Author Topic: Language Support / Campain Length  (Read 12341 times)

Offline iob

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Re: Language Support / Campain Length
« Reply #30 on: October 26, 2016, 07:26:37 pm »
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While you're right in that most text doesn't change, there is a substantial amount of text that does end up changing. What happens when we add a new unit? When we change the function of an existing unit?
I am not sure what kind of quality you want to achieve with your translation. But if the developer gets a good firm that does translations, you send in the english description and get back the one in your target language some hours / days later.

Yeah, it will delay the new expansion / unit / Patch for a few days, but this it then how it is.

Also, translating patch notes, this is hillarious. A patch note usually is very very small. this won't cost more than a few bucks per patch notes. NOTHING compared to actually creating the patch in the first place :).

Offline Tridus

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Re: Language Support / Campain Length
« Reply #31 on: October 26, 2016, 07:55:34 pm »
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While you're right in that most text doesn't change, there is a substantial amount of text that does end up changing. What happens when we add a new unit? When we change the function of an existing unit?
I am not sure what kind of quality you want to achieve with your translation. But if the developer gets a good firm that does translations, you send in the english description and get back the one in your target language some hours / days later.

Yeah, it will delay the new expansion / unit / Patch for a few days, but this it then how it is.

Also, translating patch notes, this is hillarious. A patch note usually is very very small. this won't cost more than a few bucks per patch notes. NOTHING compared to actually creating the patch in the first place :).

The patch notes for AI War 6-current are 71,000 words. That's going to cost a whole lot, unless you don't bother translating the patch notes and just stick to what's in game. Which is likely what would happen.

This conversation should really come down to if the cost of translating AI War 2 is going to be made up in extra sales, which isn't something most of us have any data to answer.

Offline iob

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Re: Language Support / Campain Length
« Reply #32 on: October 26, 2016, 08:03:41 pm »
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The patch notes for AI War 6-current are 71,000 words. That's going to cost a whole lot, unless you don't bother translating the patch notes and just stick to what's in game. Which is likely what would happen.
Yea, the game has been out for how long? 2009? thats 7 years. Let's say the translation costs 7000 bucks for 71000 words. Thats 83 bucks per month. If you at least some copies per month extra because of this language, it seems worth it.

I am not sure how pricey Ai war classic was. Let's say arcen gets 50% of the price. lets say it was 20 bucks. So they have to seel arround 10 more each month.

Ai war sold how many units? 300.000? Lets say it coudl havfe been 50.000 more with a translation. That means 100.000 more bucks cashflow incoming, minuts 7000 bucks for the patch notes and 3500 bucks for the general game.

As I said, a no brainer.

But, as stated it won't happen anyway with ai war 2 :).

Offline Dominus Arbitrationis

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Re: Language Support / Campain Length
« Reply #33 on: October 26, 2016, 08:19:50 pm »
You are very adamant that we should translate the game, I'll give you that.

Let's say that AIWC did sell 300K units at $10 profit going to Arcen (Not real numbers, but the actual numbers are really convoluted and painful to interpret). How do we know that it will sell 50k more units? What if three quarters of the German speaking fans also happen to know enough English to play and buy the game anyway? The biggest problem with "What if" statements is anyone can make them. What if Skynet comes into existence and outlaws video games? Then we make no money, so we shouldn't make games. What if we stumble across a wild unicorn in the woods? Then we're rich and famous and can make all the games we want.

Now, if we do sell 50k more units by translating the game, then yes, it would be a good business idea. But here's something that you think would be great for business: we reached over 10 million people with our Headtalker campaign. We got 0 sales from that (As of the last time I checked). What makes translation different than that?

