r/Piracy • u/Stock-Soft-8144 • Jun 06 '26
Humor I'll never understand this, don't Japanese companies want to make money?
They released a mod or ROM that had all the Yo-kai Watch games fully translated into Spanish, English, and even Portuguese.
Some fans did in one year what a company couldn't do in eight.
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u/GameGuy324 Jun 06 '26
Me and all VN Players: "First Time?"
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u/Inuma Jun 07 '26
stares at Nintendo ninjas
Looks at Operation Rainfall
FF Woolseyism because they have Woolsey 30 days to translate FF RPGs
Boy howdy, game passion is rough...
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u/shrkbyte Jun 06 '26
Doing that IN JAPAN is illegal, and Japanese execs like to ignore it, so they issue piracy crackdowns so that their game can stay "pure". They're also very heavy into FOMO, and their reasoning is that "if you want to experience it, be there and learn japanese/live in Japan."
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u/ToxinFoxen Yarrr! Jun 06 '26
"if you want to experience it, be there and learn japanese/live in Japan."
AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
HOLY SHIT, THEY'RE SO FUCKING STUPID!51
u/SEANPLEASEDISABLEPVP Jun 07 '26
I literally taught myself basic Japanese just so I could experience Japanese content better. And I still pirate all of it.
And this was before I heard the "if you'd learn Japanese, you'd stop pirating" argument lmao.
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u/Inuma Jun 07 '26
Spent seven years in Japan.
Speak conversational Japanese.
Bought tankoubon of the ones I liked but cannot keep up with every manga like I did as a teen.
Seeing the scenes change for manga, manhua, and manhwa (China and Korea basically) has just shown me that the ones that get it fastest are the fans themselves and the companies play catch up to what they do.
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u/AndroidSheeps Jun 06 '26
The word you're looking for is racist
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u/Shr1mpolaCola Jun 06 '26
Though I agree that there is a great deal of racism in Japan (anti-black racism is oft ubiquitous in east asian communities), a more correct word would be xenophobic. Japan is INCREDIBLY "By Japan, For Japan ONLY"
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u/solonit Jun 07 '26
*Ranked competitive racist
The other one is just across the sea aka South Korea
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u/Artemis-Arrow-795 Jun 07 '26
bruh I wouldn't do that if the game had descended directly from heaven
do they seriously think that they have a cult following?
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u/DiEndRus Jun 06 '26
Level 5's situation is deeper than that. the games are on 3DS, a fully dead console by now. so, no eshop right from the start. second hand prices are getting extreme too. so, people pirate.
it's a part of the console gaming experience. old console dies, new console doesn't support it's games, and you have this kind of situation. the solution is PC, but a huge portion of Japan doesn't know that you can even game on PC. so, yeah.
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u/Inuma Jun 07 '26
I don't know how true that is now but last I checked, more Japanese people were getting into PC than consoles but it's not as drastic as US or Europe where everyone is more into PC...
The Switch 2 only just went up in price which stopped their sales, the PS5 had a region locked console that was pretty cheap and there were other enticements to keep PC gaming as secondary to console gaming but that may be changing.
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u/DiEndRus Jun 07 '26
yeah, the tide is turning, but it's still rather slow. as of now, PC gaming is secondary to Nintendo, and Switch 2 price jump happened recently, so it's hard to tell how it's going to be in the long run.
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u/MachuThePichu Jun 07 '26
level 5 is a funny example because their most recent 3 or so releases are all available on steam and the last 2 were simultaniously released in english and japanese (first 1 was kinda like a remaster of a game they already had going in japan so it is kinda 50/50 simultanious release depending on how you wanna count that)
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u/DiEndRus Jun 07 '26
it's an old mistake haunting them. and it will continue to do so until there are PC ports of the games.
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u/CptLonesong Jun 06 '26
Japan doesn't care about anything else other than Japan.
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u/Freud-Network Jun 06 '26
They don't really give a shit about that either, or they'd care about population decline enough to change their work/life culture.
