Why nowadays most of the games have only english voice acting

[UIE First Citizen]

I remember when gaming started to get popuilar at the end of 90's and at 2000's, there were tons games with localizations.
Nowadays it is only mostly english, maybe ocasionally french and german.
I though gaming is more popular then ever and yet games only comming out in english voice acting.
Games from ubisoft and cd project have many localization options but apart of from that
rarely any game have around 10 different voice acting implemented.
For example despite bg3 being a big game, the voice acting is only available in english. they didn't even bother to make localization for their native language.
Same goes for Pathfinder games.
Original baldurs gate 1/2, Icewind dale 1/2 had polish localization.
Pharaoh also had polish when it came out around 20 years ago.
Gothic and skyrim also had full localization in my native language but nowadays basically none of current games have it.
Only cd project red is releasing games with multiple localizations.
Witcher 3 has 7 different voice packs and cyberpunk 2077 has 11 different voice overs.
I wonder what is the reason.
Cheers,

[アンジェル]

Originally posted by UIE First Citizen:

Why nowadays most of the games have only english voice acting
I remember when gaming started to get popuilar at the end of 90's and at 2000's, there were tons games with localizations.
Nowadays it is only mostly english, maybe ocasionally french and german.
I though gaming is more popular then ever and yet games only comming out in english voice acting.
Games from ubisoft and cd project have many localization options but apart of from that
rarely any game have around 10 different voice acting implemented.
For example despite bg3 being a big game, the voice acting is only available in english. they didn't even bother to make localization for their native language.
Same goes for Pathfinder games.
Original baldurs gate 1/2, Icewind dale 1/2 had polish localization.
Pharaoh also had polish when it came out around 20 years ago.
Gothic and skyrim also had full localization in my native language but nowadays basically none of current games have it.
Only cd project red is releasing games with multiple localizations.
Witcher 3 has 7 different voice packs and cyberpunk 2077 has 11 different voice overs.
I wonder what is the reason.
Cheers,

Jester. Try imagining the resources needed for voice over this game only once. And then try to multiply it. You do not get that many investors and actual buyers to begin with to make it worthwhile.

[Zef]

I think you are spoiled when it comes to VA work, but probably the french and the germans are the biggest whiners because they are so used to it getting custom VA in games.

Ever think about the dozens of countries that never ever get even a text translation, let alone full VA?

[Nepnep]

Money problems. The more voice acting needed, the higher the cost. Games like these have tons of characters so the cost just multiplies at an astronomical rate.

[Nozarashi]

Budget

[アンジェル]

Originally posted by Zef:

I think you are spoiled when it comes to VA work, but probably the french and the germans are the biggest whiners because they are so used to it getting custom VA in games.

Ever think about the dozens of countries that never ever get even a text translation, let alone full VA?

No idea about the French. But the "German whiners" are only those who are lacking English skills. And that is a disgraceful display to be seen which does not apply to the majority of players who grew up with English only games, music, and other entertainment. And even for them the German GUI translation is just fine.

[Friends with Benedicts]

SEVERAL reason that I am not certain of

[Edelgris]

It's normal for non-AAA developers to do this. Fromsoft did the same with their titles - and their voice content was a drop in the ocean compared to BG3.

BG3 easily places as one of the games with the most voice acting in the world. To redo it all with different languages would be an insanely expensive and time consuming task.

[UIE First Citizen]

Originally posted by アンジェル:

Originally posted by UIE First Citizen:

Why nowadays most of the games have only english voice acting
I remember when gaming started to get popuilar at the end of 90's and at 2000's, there were tons games with localizations.
Nowadays it is only mostly english, maybe ocasionally french and german.
I though gaming is more popular then ever and yet games only comming out in english voice acting.
Games from ubisoft and cd project have many localization options but apart of from that
rarely any game have around 10 different voice acting implemented.
For example despite bg3 being a big game, the voice acting is only available in english. they didn't even bother to make localization for their native language.
Same goes for Pathfinder games.
Original baldurs gate 1/2, Icewind dale 1/2 had polish localization.
Pharaoh also had polish when it came out around 20 years ago.
Gothic and skyrim also had full localization in my native language but nowadays basically none of current games have it.
Only cd project red is releasing games with multiple localizations.
Witcher 3 has 7 different voice packs and cyberpunk 2077 has 11 different voice overs.
I wonder what is the reason.
Cheers,

Jester. Try imagining the resources needed for voice over this game only once. And then try to multiply it. You do not get that many investors and actual buyers to begin with to make it worthwhile.