I'm not trying to come off as a jerk, and I'm sorry if I do, but I'm trying to look at this from a very negative perspective because if I prep for the worst, then everything else is a good outcome. If you can convince me that translating the game would guarantee sales somehow, I'd be fully in your corner and I'd fight for it with you. But right now, I see a lot of potential problems.
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Offline Tridus

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Re: Language Support / Campain Length
« Reply #34 on: October 26, 2016, 08:27:24 pm »
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The patch notes for AI War 6-current are 71,000 words. That's going to cost a whole lot, unless you don't bother translating the patch notes and just stick to what's in game. Which is likely what would happen.
Yea, the game has been out for how long? 2009? thats 7 years. Let's say the translation costs 7000 bucks for 71000 words. Thats 83 bucks per month. If you at least some copies per month extra because of this language, it seems worth it.

That's 6-8. Not 1-6. I didn't count them all. So, roughly speaking, triple it. Now do that for every language supported. If you add four languages, the real number is $84,000 just for the patch notes. If we take your 3500 number for the game itself (which I don't buy for a second given all the changes over the years), that's another 14000. So we're pushing $100,000.

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I am not sure how pricey Ai war classic was. Let's say arcen gets 50% of the price. lets say it was 20 bucks. So they have to seel arround 10 more each month.

It was 20 at launch. Far less during sales and bundles (and is currently $1). Steam/GOG/etc take their cut. And that's assuming people are paying the US price, which isn't true in other regions. That's even true in North America, where it's 17% less for Canadians (like me) and almost half in Mexico. So, a Spanish version selling in Mexico earns half per unit what an English version selling in the US does, due to currency exchange and local pricing. The normal price in Russia is $3.50 USD vs $10 in the US. You need to sell three copies there to get the same revenue as one copy in the US, so that translation has to sell well to be worth doing.

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Ai war sold how many units? 300.000? Lets say it coudl havfe been 50.000 more with a translation. That means 100.000 more bucks cashflow incoming, minuts 7000 bucks for the patch notes and 3500 bucks for the general game.

As I said, a no brainer.

Except that none of those numbers have any basis in fact.

If it's going to happen, it should be done on a proper business case, not back of the napkin assumptions. It would also require them to change their development process, mostly to not change text so often (since doing so costs money every time it happens).

Offline Tridus

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Re: Language Support / Campain Length
« Reply #35 on: October 26, 2016, 08:28:37 pm »
Now, if we do sell 50k more units by translating the game, then yes, it would be a good business idea. But here's something that you think would be great for business: we reached over 10 million people with our Headtalker campaign. We got 0 sales from that (As of the last time I checked).

Last I checked, the Headtalker campaign hadn't finished yet. It can't have generated any sales since it hasn't done anything.

Offline Logorouge

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Re: Language Support / Campain Length
« Reply #36 on: October 26, 2016, 08:35:55 pm »
Last I checked, the Headtalker campaign hadn't finished yet. It can't have generated any sales since it hasn't done anything.
I quickly checked and they actually made a second, smaller headtalker campaign (25 people goal) which was completed. That 10 millions reach is pretty crazy for just 28 people. o_O

Offline Dominus Arbitrationis

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Re: Language Support / Campain Length
« Reply #37 on: October 26, 2016, 08:44:54 pm »
Now, if we do sell 50k more units by translating the game, then yes, it would be a good business idea. But here's something that you think would be great for business: we reached over 10 million people with our Headtalker campaign. We got 0 sales from that (As of the last time I checked).

Last I checked, the Headtalker campaign hadn't finished yet. It can't have generated any sales since it hasn't done anything.

The primary Headtalker campaign hasn't finished, but the secondary one we made with the intent of getting massive reach finished and we got nada.
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Offline Tridus

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Re: Language Support / Campain Length
« Reply #38 on: October 26, 2016, 08:46:45 pm »
Last I checked, the Headtalker campaign hadn't finished yet. It can't have generated any sales since it hasn't done anything.
I quickly checked and they actually made a second, smaller headtalker campaign (25 people goal) which was completed. That 10 millions reach is pretty crazy for just 28 people. o_O

Ah. That 10 million reach for 28 people is also BS. Those are going to be bot accounts that exist to rack up followers and then sell the reach, except most of the "reach" is other bots. Twitter in particular is full of bots.