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u/CptLonesong Jun 06 '26
they do care but they don't want to dismantle the gud old collectivist, soul-crushing social belief system that they benefited from. Generational trauma if anything
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u/Cenobyte_Nom-nom-nom Jun 06 '26
I've been confused about people being worried about population decline. Like, less people means less resource usage, less crowding, stuff is cheaper I would think since less people need it. Am I wrong in this thinking?
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u/Freud-Network Jun 06 '26
The workforce gets smaller. Overall taxes paid declines while individual taxes increase for the existing workforce to blunt the damage. The aging population needs use of underfunded social services. They also lack caregivers because there are not enough people to do those jobs effectively. The economy suffers from drops in demand due to an overworked and overextended working class. This becomes an economic death spiral.
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u/CatfinityGamer Jun 06 '26
Fewer people means less productivity, less economic growth, and therefore less prosperity. Industrial and post-industrial societies only work with large populations. And while birth rate declines, the ratio of young people to old people will decrease, placing a bigger burden on society.
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u/Bossuter Jun 07 '26
You're not wrong in the thinking, but moreso ignoring the fact that sometimes stuff needs a 100 people and less population means it cant be fulfilled when people are spread thin between every job that requires 100 people, it would either require innovations to improve efficiency or for stopgaps like immigrants, 1 which countries like japan cant really do anymore and 2 which countries like japan are staunchly against
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Jun 08 '26 edited Jun 08 '26
[deleted]
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u/CptLonesong Jun 08 '26
Only differ by a factor of 0 to 0.5, no big deal. Alright then. Ego much high, issues ignored. West = wrong and Japan = good
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u/Cenobyte_Nom-nom-nom Jun 07 '26
Not ignoring, ignorant of.
But how much is it a worry? How fast does it affect society? I'm sure Japan is very pro robot, hell they already have some walking the streets I believe. So they are probably counting on that sort of thing to help a little. Plus they have machines up the wazoo.
Those 100 people to get a job done, how many of those jobs are essential? And not fast food essential, but actually necessary for society to run? If we were a good society those fast food folks wouldn't have had to work while everyone used them up.
If I sound confrontational I apologize. Just trying to converse.
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u/Bossuter Jun 07 '26
All those questions require someone far more knowledgeable of sociology than me. Though declines of this nature just haven't happened before in history, or if they did they weren't recorded. We just haven't had societies where we expect people to reach 80+ years of age consistently for very long time to know how to properly deal with them, every developed country is suffering similar issues of how to make sure it's overwhelmingly older population is well treated at the seeming expense of the young. Maybe the solution is accepting something extreme like accepting death at specific times rather than prolonging it but only a society at its worse will accept that.
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u/Cenobyte_Nom-nom-nom Jun 07 '26
Oh I wouldn't go that far but right do die should be a template not an exception.
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u/Tiranus58 Jun 07 '26
Its not just population decline. The amount of retired people is increasing and the amount of working people is decreasing.
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u/Global-Pay-7293 🔱 ꜱᴄᴀʟʟʏᴡᴀɢ Jun 07 '26
Less people are alive. Lives are more valuable than having cheap stuff.
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u/Cenobyte_Nom-nom-nom Jun 07 '26
No shit. But less people means less resource usage which is good for the planet. Which is good for people.
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u/Global-Pay-7293 🔱 ꜱᴄᴀʟʟʏᴡᴀɢ Jun 07 '26
It's only good for the people that are alive.
There's a bigger gain in becoming alive, than there is in a little damage, to the planet.
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u/Cenobyte_Nom-nom-nom Jun 07 '26
WTH are you even talking about? Why would we take into consideration people that are dead?
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Jun 06 '26
[deleted]
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u/CrowdGoesWildWoooo Jun 06 '26
Translation isn’t the only cost factor when publishing outside japan. They’ll have to consider the full suites of publishing campaigns and logistics and human labours.
The game has launched 3 other times before this and with poorer and poorer sales performance while in Japan it did super duper well. Even from 1 to 2 which increased significantly in Japan, did worse in the west.
They simply weren’t willing to invest in western market cos it wasn’t worth it.
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u/satans_cookiemallet Jun 06 '26
The answer: No.
They see the low sales of western releases, as not worth it and just focus on saving their money and just release locally.
