My Problem with Arabic subtitles and how it did turn out.
Hey everyone, as you could tell I’m a native Arabic speaker and first of all I honestly respect Telltale’s choice of not including Arabic interfaces or subtitles in The Final Season (maybe near future?) and I adore how you cared to your Arabic fans and included our language in A New Frontier, since 2012 I played this game and got into it but sadly I was one of few in the arabic world who knew about this masterpiece of a game (S1).. there was some Arabian fans who wanted the game to be translated to your fans in the middle east. Since I love this series but I can’t introduce it to non-english speaking friends I have to sometimes play the game with them and TRNALSATE EVERY BIT OF IT but sadly it took 90% of the experience for me and for them.
But the problem is that it was executed poorly in ANF because even though it was your one of the first games you had translated to Arabic it wasn’t that impressive.
It had so much problems!
The translated choices were either poorly cleared or translated to the same, you could have 2 choices but still same translation/meaning or close to it.
dialogues sometimes feel odd and since I know English it wasn’t 100% correct!
the choices sometimes translate to a whole new different meaning with the opposite outcome! (Swapped maybe? Glitch)
It took a whole of fun from me because I am one of the few who liked ANF but I sadly had to turn off Arabic subtitles and interfaces.
I introduced a friend (cannot speak english) to this game and sadly he didn’t fully understand whats going on and therefore had no experience with it and was like only randomly choosing choices because it some of it didn’t make sense and just wanted to finish the episode as quickly as possible so he can ask me what the hell was the plot about.
Thank you for reading this and listening to your fans everywhere. I thought this problem would’ve been solved in the new season but I was surprised you did not include it in the first place (maybe you had issues or hard time with it?). I had to inform you with OUR problems experiencing your previous game (ANF) and I’m so sorry I had to point it out so late.
I fully understand that my language is hard as hell and hard to 100% translate but when it gets to the point where it takes all of the fun and experience you have to at least acknowledge the fact that it wasn’t a good try, and I would hope to help in the upcoming games if you want to translate more of your games to the Arabic fans. And I hope a Staff can read this, Thanks!
Have a good day 
Comments
This discussion was posted from a mobile device, so please pardon any typos or any missing details.
It is a crime that no body can play the first season because he can't understand it telltale should give more care to any possible customers by breaking the wall of language cause the telltale games are not like other games you can enjoy them by the gameplay cause 70 % of what they are is about gameplay the telltale games are about story and people who can't play the game because they can't understand what the game is about is a total shame.
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I feel you buddy.
??انا ايضا ما كنت افهم شيئ مثلك
Hopefully they hear us and solve it.
I hope so, TellTale’s The Walking Dead series and other of its installments needs to be more recognized and known in the Middle East!
ما توقعت اقابل عربي نفسي XD
There's a lot of Arabian fans that I know but they don't post anywhere rofl..
والله انا كمان متفاجئ ?
I have read your post completely before commenting but I let my self to go little out off the topic of your post cause no line in your post says is not allowed to do so.
so don't just go assuming i am didn't get your point/being lazy its insulting.
I guess you have rushed to another conclusion by your self, my comment wasn't just about a wrong language subtitles or language to some game is not being included, I was speaking as a whole that is a crime that a lot of people didn't play a masterpiece game (i just put TWD S1 as an example) or they didn't enjoy it because the company faild at/didn't care to include languages/professional subtitles for those possible customers who can enjoy the game and stay tuned to sequels of it but instead they released shitty subtitles for a shitty spin off and abandon it in a promising true sequel.
I didn't falsely accusing you I said its crime describing my own opinion about the people who not interested in playing a good game because the company didn't put in their care to make it play able for them and the telltale games as mostly unplayable if you can't understand the story.
Sorry If I did any harm
I’m not, in any way, pushing or forcing any one to translate ever other sequel they publish in my mother language. It is just that I was so happy about and it disappointed me a lot, not like it insulted my language or anything because that is just silly I know the company didn’t mean any offense by making the subtitles shitty.
In fact, what I am worried about is the reputation the series has where I live.. it has been known as the “zombies game where a guy has a kid to protect” ..Not that bad of a game, right? But then you start to hear “you need to be a fully-understanding-english guy so you can buy this game, otherwise don’t worry about it.” And honestly that is all I hear when I ask their opinions of the game. It’s not surprising since in the Middle East you don’t see a lot of people speak English everyday it’s so rare talking from a 16 years experience here.