Take a look at some of those 28 accounts. They also supported things like "Get paid to post!", "Become an influencer in the Headtalker Market!", and my personal favorite "Obama has weakened the gates of hell".

In terms of raw numbers, it's impressive. If you're into social media, you recognize those accounts for what they are. They're low quality reach, as it's not like me talking to my friends. It's a bot that follows zillions of people in the hope a percentage follow back, then spam paid content until they lose value. The facebook equivalent is accounts that send out things like fake Costco cash card contest offers to get lots of followers. They're not well targeted in any particular way, either.

Offline Dominus Arbitrationis

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Re: Language Support / Campain Length
« Reply #39 on: October 26, 2016, 08:55:46 pm »
Oh, don't get me wrong, we knew it wasn't going to be high quality reach. We were hoping to have maybe a .01% conversion rate (Really just any conversions, even one would have been nice).

But it serves a good purpose in this argument. There is clearly a large group of people that should, _in theory_ contribute even a very tiny amount but don't. There is the same problem with translations. Yes, there are millions of Russian gamers. And in theory 10k of those millions would like AI War. But that doesn't mean we'd get 10k sales. We might get 5k sales. We might get 20k. We have no way of knowing, and it is a huge upfront cost.

So, to summarize, if anyone can give me the name of a good translation firm that produces HIGH QUALITY translations, I'll take a peek at them. I can promise that much. I can't promise anything more than that.
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Offline kasnavada

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Re: Language Support / Campain Length
« Reply #40 on: October 27, 2016, 02:05:48 am »
It's kind of not much of a debate. If next to no one does it, it's because it's not profitable.

Basically, the market for english speaking people in the world is around what, 1.5 billion people ? For Germany, the number of people that don't speak english, and are physically capable of buying the game is what, 25% of the population ? So 20 million ? (yeah, 3 year-old will not buy video games ad mostly don't speak english, and I know for a fact than more than half of the German population speaks enough English, and some of the people that don't speak foreign languages ain't really the most open-minded people out-there... I'd assume a significant part of them don't want alien stuff).

We're therefore speaking of an increase in potential customers in the 1.6%. Ok... let's be crazy and assume 2 percent. Let's go even more crazy and assume that a game would make 10 dollars per sale after taxes, sales, whatever, and sells 100 000 units (both are VERY high numbers as far as indy video games are concerned) over its complete life-span, with 1 expansion. That makes it 20 000 dollars "gained", and a 2 year shelf life. I'm roughly basing numbers on TLF, by the way.

Now, prices.
- base translation would be in the 5000 dollar range. To be redone for each major update. I'm taking into account some overhead costs like proof-reading and the like.
- each minor update would require proof-reading - let's assume 200 dollars each.
- I'd assume that everythin ain't perfect and that some typo-related bug reports happen, roughly once month. That's again around 200 dollars per month (dev work + translator).

Taking into some averages, I'd suppose 20 minor updates during the life-time of both the base game and the expansion. That means, 10000 for "base translations", 2 times 4000 for the minor updates, 2 * 12 * 200 for typos, which amounts to 22800 dollars.

That's a net loss. That's what would have costed, more or less, TLF, which, as far as game goes, is very successful. And, that's not taking into consideration marketing to other countries in other language, the risk associated with translations failing, the fact that games are created with a "culture" background and that it's not because it's succesful in one place that it would appeal to a foreign market.

It's also not taking into consideration that translating for the sake of translation is dumb. If a developper is sane, he'd want the translation not to bring additional sales to pay for the translation only, but to bring additional profit. Otherwise there is little point, because the extra work is just going to make the game more complex to do, increase the budget, and therefore increase the risk and losses if the game fails. At last, please take into consideration that the number's I'm using are based on costs the companies I've been working for during the last ten years as a dev, so... there is potential for improvement, but I don't think I'm far from the mark.