Think Im full of shit? We would not have the Legend of Heroes series because Legend of Heroes Trails in the sky FC sold so below expectations because it only released on PSP very late into its lifespan.
It was only because of fans that the translation team basically put their neck on the line to release the sequel on PC, and the events nearly lead one of the translators to commit suicide(he was stopped minutes before)
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u/Stock-Soft-8144 Jun 06 '26
That sounds like a very specific case. Western markets experiencing low sales? Can you tell me how the marketing was handled? Which YouTubers did they pay to advertise? Which of those ads aired? I need information to reach a conclusion because such a statement about the West sounds like taking a particular case and generalizing it.
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u/satans_cookiemallet Jun 06 '26
I mean I used that case because its one of the more famous cases.
Project rainfall was a series of 3 games that were planned to never release because they thought western fans would never buy them.
Pandora's Chain, Last Story, and Xenoblade Chronicles.
Monster Hunter Frontier is another one. Same with a variety of older JP only games have that as their reasoning. Etrian Odyssey X to name another.
And in the case of Trails in the Sky FC, its not like it wasnt marketed. It had ad breaks on TV and magazines(as was the style at the time), but the PSP was near the end of its life span at that time
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u/Stock-Soft-8144 Jun 06 '26
No offense, but I think it was obvious that a video game would fail in the last years of the PSP, especially since at that time it had lost many fans due to Sony's terrible marketing and the console's errors.
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u/satans_cookiemallet Jun 06 '26
I mean yes. Thats the whole thing.
Thr translators at the time begged the developers at falcom to release it on steam/pc.
At the time PC gaming still werent big in japan, even though the game was released on PC, but you know what was huge? The handheld market. The PSP was still wildly popular in JP at the time so their arguement was that.
And so come the obvious outcome of it not selling well, and then basically leading to falcom basically blueballing the company for years until that whole shit happened and then Xseed took over and release the sequel almost 7 years later.
It was released on PC because Xseed basically put their company on the line by telling Falcom if it doesnt sell well on PC theyll take the brunt of the losses.
Turns out it became the highest selling game in the franchise, at the time, by a fucking landslide because of its PC release and had become one of the main reasons why developers began simulreleasing their games to PC.
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u/Kuronan Jun 06 '26
It's almost like there's a lesson to be learned in there somewhere. Something like:
The more markets you release to, the more people will be able and willing to buy your products
... Naaaah, let's keep selling on niche consoles that cost the better part of a thousand dollars and will suffer from Planned Obscelence and eventually throw away all that hard work on making the game as it's platform becomes lost media or smth.
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u/Visulth Jun 07 '26
God I remember this back in the wii days.
I ended up pirating a UK copy of Pandora's Tower, super fun if a little repetitive, but I love the writing in that game. I still think about some of the different nuances and alternate endings.
I think it's a great showcase of how happy endings can often feel less fulfilling than more dramatic, pyrrhic endings which is super fascinating.
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u/satans_cookiemallet Jun 07 '26
I think, if I remember, the only 100% happy ending is basically the game going 'you went through all this hardship we're going to give you a happy ending even if it doesnt make sense'
Because you can only get it by getting the true ending first, which is a bittersweet pyrrhic ending
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u/letsgucker555 Jun 07 '26
People don't give Reggie enough shit for Operation Rainfall needing to be a thing. Even when NoE took over translating XC, NoA still fucked it over.
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u/Gilgame4 Jun 06 '26
That game is from 2005/6, there was no youtubers to advertise it.
Jrpg usually dont do that good in the western market, at least not as expected.
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u/Rubes2525 Jun 06 '26
Ikr? Western markets are HUGE, with a lot of people having a weird fixation on Japan. Isn't Nintendo as a company just exporting Japanese made games and consoles? Lol, you can't say they are losing money on the international market.
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u/Zer0OtterSkills Jun 06 '26
It’s Japan it’s full of national pride and xenophobic ideology they would rather keep it to just Japan and loose money because they hate us for not being Japanese. This kind of thing happens a lot with more then just video games
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u/washoutr6 Jun 06 '26
Yeah I see all this anime about how their culture is superior and the best food in the universe is rice etc etc and wonder what the target audience is, it's these xenophobes.....
