Print On Demand and other languages

Brum wrote:

The English language has not been a barrier for new players in Portugal.

I suppose the main topic of this thread isn't about the players, but about the quitters / people not interested in playing the game.

Pascal wrote:

Brum wrote:

The English language has not been a barrier for new players in Portugal.

I suppose the main topic of this thread isn't about the players, but about the quitters / people not interested in playing the game.

I think its too much pulling resources into suboptimal areas to reqlly consider.

Maybe down the road spanish, french, and german cards could see print. Maybe even italian.

Going to russian, chinese, etc, is way more work than worth doing to my knowledge.

Laibon cards in swahili would be neat, but not worth effort.

Localization costs for such project would be quite high considering the volume (several thousand cards + rulebook + erratas + rulings) and nobody's going to pay for this. The logical choice would be to do it basing on volunteers in target countries - finding them may be tricky (this WILL be a time-consuming project), although that may not be such a barrier as one may think. And in the end, who would translate the content in a better way than people who love the game and who have played it for many, many years?

Personally I don't like playing games in my native language, I will always choose the English version when given a choice (I grew up on games played in English and it just stayed that way). However, from the marketing perspective, the popularity of V:TES may greatly increase and player acquisition should get a massive boost, so I wouldn't reject the idea. If anyone can print the cards in any language, the accessibility barrier is pretty much gone, and so is the language one. Which directly translates into "good for business".

I used to work in localization in the past (coordinated global translation projects as a PM, corporate level mostly) so I have a pretty good idea on how to run such project - give me a shout if you ever consider doing it and I can give you a hand (stuff like project planning, terminology validation, coordination between translators, basically the ropes). Resource-wise you need a PM who can run the whole thing + one or more coordinators per target language / country, who can recruit and coordinate volunteers. I'd say it is doable in 6 - 8 months. Happy to give out more details if you need them.

Another possible issue, playing the game is, at least in theory, always donexin english at largexevents.

It could be rough forxplayers to only need thier nativexlanguage to play continental events done in english.

ReverendRevolver wrote:

Another possible issue, playing the game is, at least in theory, always donexin english at largexevents.

It could be rough forxplayers to only need thier nativexlanguage to play continental events done in english.

True, but think about the scale. If you can run local tournaments with, let's say, 50 people and qualifiers / nationals with 150 - 200, you have a pretty decent scene on your own. Again - entry barrier is close to zero, all you need to get the scene running is good marketing. Plus people who want to play internationally can always choose to do so, therefore accepting the "English only" clause abroad. Sure we're daydreaming at the moment, but I wouldn't say it's impossible to achieve.

Pascal wrote:

Brum wrote:

The English language has not been a barrier for new players in Portugal.

I suppose the main topic of this thread isn't about the players, but about the quitters / people not interested in playing the game.

Even less of a problem in Portugal.

For example, in Portugal people only use MtG cards in "Portuguese" when forced to by price (cheaper) or stores (draft versions).
Kids know the spells they learn in Hogwarts, and latin is worse than English.