TELLTALE should thanks these people...
Tellltale is getting money from the customers who doesn't know english but buy the game thanks to fan made translations; but it's not their work.
And maybe all the work of these people will be wasted soon with never planned or announced official translations.
What am I asking? Say if you're gonna translate a game and in what languages as soon as the 1st episode is released.
Thanks.
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Imagine hearing Bigby in a French or Spanish accent - phew, getting a little hot under the collar here...
"Fan translations", as much as they definitely are a labour of love from those fans, are in no way something a company should thank people for.
With Telltale's only possible model of making translations a reality, it is of the utmost importance that the target country hasn't yet seen any localized form of the game. If a fan translation exists already, a fully voiced localized version becomes drastically less lucrative to the point where no publisher would ever attempt one. That is of course particularly true in countries where software piracy is extremely common – like Russia or China. And it's possibly the reason why the last Telltale games have seen a retail release in Germany, but no voice overs any more.
Essentially, by making a reality what they wish for themselves, fan translators often make a localized version an impossibility, and that's a fact.
It's a different matter when indie developers themselves reach out to the community for fan translations. That's a cheap way to get your game translated if it has a large following and not exactly walls of text. But Telltale hasn't asked for this, they certainly shouldn't thank people for it.
The episodic model has huge constraints on timely translations in the first place. Telltale tried something with Back to the Future... and it really didn't work out. Recently indie Red Thread Games has promised German translations releasing with the English language... but their episodes will probably be about three months apart, so far more time to even attempt a translation. Still, I'm VERY sceptical whether it will work out for them. This kind of schedule is just_too_damn_tight.
Well, IMHO they should thank anything that can make sell their products. And a subtitles translation is something that increases the potential customers: I've seen it happen, cause some of my friends who don't understand english, decided to buy TWAU only because of a translation patch.
I wasn't talking about a fully voiced localized version (that would be also a shame cause TT cast of actors is always brilliant, and it would not be lucrative at all IMHO), but just plain-simple subtitles.
And these guys released the text-translation after 15-20 days from each episode. Episode 5 translation was released after 10 days. Why TT don't make the same but officially?
So, yeah, it could be an hard task for Telltale to translate the subtitles, but why how other companies, often also much smaller ones, do that without so much stress? Tesla Effect, Moebious, The Stanley Parable, Sherlock Holmes, Broken Sword, Stacking.... most of these were text-heavy but released EFIGS (English-French-Italian-German-Spanish) from the day of their release.
So, yeah, you're right when you say that Telltale hasn't asked for this, but thanks to this Telltale make some money out of it.
Shouldn't they say "thanks" for some voulonteers that gave their personal time working on something that a company usually makes, and out of which the company makes profit?
Yeah that's bs Telltale doesn't pay these people for their work. Telltale directly profits from it yet fails to acknowledge any of these guy's contributions.
Would it really be too much to cut them a check for a couple hundred dollars or something?
I don't think that money would be legal, but they could at least provide a proper subtitle editor, with an easy way to implement subtitles.