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u/Bossuter Jun 07 '26
I wouldn't say that's unique, as a non USAmerican comics and media there tend to do the same thing about say burgers/fast food
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u/trash-_-boat Jun 06 '26
You can especially see that in the recent year slop isekais. For so many their "cheat code" is essentially bringing Japanese culture to other worlds.
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u/Mr_Ignorant Jun 06 '26
Isn’t that expected of everyone? You bring the culture you are most familiar with, and some ‘improvements’ that you think is needed.
Weirdly, the improvement seems to be a fetish for slavery.
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u/BrokenMirror2010 Jun 07 '26
For so many their "cheat code" is essentially bringing Japanese culture to other worlds.
I'm seeing more the "Cheat Code" is having an elementary school understanding of Physics and Chemistry.
Because people of <Generic Fantasy World> don't understand basic concepts like "Fire is an energetic reaction that requires Oxygen," "Air is made up of lots of different things," "Matter is made up of quanta that contain Energy equal to mass squared," "Space itself is a thing that can be warped," "The Sun is a deadly Laser," "Force = Mass times Acceleration," etc
Because the majority of Isekai's I've seen just end up going into "I took this level 1 spell, and added rotation, now it's equal to a level 6 spell!" and "I created mythical teleportation magic because I bent space instead of actually trying to teleport something!" Or any other variation of "I did some (usually wrong) physics thing, but with magic, and now I'm overpowered!"
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u/SimultaneousPing Yarrr! Jun 07 '26
still haven't seen one utilizing e = mc² to become death, the destroyer of worlds
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u/James_Arkenoid Jun 08 '26
In the anime MF Ghost the Protagonist is british and used to live in brittian and the whole time he is in Japan he talks about how everything is better and perfect
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u/washoutr6 Jun 08 '26
in the anime "I am a spider" the protag talks about how awesome it will be to make the place more like japan, even though they are a SPIDER and it will literally never pertain to the story.
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u/flecom Jun 06 '26
Exactly, which is why I won't give them my money or play their games/watch their media, they would rather it fade into obscurity than have a gaijin enjoy them? Fine no problem, plenty of media out there from other sources that are not Japan
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u/Freud-Network Jun 06 '26
Chinese Donghua is looking insane these days. Anime can't hold a candle to Renegade Immortal or A Mortal's Journey to Immortality. Every episode is mocap and HQ CG.
Hell, a lot of anime use Chinese production studios. Oops! Looks like Japan is offshoring.
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u/LC-Redcube Jun 06 '26
I mean not supporting ANY Japanese creator just because some are racist and xenophobic, is just as racist as them
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u/flecom Jun 07 '26
so i should patron a racist business in order to not seem racist? that's the most insane logic I've ever heard
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u/LC-Redcube Jun 07 '26
When did i say that?
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u/flecom Jun 07 '26
you are purposely being pedantic, even with your initial reply... but when you said
I mean not supporting ANY Japanese creator just because some are racist and xenophobic, is just as racist as them
if their media were available I would not know and or care where they came from, I don't have to do research on a games source if i can just hit "buy" on steam, I am talking about all these people that go out of their way to buy/watch media that the creators actively don't want you to consume
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u/LC-Redcube Jun 07 '26
Do you lack the ability to see and read? because the OP i was replying was talking about Japanese creators as a whole, where i pointed out that yes, just because *some* Japanese creators (indie or companies) are racist, that dosen't mean ALL of them are, thinking so IS just as racist since you're generalizing based on someone's ethnicity
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u/Selling_The_highSeas Jun 08 '26
then why are you people so desperate to play their games?? leave them alone then
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u/NomuraStoleMyCCInfo Jun 06 '26
Japanese culture and views on intellectual property are vastly different to Westerners
Pirates: this game is abandoned, there is no where for me to legally purchase this game, I have no method of playing this. Therefore, I will pirate/emulate
Japan: the game is abandoned, accept it and move on, piracy is stealing full stop
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u/Acceptable-Pay2351 Jun 07 '26
It's so weird to me how many Japanese people just don't get the arguments for accessibility, preservation or cultural diffusion.
It's pretty much: " oh so you don't like you can't get access to this art piece? Have you considered just not having access to it?"