Now, you can tweak numbers as much as you want, but as long as the tranlsation cost isn't more than 30 or 40% of the expected additional sales profit, I personally wouldn't do it.
« Last Edit: October 27, 2016, 02:12:49 am by kasnavada »

Offline jenya

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Re: Language Support / Campain Length
« Reply #41 on: October 27, 2016, 03:33:25 am »
Not sure what is the problem with translations (for latin based languages, Asian and Arabic of course would require some programming effort in UI). The fans will do it for free with minimal help/guidance from the game authors (if the game is really good).

It is like organizing beta-testers. You split text into pieces and ask for volontiers to translate the pieces.
When fully translated, ask again for volontiers to review the translation.

If you want to verify translation, google translate it back to English.
« Last Edit: October 27, 2016, 04:00:48 am by jenya »

Offline Tridus

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Re: Language Support / Campain Length
« Reply #42 on: October 27, 2016, 07:54:05 am »
Not sure what is the problem with translations (for latin based languages, Asian and Arabic of course would require some programming effort in UI).

Every language requires checking every UI element, and changes are more frequent than you think. Have some English text? How do you know it'll fit in the allocated space in French, where the text is usually longer?

I write software for internal corporate use, and we localize everything into French. It's not just "slap some text in a file and you're done."

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The fans will do it for free with minimal help/guidance from the game authors (if the game is really good).

Far as I'm aware, there are zero up to date fan translations of AI War. Why do you think that would change?

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It is like organizing beta-testers. You split text into pieces and ask for volontiers to translate the pieces.
When fully translated, ask again for volontiers to review the translation.

That's requiring a lot of volunteers that may or may not exist, with language skills that you can't know ahead of time. Good translations require a strong understanding of both languages, i's not something just anyone can do. Even professional translators get it wrong at times, when it comes to technical stuff.

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If you want to verify translation, google translate it back to English.

... no. Just, no. At work, we are expressly forbidden from using Google Translate because of just how bad the translations are when it comes to language that's in any way even remotely complicated.

I also use Google Translate to talk with some friends from Syria, and you can kinda get the point across, usually. It's not even close to good enough to sell something with it. Relying on it is a great way to insult your customers and get a high refund rate.

Offline jenya

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Re: Language Support / Campain Length
« Reply #43 on: October 27, 2016, 12:01:04 pm »
Every language requires checking every UI element
Modern game these days should have auto-resizable text boxes anyway. One of the problems of AI War is that font size is fixed.

Also nowhere I said about putting google translated text directly into the game. It seems that instead of reading the message you have just snapped on the familiar concept (google translate) ignoring the context.

The only usage of google translate that I suggested is an optional verification that the translated piece from a volontier is not a complete garbage. The final review of the translation (when all pieces are complete) should be done again by volontiers (or a professional translator).

It is a recurring pattern on this board. The other day I mentioned Kicktraq in context of the average daily rate required to reach the goal, and people snapped that Kicktraq predictions are worthless (even though I was not writing about Kicktraq predictions at all).
« Last Edit: October 27, 2016, 12:16:07 pm by jenya »

Offline Draco18s

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Re: Language Support / Campain Length
« Reply #44 on: October 27, 2016, 12:33:16 pm »
Modern game these days should have auto-resizable text boxes anyway. One of the problems of AI War is that font size is fixed.

Have you looked at the ship tooltips lately?

There are several stats that are in fixed places horizontally inside a window of fixed width.
Lets say, for argument (as I don't feel like booting the game) that Damage, Attack Range, Reload, and Speed are all on the same line and pretty much juuuust fit with the units with the largest numbers possible in each.

Watch what happens when we translate to German.
Damage xxxxx Attack Range xxxxx Reload xxx Speed xxxx
Schaden xxxxx Angriffsbereich xxxxx Reload xxx Geschwindigkeit xxxx

It's longer!  It no longer fits in our text box.

 

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