Montreal Tech Watch

All video games in Québec to be avalaible in French

By Heri Aug 20th 2007 in video games

loi 101

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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Comments

  • Fred August 20, 2007

    Does this mean that game companies that do not choose to translate will not be allowed to release games here?

    I forsee a very healthy black market for illegal games getting geared up to go… :)

  • Fred August 20, 2007

    This actually reminds me of a long-ago time… When I was a child growing up in Hong Kong. We actually had to learn a bit of Japanese in order to play the latest Nintendo games because they were only released in Japanese! :)

  • Heri August 20, 2007

    well people would start importing games or pirate games i guess. we will have to wait till mid-september for the official announcement for both parties.

  • Carl Mercier August 20, 2007

    I think this law is ridiculous as most “French protection” laws in Quebec are.

    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.

  • Heri August 21, 2007

    I think the best outcome that we can get out of this law is what’s happenning currently with movies in Québec. Currently, people in Québec can watch both versions of a movie in french or in english.

    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.

  • Francois August 22, 2007

    La problematique tournait surtout autout que beaucoup des jeux sont déja traduit pour le marché français (France) sans être vendus ici… C’est clair que si ça se déroule exactement tel que décrit, le marché du piratage de jeux va atteindre des sommets jamais vu.

  • Heri August 22, 2007

    francois: oui mais y a pas seulement ca. pour la tv et le cinéma, les québecois demandent a chaque fois une traduction locale, avec des voix québecoises. je ne pense pas que ce soit aussi simple de prendre les boites vendus en france et les vendre ici.

    ubisoft, EA, Eidos Montréal, auront sans doute les moyens de localiser mais les boites indépendantes vont probablement rayer Québec de leur liste.

  • Jay September 01, 2007

    Here is what i think is going to happen there going to translate all the games in french and get rid of the english games or make it very very hard to get, thats what these people want. i have been living in quebec all my life and ive been seeing rights being trampled on the english speaking population over and over!! i just hope they find it in there hearts to make both versions avialble to english or french speaking people. I believe in EQUAL RIGHTS and i think its great that you have the CHOICE to CHOSE weather you want a french or english version of the game, just dont force people to buy the franch version and say your “protecting the french language”. THATS MY 2 CENTS

  • Heri September 02, 2007

    Hi Jay,

    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

  • Fred September 10, 2007

    I am a proud french canadian. But this new law is stupid. Like said previously this will mean

    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

  • Heri September 10, 2007

    Fred: I have nothing to add, I guess everyone agrees. FIY, the agreement has been “officialized” today

    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.

  • Video Games » All video games in Québec to be avalaible in French September 30, 2007

    [...] 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. … [...]

  • Henry December 17, 2007

    Some games will be forbiden for sale in in Quebec is the games companies choose not to translate. It could also mean that English games can not be sold at all in Quebec. Today if a company refuses to provide French instructions or bilingual boxes, it cannot be sold in Quebec. I don’t want to play games from France, because I might be forced to play on European servers instead of American servers (where the rest of Canada plays on)!

  • Enalung October 08, 2008

    As someone who’se first language is french and who lives in the province of Québec, I agree with Jay. When I can, I always play my games in english. The main reason is that translations are usualy done very poorly. Even someone who dosen’t speak a word of english will notice and I know many who are not nearly as fluent in english but will play english versions for that reason alone. Also, I speak almost always speak french in everyday life. Like anything else, you can lose very quickly something which you don’t practice. Playing english games as well as a few other daily activities I have help insure that I stay fluent in english.

  • Edward November 10, 2008

    Even when the translated games are available in French, stock issues can cause delays in getting it to market. I visited three stores today – Wal-Mart, Future Shop and Toys-R-Us in the attempt to purchase Rock Band 2 (Xbox version) for my kids for Xmas. I was told at Future Shop that they had about 25 in stock a few weeks ago which were sold out immediately. Toy-R-Us had none and all three stores couldn’t tell me when they’d have it in stock. I finally ordered it on-line from the Toys-R-Us Canadian website which has the English version on stock in their warehouse. This law is causing merchants to lose money and clients like myself a good deal of lost time in trying to track down an item which has plenty of English stock available while the bilingual version is short on supply. I see nothing wrong with the Quebec government seeking to provide its French speaking citizens with products in their own language, but natural market forces (Quebec being a small market) will continue to produce delays in getting games to consumers and create financial loses for retailers especially during the holiday season which is their peak sales period.

  • Jake April 03, 2009

    I live in Quebec … I think they are taking it too far.. a lot of people dont really care and whats the problem with having both languages.. I personally like better my games in english and I don’t want to wait sometime for the game in french.. Anyway I find this law stupid..they are really taking it to far! I want my games in english .. no need for this crap law.. loss of time ..find something else to do with it
    I mean..cmon

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