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Post by kyouki on Aug 31, 2015 11:03:06 GMT -5
There has to have been something going on behind the scenes. If you are a regular employee (not contract), it takes you basically walking in and stabbing your boss in the neck and then eating everyone's lunches from the fridge to get fired from a Japanese company.
Dude has nothing to worry about, as long as he is willing to accept work from outside of the game industry and go freelance (translation in creative fields is fun, but is the least lucrative work you can take). Since he has experience working at a Japanese company, he can make big bucks doing rush order powerpoints for sales people (I am not being sarcastic).
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Post by Scylla on Aug 31, 2015 11:57:34 GMT -5
He worked for Nintendo of America, not in Japan. Also, he's an editor with an English degree, so he doesn't necessarily know any Japanese.
It would be interesting to know about how the Nintendo of America branch is run. I'm guessing it's not quite like a fully American company but not exactly like a Japanese company either.
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Post by TheChosen on Aug 31, 2015 12:04:29 GMT -5
From what I've understood though, the decision to fire him came from the Japanese side of Nintendo.
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Post by kyouki on Aug 31, 2015 12:08:21 GMT -5
He worked for Nintendo of America, not in Japan. Also, he's an editor with an English degree, so he doesn't necessarily know any Japanese. It would be interesting to know about how the Nintendo of America branch is run. I'm guessing it's not quite like a fully American company but not exactly like a Japanese company either. Well, he's fucked then. Should have followed the rules!
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Post by Discoalucard on Aug 31, 2015 13:22:50 GMT -5
This is totally unsubstantiated speculation on my part.
Like, a few years back, everyone thought that Nintendo was crazy to not localize Xenoblade. It had a lot of hype built up, lots of great reviews from people that played it, and a solid, well liked pedigree built up behind it. At the same time, from Nintendo's perspective, they were getting burnt on hardcore games for the Wii. They overproduced Metroid Other M and Sin and Punishment 2, and both flopped, plus the platform was plagued with piracy. And looking back years before, they probably felt that Xenoblade was in a parallel situation with Baten Kaitos Origins for the Gamecube, which was released late in the system's life, ironically an RPG from the same developer, that they went through the time/effort/money of localizing, and it totally tanked. To them, fan outcry means nothing because years of sales data shows that they barely amount to anything. It only came out here due to both Nintendo of Europe fitting the bill, and Gamestop helping with production/distribution.
And in the end, it did very well. Not a massive break-down-the-walls best seller, but it did solid enough for Nintendo to make it the flagship title of the New Nintendo 3DS (for what that's worth), integrate the franchise in with Smash Bros and its other marketing, and created a better marketing push with the sequel.
The thing is, the guys that made the conservative decision to not localize the game? In retrospect now they look like idiots for playing it safe. So whatever Pranger said must have reopened some old wounds and pissed off the wrong guy and got him the boot.
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Post by Ike on Aug 31, 2015 14:58:41 GMT -5
This is totally unsubstantiated speculation on my part. Like, a few years back, everyone thought that Nintendo was crazy to not localize Xenoblade. It had a lot of hype built up, lots of great reviews from people that played it, and a solid, well liked pedigree built up behind it. At the same time, from Nintendo's perspective, they were getting burnt on hardcore games for the Wii. They overproduced Metroid Other M and Sin and Punishment 2, and both flopped, plus the platform was plagued with piracy. And looking back years before, they probably felt that Xenoblade was in a parallel situation with Baten Kaitos Origins for the Gamecube, which was released late in the system's life, ironically an RPG from the same developer, that they went through the time/effort/money of localizing, and it totally tanked. To them, fan outcry means nothing because years of sales data shows that they barely amount to anything. It only came out here due to both Nintendo of Europe fitting the bill, and Gamestop helping with production/distribution. Not to mention all the other times this has happened (I loudly cough the word "Earthbound" here.) people bitch about Nintendo sticking so hard to its proven IPs, but is it any wonder why they do that? Nintendo has a hard time selling anything that doesn't have Mario or Link in it. Nintendo's hardcore fans will shout about "why don't they localize this, it's such an obvious blockbuster" because they tend to stick solely to Nintendo communities and get the idea that they are the dominant attitude in gaming (they're not) and vastly overestimate the influence they have on marketing decisions. Nintendo's fans tend to be mostly younger and are thus dependent on their parents to purchase titles that they want, which is mostly going to be around the holidays. That was Nintendo's big mistake with Other M, which came out in late spring or early summer if I'm not mistaken, trying to catch the adult market with disposable income where there wasn't really a lot of interest, a far spread from any major holidays. The game ended up being shit for a number of reasons, but it sold poorly because by the time Christmas rolled around everybody had already forgotten about it since the bad reviews rolled in and it was already in the bargain bin.
