Tue, 21st Jun 2011 | Posted by Ross
Good news everyone: while I was recuperating from my last attempt to break into the Ghostlight Vaults to discover just what secrets are hidden there, my sources informed me (I received an email from my boss) that pre-orders for Agarest: Generations of War Zero are now available here.
*Whisper* I’ve heard rumours that if you use that link you’ll get a rather lovely Agarest T-Shirt along with all the loot you can see in the image here .
During my searches through the back alleys of the Ghostlight website I also managed to discover – via a cunningly disguised link – a website for Agarest: Generations of War Zero. Click here and tell them Ross sent you to find out more.
Agarest: Generations of War Zero will be released on the 29thJuly for the incredibly low price of £39.99.
Fri, 17th Jun 2011 | Posted by Ross
Hi Everyone,
Welcome to another Friday blog. This one might even go up on Friday *fingers crossed*. Sorry about the lateness of last week’s blog. I had to rush off to a gig in London. I saw Mael Mordha upstairs at the Garage and they were excellent :).
Of course that’s not the only thing that has happened since the last blog and I actually have some big news for you guys.
First up, I’ve been inundated with questions about when Persona 3 Portable will be coming to PSN. The solution to this was obvious, so I decided to get out my super thief kit and break into the Ghostlight Vaults where all Ghostlight’s secrets are hidden.
After descending from the ceiling to avoid the pressure sensitive floor, I knocked the guards unconscious and proceeded to swim through the crocodile pool. Unfortunately, I was caught when I broke the laser trip wire. This meant I had to try Plan B, so I did. I asked my boss.
While the exact details of the release date may still be hidden in that vault, here is what I did manage to pick up:
“While we would like to bring P3P to PSN as soon as possible, we have commitments to our retail partners which mean we cannot release it as quickly as we would like. However, having seen all the comments and questions from everyone we are looking into ways of bringing the game to PSN much sooner than originally planned. We will also try our best to do a dual-release of boxed and PSN games in the future.”
So, while I do not yet have a release date to give you I can tell that we are now preparing the resources for the PSN release.
In other news I saw a very nice email from the wonderful people at Sony this morning. I’m delighted to tell you that Agarest: Generations of War Zero has now passed submission! Stay tuned, because more details on how to pre-order and get the stylish Agarest T-Shirt should be coming soon.
There’s no Q&A this week, but as always keep the questions coming either in the comments here or over at my Twitter and I’ll be back soon with more news.
Ross
Sat, 11th Jun 2011 | Posted by Ross
It’s time for another instalment of the Friday blog. I’ve been spending my week evaluating some excellent new titles but other than that, I’m afraid there’s not much to report this week as E3 tends to overshadow anything else going on in the games industry. Speaking of E3 how was it for you? I’d be interested in hearing which announcements really caught your eye.
Thanks to all of you who’ve had a crack at guessing which 5 games we’re currently evaluating. You’ve actually done a pretty good job with your guesses and between the comments on my previous blog and the people on my Twitter feed, I have seen a few of the games in question mentioned, but I can’t say any more than that :).
I’ve got a new batch of questions from you all (thank you) so since it’s a bit of a quiet week for news I thought I’d continue my Q&A from a couple of weeks back.
First up Ailtin is interested in the “breakdancing” horse I mentioned a couple of weeks back.
Q What about this breakdancing horse ? In which game is it present ? Can you give us an image to share the fun ?
A The breakdancing horse featured in an early build of Mary Kings Riding School 2. I don’t have an image unfortunately and I can’t remember exactly which build it was. It was fixed quite quickly as it was very easy to spot :). Anyway what used to happen was in dressage on certain moves, including the first move of the first tutorial, the horse would, well, breakdance. It would flip over onto its back tuck its legs in a bit and do a few spins before performing a few more flips and then continuing its dressage routine as if nothing had happened. Weird bug huh?
Next up, Pepsi_Biofusion wants to know a bit more about our localisation process.
Q Is it at all likely you would consider localisation of non-jrpgs already done so for the US, such as Arcania Heart 3? Also working with numerous developers overseas sounds hectic, so may I ask, what level of communication you have with them as well as explain why localisations can take years?
A That’s quite a biggie! To answer your first question, yes, we would certainly consider complete products from the US and no they don’t have to be JRPGs. Our team evaluates as many products of all genres and platforms as possible from across the world, but unfortunately we can’t publish them all :)
As for communicating with the overseas companies, yes this can be hectic to say the least, but lucky for me this is generally handled by our producers who deal with external teams pretty much on a day to day basis. Good, regular communication is vital when working with any external company, even more so when dealing with complex JRPG localisations. The level of communication needed does of course depend heavily on the game. For example Shadowhearts: From the New World was actually localised in-house whereas the coding for the European build of Agarest: Generations of War Zero is being done in Japan. In the latter case the only way I personally communicate with external companies is through entering info on a bug reporting database but I know our production team have a great working relationship with all our clients.
As for why localisations can sometimes take years to happen, where do I start? ;) Here’s just a few of the reasons that I can see (I hope you’re sitting comfortably…)
1. We’re always searching for more titles to localise and our searches sometimes find games that have previously been overlooked so to the end user it can seem like months or years before a localised version reaches our shores.
2. The success of a sequel to an established series can sometimes indicate interest in earlier games in that series that may have been passed up previously. This can mean that the earlier games may end up being brought to our market a long way down the line.
3. Limited resources. There’s simply a limit to the number of games a publisher can put out at any one time :(
4. Negotiation. Once we find a title that we want to bring to Europe, there’s usually a lengthy negotiation process covering all aspects of the title, ie fees, rights issues over art and music, copyrights over the source code, use of middleware etc All these issues need to be resolved before signing a game so of course complex legal aspects of any agreement can take time. And that’s well before the localisation process even starts!
5. Once a title is signed, the localisation and testing process takes a lot of time and effort to do properly. Japanese to English translations of large story based JRPGs can take months just to get a first draft (we’re usually talking about hundreds of pages of text here) and of course every new build of the game has to be tested as if it was the first. I’m no programmer, but implementing new texts into Japanese games is by no means an easy process. True, some are simpler than others, but there are always a whole host of nasty bugs waiting to rear their ugly heads!
6. In cases where a Western publisher doesn’t have an in-house conversion team they will either have to contract with an external team, or ask the original Japanese dev/publisher if they can do it. This can sometimes take a lot of time to set up because dev teams never sit idle and usually overlap new projects with older projects. This can mean that publishers have to wait to start a project and fit in around developer’s tight schedules.
7. There are also lots of smaller issues that can add up to big delays. For example before picking up a title we will evaluate it which often requires waiting for a playable build or even a finished version which can take weeks to months. On more marginal titles we may even wait to see how well a title sells in Japan or the US before setting out to acquire the title.
8. Lastly, we have to factor in the console submission and approvals process of the game as well as the printed materials. It’s sometimes even tougher for us if we decide to create one of our typically fantastic collectors’ editions :) As you can imagine, each special item has to be designed and approved by the Licensor or rights holder. On top of all this there are applications for age ratings, manufacturing and shipping and it sometimes only takes one minor problem in any one aspect of development or production to delay the whole process by weeks or even months.
I could go on but I think I’d better leave it there ;). This is only a very brief insight from my perspective into just some of the reasons why a game can take so much time to find it’s way to your console.
Time to sign off, but if you have any more questions, feel free to ask.
Hope you all have a great weekend!
Ross