Yet it was somehow viable 20 years ago when games market wasn't that huge and there were none online sales, only box sales.

[アンジェル]

Originally posted by Edelgris:

It's normal for non-AAA developers to do this. Fromsoft did the same with their titles - and their voice content was a drop in the ocean compared to BG3.

BG3 easily places as one of the games with the most voice acting in the world. To redo it all with different languages would be an insanely expensive and time consuming task.

What annoys me most about what other games do with their pseudo voice over translations: the quality is abyssma. You might get a translation from English to X, but it simply cannot do the characters justice. Even worse than anime translations from Japanese to English where some English voice actors try to break a leg with madeup words just because they cannot capture the original Japanese meanings of things.

If anything, voice over translation do in over 99% more harm than good. The only times when it was good, it was silly expensive with very famous voice actors. And even they are condemned to screw up if the idiotic writers and translation offices mess up the translation and scenes.

Such a game like Baldur's Gate 3, with the expressions of the characterss, motion capture involved and alike would have needed a paralell voice over recording rather than a translation later on.

[Blair Fujin]

back in those day games not released by the biggest publishers like ea for example that would localize game into multiple languages on their own, would get picked up by smaller local publishers that would handle localizations and would sell only in that region
first baldur's gate - it was cd projekt that released it in Poland, not Interplay
now look at this game's steam page - you're buying straight from larian games, not from a local middle-man and larian are not big enough to invest into multiple dubbings

[Blair Fujin]

oh, also, with the way the animations are handled here, they'd need to adjust each conversation for each dub - wasn't that much of an issue when you had static portraits or characters just opening and closing their mouths in no way synched to the voiceover

[UIE First Citizen]

Originally posted by Zef:

I think you are spoiled when it comes to VA work, but probably the french and the germans are the biggest whiners because they are so used to it getting custom VA in games.

Ever think about the dozens of countries that never ever get even a text translation, let alone full VA?

20 years ago there were many games which were pc only, only box copies and games market wasn't that huge and yet full VA was released for them.
If skyrim, dragon age origins, neverwinter nights, warcraft 3 could fully voice acted in multiple languages back then why they cannot do it now.

[UIE First Citizen]

Originally posted by Blair Fujin:

back in those day games not released by the biggest publishers like ea for example that would localize game into multiple languages on their own, would get picked up by smaller local publishers that would handle localizations and would sell only in that region
first baldur's gate - it was cd projekt that released it in Poland, not Interplay
now look at this game's steam page - you're buying straight from larian games, not from a local middle-man and larian are not big enough to invest into multiple dubbings

So the real question is, why they stopped doing it.

[Blair Fujin]

Originally posted by UIE First Citizen:

Originally posted by Zef:

I think you are spoiled when it comes to VA work, but probably the french and the germans are the biggest whiners because they are so used to it getting custom VA in games.

Ever think about the dozens of countries that never ever get even a text translation, let alone full VA?

20 years ago there were many games which were pc only, only box copies and games market wasn't that huge and yet full VA was released for them.
If skyrim, dragon age origins, neverwinter nights, warcraft 3 could fully voice acted in multiple languages back then why they cannot do it now.

skyrim - distributed in Poland by Cenega Poland, Dragon Age Originis - EA, huge publisher, Neverwinter Nights - distributed by CD Project, same with Warcraft
here it's just Larian

[Alt]

Originally posted by UIE First Citizen:

Originally posted by Zef:

I think you are spoiled when it comes to VA work, but probably the french and the germans are the biggest whiners because they are so used to it getting custom VA in games.

Ever think about the dozens of countries that never ever get even a text translation, let alone full VA?

20 years ago there were many games which were pc only, only box copies and games market wasn't that huge and yet full VA was released for them.
If skyrim, dragon age origins, neverwinter nights, warcraft 3 could fully voice acted in multiple languages back then why they cannot do it now.

Back in the day we didnt had games with tens of thousands voiced lines of text. This game has more voiced lines than 3 Mass Effect games combined, and with better acting quality.