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Post by Joseph Joestar on Aug 31, 2015 15:07:16 GMT -5
This is totally unsubstantiated speculation on my part. Like, a few years back, everyone thought that Nintendo was crazy to not localize Xenoblade. It had a lot of hype built up, lots of great reviews from people that played it, and a solid, well liked pedigree built up behind it. At the same time, from Nintendo's perspective, they were getting burnt on hardcore games for the Wii. They overproduced Metroid Other M and Sin and Punishment 2, and both flopped, plus the platform was plagued with piracy. And looking back years before, they probably felt that Xenoblade was in a parallel situation with Baten Kaitos Origins for the Gamecube, which was released late in the system's life, ironically an RPG from the same developer, that they went through the time/effort/money of localizing, and it totally tanked. To them, fan outcry means nothing because years of sales data shows that they barely amount to anything. It only came out here due to both Nintendo of Europe fitting the bill, and Gamestop helping with production/distribution. Not to mention all the other times this has happened (I loudly cough the word "Earthbound" here.) people bitch about Nintendo sticking so hard to its proven IPs, but is it any wonder why they do that? Nintendo has a hard time selling anything that doesn't have Mario or Link in it. Nintendo's hardcore fans will shout about "why don't they localize this, it's such an obvious blockbuster" because they tend to stick solely to Nintendo communities and get the idea that they are the dominant attitude in gaming (they're not) and vastly overestimate the influence they have on marketing decisions. Nintendo's fans tend to be mostly younger and are thus dependent on their parents to purchase titles that they want, which is mostly going to be around the holidays. That was Nintendo's big mistake with Other M, which came out in late spring or early summer if I'm not mistaken, trying to catch the adult market with disposable income where there wasn't really a lot of interest, a far spread from any major holidays. The game ended up being shit for a number of reasons, but it sold poorly because by the time Christmas rolled around everybody had already forgotten about it since the bad reviews rolled in and it was already in the bargain bin. I guess my main complaint in the case of those RPGs was that they had already localized them, but weren't planning on releasing them outside of Europe. I mean I know that it still costs money to produce and distribute them, but they weren't even trying.
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Post by Échalote on Aug 31, 2015 15:25:33 GMT -5
Speaking of Nintendo and translations, I wonder if Nintendo still has "lost" games in their vaults ie games whose localizations were cancelled despite being near completion, à la MOTHER (I'm thinking of Magical Vacation and GiFTPiA in particular).
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Post by cj iwakura on Aug 31, 2015 21:20:15 GMT -5
Gaijinworks continues to fuss with the programming of games outside of what needs to be altered for localization. I believe there was a change made to how the map worked in Class of Heroes 2. Though I don't know what was the last game that was really botched up with changes. I agree that, while some of the games WD/Gaijinworks has licensed aren't so good, there's not much in the way of flat-out awful games. But on the flip side, the majority of their releases are decidedly B-tier. And that's not comparing them to "AAA" games; I mean, even compared to similar niche Japanese games, they're not exactly highlights of their genres. Most are games that would barely get any attention or love had they been released in the US by Atlus, NISA, XSEED, Aksys, etc. But because of the ridiculous fervor of WD/Gaijinworks fanboys, they elevate every title as if it's the Second Coming. I mean, seriously, who /really/ gives a damn about the Class of Heroes series all that much? I'm not aware of anything glitched by CoH's programming. They did tweaks to it that Atlus USA didn't even bother doing to CoH1, like translating JP onomatopoeia graphics. It's by no means a Growlanser II or Dragon Force in terms of quality, but it's a fun game that I enjoyed playing. I can't say that about some of the stuff Atlus and NISA have brought over. And Vic says that each CoH is better than the last, so his word's good enough for me.
