All video games in Québec to be avalaible in French (19)
August 20th, 2007 · by Heri · video games
CBC reports that the provincial governement and the Entertainement Software Association of Canada have struck a deal, which will force video games companies to release all video games titles sold in Québec to be translated in French.
In a province where up to 37.5% of video games developers’ wages are subsidized by the governement, this seems as a normal measure. It also sounds logical, seeing the number of video games already produced locally, in Montréal and Québec city. Now, I also expect Québecers to get much less video games titles in their hands, in upcoming years, except of course from blockbuster releases. Video game companies are not public organizations anyway, they follow market laws.
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I forsee a very healthy black market for illegal games getting geared up to go… :)
Here’s what’s going to happen:
- The number of games available in Quebec will go down
- Therefore, the number of jobs in the gaming industry will also go down (not only developers, but marketing people and so on).
- The number of pirated games will go up.
It’s not helping anybody. What’s wrong with learning English anyways???
Let’s face it, Quebec is a very small market. I don’t think such a law will force companies to translate their games. The “right” business decision seems to be translating to Japanese, Chinese and Spanish before translating to French.
About Québec being a small market, it’s true, although I think being bilingual might be a strength (you can produce 2 versions of the game/software for 2 different markets). I mean, that’s the only point of view I can take now. I can’t convince myself that we are at a disadvantage with languages, otherwise, one should move out of Québec.
ubisoft, EA, Eidos Montréal, auront sans doute les moyens de localiser mais les boites indépendantes vont probablement rayer Québec de leur liste.
I am not sure that as an english speaker, you have to worry.
Most video games, when sold as the french version, have also the english and other languages localization.
But I believe (as I previously said) that the only problem is there be less video games sold in Québec
less games in quebec
more pirated games
I sent an email to the minister which was not answered and basicly said I was going to buy all my games via an ebay store in the states. I also asked sarcastique questions like. Are all the movies presented at the montreal world film festival available in french? please ban the small movie producers who aspire to a career by showing there movies in cheap festivals only in english. Ban them.
I really think the goverment should put there efforts in showing kids french in our great scholl system(more sarcasm)
Whats next lets ban Rolling stone magazine or why not ban the NY Post from being sold here.
One last thing. Why the hell would I want to play John madden football in french
http://technaute.cyberpresse.ca/nouvelles/texte_complet.php?id=81,12399,0,092007,1379968.html&ref=rss_technaute
the article has details on how video game companies are going to do this in Quebec.
[...] Mike Fahey wrote an interesting post today onHere’s a quick excerptCBC reports that the provincial governement and the Entertainement Software Association of Canada have struck a deal, which will force video games companies to release all video games titles sold in Québec to be translated in French. … [...]
I mean..cmon
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