft (WoW), according to a post on TGBus.com. The WoW player became angry when the SUN promoter pushed him to play SUN in an Internet Cafe. According to a friend of the angry WoW player, the angry gamer has waited a long time for WoW’s expansion pack “The Burning Crusade”, but The9 has delayed the release in favor of SUN. Other players in the cafe were dissatisfied with The Burning Crusade’s delay as well, and applauded after the assault.

Sounds like World of Warcraft has caught fire over in China. Of course, that whole relationship of WoW vs. Sun should get a lot more interesting now that Electronic Arts, publisher of Warhammer Online, has purchased 15% of the organization.

If you’re against RMTs, You’re With The Communists

December 19, 2006 / Damion Schubert

Apparently someone in China’s Ministry of Culture got tired of gold farmers in the Plaguelands, because it looks like they are considering banning virtual item trading in the Land of the ~~Rising Sun~~ Communists. Continue reading

More Proof Localization Is Hard

April 4, 2006 / Damion Schubert

I’ve frequently pounded on the desk and said that localization means more than turning ‘Yes, Mister’ into ‘Si, senor’, and being sure your font draws the tilde. Localization means actually understanding how that content must be changed to capture the hearts and minds of different territories.

Why is this hard? Because it’s hard to understand who likes what, and why. For example, CSI: Miami is the #1 American TV show on the worldwide stage . It’s #12 here, and I think most people who watch it do so because, well, it’s so bad it’s snarkworthy. I know that’s why I watch it – usually in the background while going through bloglines. Let’s just say for me, I’m actually a little happy when our cut-rate DVR accidentally deletes an episode. And this is the #1 American show worldwide?

Other monster worldwide hits include Baywatch and Dallas. Which is to say, while the rest of the world hates Ugly Americans, apparently they love to watch them on the telly.

Localizing Magic Art to China

March 7, 2006 / Damion Schubert

Speaking of China, Raph has a list of differences between the Chinese market and our own. One thing I don’t see in his list is any differences in content localization. And to be honest, I’m not entirely sure what those differences are.

In Korea, rumor has it that Starcraft had one bit of localization of content – removing a floating corpse in the intro movie – before the game was allowed on that market. In China, Magic the Gathering is fanatical about removing or obscuring anything that looks like a skull – be it animated monster, death armor adornment or random bone lying in the corner. The strange this is that zombies are okay, and skeletons with eyes are fine. Take a look at some of these minor changes that Wizards, for some reason, found necessary. Continue reading

More Bad Localization

August 5, 2005 / Damion Schubert

Work’s crushing me this week, and so I don’t have time for much other than link-whoring, but it IS a Friday, so if you’re one of the dozen or so people who haven’t seen the Engrish masterpiece that is Star Wars 3: Backstroke of the West, this one’s for you.

I promise to comment on the story stuff over the weekend. There’s much to comment on.

China Bans Children Player Killing

August 3, 2005 / Damion Schubert

Sara points out that China has just banned children playing games where they can Player Kill.

Effective immediately, all minors are banned from playing online games in which players are allowed to kill other players, an activity that has been termed Player Kills (PK). China’s Ministry of Culture (MOC) and Ministry of Information Industry (MII) have also ordered the country’s online game operators to develop identity authentication systems that prevent minors from playing games These authentication systems would require all players to first enter their Citizen ID Card numbers before being allowed to play games that allow Player Kills. No timetable was given for when these authentication systems must be implemented.“Minors should not be allowed to play online games that have PK content, that allow players to increase the power of their own online game characters by killing other players,” Liu Shifa, head of the MOC’s Internet Culture Division, which drafts policies governing the online gaming market, told Interfax.

“Online games that have PK content usually also contain acts of violence and leads to players spending too much time trying to increase the power of their characters. They are harmful to young people.”

Say what you will about Jack Thompson and Hillary Clinton — at least there’s a debate over here.

EQ2 Asia Content Localization

February 23, 2005 / Damion Schubert

Speaking of EQ2, Evil Avatar pointed out an example of content localization. The Asian version of EQ2 has substantially different character models than the American version (as seen here).