Also, here’s a guy named Ali ranking his top Zombie Games and look when he gets to TWDG he immediately says “If you don’t speak english, don’t waste your time playing it.”
(Sorry if you don’t understand the video.)
So yeah, I’m not feeling (in anyway whatsoever) offended nor insulted by TellTale’s try at translating the game, I’m not hating on them too. I’m just disappointed. It would been nice to get more people around you share the experience with you, but sadly they did a “not-so-great” job at translating. Thanks for reading and have a good day :P
I get ya, some countries aren’t like the other.. from where I live Cod, Fifa and recently Fortnite is the most popular games here, and when you look about it my country here loves the big AAA titles and heavly actioned games.. but It’s still rare to see a fan of Uncharted, MGS, Dark Souls and much more.
Let alone an “episodic Graphic adventure, Interactive drama game.”.. So yeah, for my experience I have been a fan since late 2012 and honestly never met anyone interested in this series (from where I live) until early 2017, besides my brothers lol ... not a very popular title here even tho lately famous arabian youtubers started posting TFS, the reputation didn’t change and it is still described as a “boring game and a waste of time if you don’t speak english.”
That’s all.
Anyway my apologies again, now after you have cleared your point I can know understand you, I thought you were sarcastically saying I’m labeling this issue as a crime, lol :P if you want me to edit it that’s ok!
and to be fair I 100% agree with you, people here doesn’t like games if it was story based
No multiplayer?
No action?
Sorry. Not interested.
And that's was the point of my first comment.
In my opinion its a crime committed by telltale that those ppl considered the telltale game as bad games cause telltale didn't care to show them that their games are not bad or to make their games playable to those who potentially can became big fan to the franchises so you no one can blame them but I would blame telltale for it cause they didn't care for them.
What was your thoughts on Iman Avesta in Batman The Enemy Within? She had some Arabic language in the game with a few scenes of her saying some Arabic(sorry I don't know what language she was saying,so I could be wrong,but she did sounded middle eastern)I know this cause of ep 5 in second season Batman.
Never actually played the batman series, going to give it a look on youtube
Edit: If you can give a link to it it would be great, can’t find it!
There is no video of her saying it on YouTube,but if you play the game 1+2 seasons,but get to the part of episode 5 on rooftop she is saying some Arabic. You just have to wait and listen to her. But here is what I found about what language she was saying.
From the trivia wiki page of Batman The Enemy Within. Iman is an Arabic name, translating roughly to "faith" or "to be faithful," whilst Avesta is the name of the religious texts of Zoroastrianism, a religion popular in Iran and India. During dialogue in the Same Stitch, she can be heard talking in Persian, meaning it's likely she is from or has a heritage in Iran.
Not actually quite sure about her middle name.. but yes, Iman means “faith”!
Also are the TEW series, is it actually good?
Batman Season 1 and 2 are amazingly good. I would recommend you buying it.
Thanks! Will do someday, not a DC fan but Batman is a loveable character and besides, it’s from my favorite developers so what could go wrong? :P
It seens that A New Frontier had terrible translations for all languages. In portuguese the subtitles were terrible, not just for this game, but for all of games before the final season. I still remenber one gameplay I saw, and one of the options in the translated version was in english. I really glad telltale fixed this problem in the Final Season, and I sorry to hear that it wasen't traslated to arabic. It suck's to recommend a game to a friend, and he can't play because the language.
Yeah! Even the Arabic’s letters aren’t attached as they should be in the menu, so in fact it’s just not a word, just scattered letters.
Also, from where I live.. it is very hard to confess someone to buy a Telltale’s game.. since it’s not a CoD/FIFA/PES/Fortnite or a game that they haven’t been stuck playing for the past 10 years, trust me.. gamers in here are stubborn as hell and just uncultured swines when it comes to games lol.
So let alone an untranslated or poorly translated game.
It’s just 0 chance into getting a friend from MY country to play it. TellTale aren’t really that concerned at keeping a good reputation in some of where their fans live or at least where I live, seems they do not care?(I hope not!)
I mean why would they? They have to put time and effort into translating the game into other languages and then what? Their game wouldn't sell enough in those countries because like you said, gamers there are stubborn and don't bother buying the game
I don't think I saw Arabic as a language option, but if Telltale needs help retranslating it for a patch, I have an ex who works on game-making and he might be happy to help.
Translating it made a lot of youtubers play it, thus making it a little bit known here but sadly they all addressed the problem.
That’d be great, I’m also willing to help! I have some experience of translating game files online 2 years ago.. I can help with the interfaces and some of the choices