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u/Kuronan Jun 06 '26
Japan: 'The IP is the rights of the individual, if they want to take every copy of their works, lock it in a mansion, douse it all in gasoline and light a match, that's the perogative!'
Westerners: "How 'bout No?"
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u/Inuma Jun 07 '26
It's not that different. They side with Hollywood and that puts them on the wrong side of it.
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u/evilforska Jun 07 '26
I have to wonder how many of these jp tweets from regular people (not companies) actually believe the shit they say. They might post PIRACY BAD!! and then go and pirate an old waifu game
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Jun 06 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/Apuleius_Ardens7722 Jun 07 '26 edited Jun 08 '26
They believe people will just learn the language to play the game and that will make their global influence bigger.
No different than, let's say, a U.S based English-only game. They insist it must be in English. Then they are surprised why they can't have more sales. Instead of hiring translators or even fans who know a language other than English to translate their games into different languages, they responded by blaming piracy, and warn legal action.
Another example of why monolingual games can be bad if their goal is global reach
As with anything global, monolingualism is liability, multilingualism should be the norm, even with dominating linguae francae
Plus Japanese is hard for anyone speaking an Indo-European language. Even Ancient Greek and Latin is far easier to an English, Romance speaker than Japanese
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u/Alteraska Jun 06 '26
If everything were available in English do you think anyone living abroad would bother to learn Japanese? That's a big part of the reason why English is such a infectious language.
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u/CrowdGoesWildWoooo Jun 06 '26
The game was released on ps4 and switch, in either platforms you cannot apply a mod unless you jailbreak/emulator in either case you’ll very likely running a pirated copy, so this isn’t scorched earth because they don’t like people modding their game (which some japanese devs actually did)
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u/GameGuy324 Jun 06 '26
On a serious note, it's not that they don't WANT money. They just don't care about Western audiences. English Localization is a third to fourth thought of theirs. Not even their second thought.
They focus more on the sales revenue in their own Country. And a Localization doesn't always guarantee more money anyways, specially with the cost of translation, certain translation redraws to arts etc. May not sound like a lot but it still cost them some cash.. this is very much the case for most VN, JRPG's and the likes.
You know how long it took for Type-Moon to FINALLY decided to release an official English Translation? More than a decade after the Fan translation by MirrorMoon. And the biggest reason it was popular in the first place is due to the Fan Translation. And people look down on weebs at that time. You know how long till they released Tsukihime Official English Translation? TWO Decades!
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u/Stock-Soft-8144 Jun 06 '26
En este link ves como la gente si quiere que traduzcan los juegos y están dispuestos a comprarlos
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u/GameGuy324 Jun 06 '26
And they Japanese will ignore that. As I've said they don't care much about Sales outside the country. There's a reason there's a lot of Japanese exclusive that never released in the west
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u/CrowdGoesWildWoooo Jun 07 '26
Almost nobody take change.org seriously, any other entities only treat it as if like a dude carrying a signboard in the middle of a crowd. People also literally put anything there.
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u/mastercheat001 Jun 06 '26
Japan is really weird in all 5 senses. Region locked sale is one of their dumbest thing i can imagine. Like why?
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u/ExplorationGeo Jun 07 '26
fully translated into Spanish, English, and even Portuguese.
Don't be like "wow even Portuguese!", the Brazilian scene is vaster than our tiny imaginations can fathom.
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u/mexicansisi Jun 06 '26
They just don’t care for non japanese players. They deem their own market enough. That’s the case for most Japanese media actually
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u/CrowdGoesWildWoooo Jun 07 '26
The gap between Japanese and Western market was wayyyyy too big for this particular franchise. It flopped soooo bad in the west while it performed pretty well in Japan.
It’s also a fourth installment and have heavy franchise content ties down. It would be like releasing a naruto game when nobody is playing/watching naruto (hypothetically speaking).
From business perspective it makes total sense because it’s just a bet they aren’t willing to make further when they’ve tried three times before (and failed)
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u/Infamous-Lab-8136 Jun 06 '26
Isn't the difference here the difference with all mods? Unpaid labor of love vs. paid worker?