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Post by kaoru on Sept 1, 2015 3:25:51 GMT -5
FWIW Ireland seems to license the stuff that he himself genuinely wants to see translated. He doesn't have much of a business sense, though, in looking far enough if people besides him actually have interest in his choices, or being able to accept a "no, you can't bring that" and move on. Working for his company must be a daily fear of him sinking that ship just as he did with WD.
---
Pranger totes got fired because he said that localization choices are based on the money making potential of the game. That might be a no-brainer, but Nintendo worked very long and hard on the image of being the cool uncle of video games, who only is in it for the fun and would never think about the money first, the fans second [/ super secret insider information]
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Post by Scylla on Sept 1, 2015 7:55:51 GMT -5
I believe there are only 3 or 4 Gaijinworks employees total, including Ireland, so when and if (and I'm being generous saying "and if") Gaijinworks goes under, at least he won't take many people out with him.
I'd be curious to know how many people were on with Working Designs at their height.
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Post by Joseph Joestar on Sept 2, 2015 12:37:20 GMT -5
A nice fellow on Twitter reminded me of this - does anyone remember the name or address of Zach Meston's website? I remember that was what started the bad blood between him and Ireland. The only thing I remember from his site though at the moment was him talking about getting a VD from some publicist woman he met at a trade show.
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Post by cj iwakura on Sept 2, 2015 22:51:12 GMT -5
Heh, I still have the Lunar guide that Meston did. It's actually very helpful, since the Sega CD version doesn't even say what spells do. I believe there are only 3 or 4 Gaijinworks employees total, including Ireland, so when and if (and I'm being generous saying "and if") Gaijinworks goes under, at least he won't take many people out with him. I'd be curious to know how many people were on with Working Designs at their height. I'd love to know the depths of the grudge you have against him if you wish him ill like that.
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Post by Scylla on Sept 3, 2015 1:50:10 GMT -5
I don't wish anybody ill, I just think it's an inevitability that Gaijinworks is going to fold sooner or later, short of them making drastic changes, which I don't know if they'd have the capital to enact in the first place, even if they wanted to. Nothing about what they're doing seems smart or profitable from a business standpoint, nor does their approach to localization seem different in any significant way from how Working Designs did things. If those methods led to one business going under, I don't see things going much different when following the same course of action. Ireland may make it out as if Working Designs was 100% a victim of a tyrannical Sony, but I'm skeptical. If they can manage to make it work, good for them, I'm just not that hopeful that they'll be around all that long.
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Post by Discoalucard on Sept 3, 2015 10:54:33 GMT -5
A nice fellow on Twitter reminded me of this - does anyone remember the name or address of Zach Meston's website? I remember that was what started the bad blood between him and Ireland. The only thing I remember from his site though at the moment was him talking about getting a VD from some publicist woman he met at a trade show. Have fun, though it doesn't seem like much was archived. web.archive.org/web/19990601000000*/http://home.earthlink.net/~zmeston/I remember writing to Zach when I found that site. He contributed to Video Games and Computer Entertainment, and his reviews were a lot funnier than the other's more straightforward style, so I was a fan of his writing when I was a kid. I interviewed him like ten years ago for a 1up article on localization when he worked Atlus, he gave some really candid, funny answers but I'm not sure what I ended up using. All I remember is him saying they punched up a lot of dialogue in Metal Saga since the core game was kinda dull looking otherwise, and commented that they changed the US name of Bumpy Trot because it sounded like some kind of disease.
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