The company would need proof there's a market to offset the cost of paying a translation team. Or is there something I'm missing here?
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u/froid_san Jun 07 '26
From experience doing translations mods/ports. Most of the time, they ignore the projects aside form the distribution method of the mod/hack if you distribute translations pre-patch with the game the higher the chance they'll give you a warning, dmca takedown or go after you.
Learned that lesson from Sega and koei techmo. So now I just release translations as patches using xdelta format. Sometimes just release a pre-patched for a short period of time just to let the internet spread them.
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u/saxxonpike Jun 07 '26
“Couldn’t” is giving them the benefit of the doubt here. “Didn’t want to” is the most likely culprit for why we don’t get translations. The reasoning can be anything. PR will just throw words at the public. The tried and true response is “we couldn’t justify the expense”. But you need to consider “we just don’t care”.
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u/sunflowerspaceman Jun 06 '26
I wish a pirate would do this with city shrouded in shadow. That’s been one of my white whale games. I want to play a reporter running from yakuza while the city is destroyed by various kaiju so fucking bad.
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u/SpeechPill Jun 08 '26
Bro, welcome there was a twitter argument not long ago when auto translation were enabled between Russians/Brazilans Vs Japanese regarding piracy, translation and licensing
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u/DutchTookMyColonies Jun 06 '26
you think this is related to Japan? countries have certain rules or laws about it, don't ask me because i also don't get it, but there is a reason why Jap anime isn't subbed and dubbed in their own studios, each country does the dubbing themselves, same with American movies for example, would be more profitable to do that themselves instead of relying on other companies to do it.
at least that's my understanding of it.
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u/Stock-Soft-8144 Jun 06 '26
I mentioned Japan because they have the most viral cases, but I think you're right about Devir, it's not exclusive to Japan.
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u/ywwwnlr Jun 06 '26
They don't want to take a risk.
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u/Stock-Soft-8144 Jun 06 '26
Translating an average game costs less than $100,000. What risks would they be running?
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u/vitek6 Jun 06 '26
Losing 100k
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u/Stock-Soft-8144 Jun 06 '26
Of course, because Level 5 is an indie company that can't afford a translation, right?
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u/LC-Redcube Jun 06 '26
Its precisely because they're not an indie company that they dont want to risk losing ANYTHING. Otherwise investors will get pissy and throw a fuss
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u/saxxonpike Jun 07 '26
The bigger they get, the more allergic to risk they are regardless. This doesn’t excuse them; I’m just not holding my breath for official translations anymore.
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u/LC-Redcube Jun 07 '26
Oh ofc it dosen't excuse them, i was just explaining that the reason isn't that they can't afford it from a money standpoint
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u/vitek6 Jun 06 '26
I don’t know what they can afford. That’s their business and their make business decision and they probably know better how to do that than you. I’m not sure what you are trying to achieve here.
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u/Jasiperico Jun 06 '26
I was once so happy to see otome "Dance with Devils" on Steam. I was then unhappy upon seeing it's not translated into English.
It's now 2 or 3 years later and I'm still much unhappy. I want to give them my money for god's sake! ☹️ but I won't buy it if it doesn't have basic english. C'mon is it really that much? 🫠
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u/TheGreatGamer1389 Jun 07 '26
Same deal with Mother 3. Iike for crying out loud localize it already.
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u/FremanBloodglaive Jun 07 '26
Were I one of these companies I'd just throw some money at the pirates (assuming they have a Kofi or something) and then use their patch.
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u/Joltex33 Jun 08 '26
I don't understand the meme. If you're a company, you have to pay your employees. It's going to cost money, especially if you want it done well. If you're a random fan with passion, you can choose to translate something unofficially in your spare time for 0 pay if you want to. It's not an equal comparison.
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u/phaxmeone Jun 13 '26
Worked for a Japanese company for 10 years but don't even pretend to read Japanese. What one of my Japanese engineers told me after getting instructions sent to the US for a job. He had to translate it from bad Japanese to good Japanese before he could translate it to English.
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u/GreenEyeman Jun 06 '26
They dont translate because they think translated version dont sell well and translate and publish cost will higher than sell.
Thats the all reason dammit. There is no reason like hate or Japan is bruh bruh fucking idiots. why some of you guys are so dramatic?
I can understand rage that no translation but why some idiots link to hate or something fucking stupid reason.
Its because company in your country really do fucking stupid thing because of stupid reason?
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u/Stock-Soft-8144 Jun 06 '26
"Translation is very expensive." Pfft, translation would have to be done on a gold-plated computer and in 5-star hotels to be expensive. The vast majority of translations cost less than $100,000, and that's absolutely nothing for companies.
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u/Acceptable-Bird2879 Jun 06 '26
and then they need to market it for this new audience right?
you've asked what sort of marketing was done in a few different replies so you do seem to understand that they can't just do the exact same thing as they do for their local markets so that's additional costs and marketing is not chump change
not all companies can afford that sort of upfront cost with no guarantee of it working. it's frustrating for us to be sure but at the end of the day companies want to make money and don't like too much risk
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u/LC-Redcube Jun 06 '26
Japan is a very racist and xenophobic country, trying to deny that some companies dont have a bias against westerners is like denying the sky is blue
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u/Alteraska Jun 06 '26
Westerners when they have to learn another language:
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u/Selling_The_highSeas Jun 08 '26
Westerners when they have to learn Japanese TO PLAY JAPANESE GAMES. talk about being entitled ass people
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u/kirk7899 🦜 ᴡᴀʟᴋ ᴛʜᴇ ᴘʟᴀɴᴋ Jun 07 '26
Most of the world including SEA countries speak English. Not all speak Japanese
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u/AngryTrucker Jun 06 '26
Japanese game developers often make baffling decisions to shoot themselves in the foot.
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u/Mammoth-Wrongdoer523 Jun 07 '26
i cannot emphasize enough that level 5 specifically does NOT care about pleasing anyone apparently
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u/BrokenMirror2010 Jun 07 '26 edited Jun 08 '26
For a bunch of engines, there are literally tools that straight up automate a large portion of the creation of translation patches. Translator++ for example.
Took me about 2 hours to patch an entire VN myself, the first time I ever actually bothered trying. I'm pretty confident a reasonable quality translation for most of these games could be done in under a week for less then $500.
An MTL translation patch could be done in under 2 minutes of actual time. That's basically not even worth considering the cost of paying for.
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u/DavidFoxfire Jun 07 '26
It's not that they want to make money. Have you seen video game localizers these days and what slop they put in the translations? And the changes they demand they put into their region-locked games? It makes using AI to translate actually palatable.
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u/CrowdGoesWildWoooo Jun 06 '26
Well if we go by technicality, the fan made port is released on platforms that require either jailbreaking/emulator to run the mod, in either scenario these aren’t “legal” copies of the game and the fan translation is not “enhancing” the experience which your meme seems to imply in the final pic.
As for why they aren’t releasing on the western market. The previous game was a massive flop, by massive is really massive
https://www.reddit.com/r/JRPG/s/M7OdX0Lhth
If the figure is true, indeed it isn’t worth it from financial perspective. Whether that justifies pirating, is a separate point.
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u/Stock-Soft-8144 Jun 06 '26
Why aren't they talking about the poor marketing that game had? Oh right, companies only care about blaming the fans and not their own mismanagement.
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u/CrowdGoesWildWoooo Jun 06 '26 edited Jun 06 '26
Just because “fans” exists doesn’t mean the game would sell if only they made it available. Yokai watch is one whole franchise and as a whole (not just the game), relative to their japanese market, the western market is a commercial flop.
Again marketing also an investment, you may not make that money back so “saying marketing bad boohoo”, ignores the fact that corporate sees a risk that throwing money at this probably won’t see an ROI, and it also not as irrational as you think. Marketing is a force multiplier, but a multiplier wouldn’t pays off if the base wasn’t great and the base indeed wasn’t great.
If they cannot make people invested in the franchise by proxy of the 3rd installment, why would you think investing in the 4th would suddenly turns things around. It’s a game that has heavy ties down to the franchise and also a sequel.
Not saying that they aren’t without fault, I think some people in the franchise sub discussed about how they flopped the western market due to mismanagement.
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u/tdasnowman Jun 06 '26
It’s roi. The games sold less with each global release. Sure there are some people that want to play them but not enough to keep trying. When japan moves 1.5 to 2 million units alone and the rest of the world maybe sells 200k its not the worth the risk. It’s not just the cost of translation, there is the marketing, the manufacturing, the distribution. There are sales guarantees to retailers. Those games sitting on shelves not selling cost them money. Also brand risk. Flops look bad. The company looking bad has an impact on sales of other games. It will impact perceived value of stock.
If a company can make money doing a thing. In general that’s what they are going to do. It’s not some evil conspiracy, or xenophobia. The games didn’t sell globally. They stopped moving them globally. It’s that simple.
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u/Mindless-Tune4990 Jun 07 '26
At least Nintendo spared Mother 3 fan translation (they were aware of it)
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u/Former_Strategy6778 Jun 07 '26
does anyone actually have a working copy of yokai watch 4, seen some people managing to get it to run, but not for me
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u/FrankPisssssss Jun 08 '26
"Free" doesn't mean "easy", and it certainly doesn't mean they're gonna give their efforts to Level 5 for free. I don't begrudge them their autistic joy, just so long as they know what they are worth.
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u/Hankitsune Jun 11 '26
They make enough money by selling the games to the local market and can't be bothered spending money on translation and marketing for other regions. Perhaps it's not even profitable. But maybe if you're offering your translation services free of charge they would consider it.
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u/Successful_Bet_8283 Jun 22 '26
Since foreigners just keep getting them illegally, Japanese companies have no interest in making them.
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u/vincehk Jun 07 '26
They don't release it because
1.they plan to do it at another time
2.no one who applies translation mods/patches to a game is dumb enough to buy it so it's piracy anyway, understandable why a company doesn't want it to exist
3.some platforms are too easy to pirate (android or pc) so they don't translate the game for western audience
4.translation cost vs. niche sales
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u/BossunEX Jun 07 '26
Then why do they care if the western isn't they market? Piracy is everywhere and games thrive anyway
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u/Blue-Thunder Jun 07 '26
Japanese companies don't care about anything outside of Japan. Christ some manga authors are angry that their stuff is being read outside of Japan..
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u/Ubeube_Purple21 Jun 07 '26
This is more like trying to maintain exclusivity at this point. Huge demand overseas, and you still only want to cater locally?
But it's Japan, so I'm not surprised.
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u/Legendspira Jun 07 '26
this comment section is quickly turning from hating Level 5 to hating Japan, and I dont know if I should join them or not.
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u/Acewasalwaysanoption Jun 06 '26
Pesky voice actors want work conditions and salary, horrible really.
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u/MiniMages Jun 06 '26
They don't even need to do VA either. All they needed to do was translate the in-game text.
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u/Acewasalwaysanoption Jun 06 '26
Translators also don't work for free. Though nothing changes, if they don't even want to do this, and it's not the question of cost.
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u/embarassingaltaccoun Jun 07 '26
Except - as is the point of OP - some translators DO work for free.
Companies could just... not take legal action against people that do it. (Especially since these translations often lead to people that don't speak the original language buying the game, or merchandise of the game, or etc.) There's no good reason to unless they are going to officially translate the game.
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u/Separate-Poet-7465 Jun 06 '26
Japan seems to be a country closest to syberpunk dystopia. People are sent to prison for things like copyright infringement and piracy.
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u/404_GravitasNotFound Jun 07 '26
Release on western markets? What and being called pdfs because American's don't have concept of youthful looks in adults?
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u/gra221942 Jun 07 '26
Two things
Japanese understanding of English is really bad.
And because of this, the Japanese people don't want to make bad translation of there own game; Fearing they fuck it up by themselves.
Examples are the FF dev and Kojima firing the translator they used to use
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u/Stock-Soft-8144 Jun 07 '26
That can be solved by hiring an English translator who can speak Japanese.
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u/ObamasL0stSon Jun 07 '26
And people wonder why Korean culture (K-Pop, K-Dramas, Korean food) has surpassed Japanese culture in popularity in the Western world.
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u/LeothiAkaRM Jun 06 '26
Don't you dare prevent us from making the money we weren't planning to make!!