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If you are like me and would like to see English dubs returning, fill out the survey and let them know!
https://www.siliconera.com/atelier-sophie-2-survey-asks-if-fans-want-an-english-dub/
Considering that Atelier is an AA, if not A, tier game with a niche fanbase... and most of us don't care about dubbing... no, it won't kill the series.
I do wish they'd take more time to polish the translations though. They get rather sloppy in parts.
If you know Japanese, why are you playing the game in English?
If you don't know Japanese, how do you know the words don't match?
Watching anime and picking up a few words doesn't mean you actually understand those words. Let alone when idioms or slang is used.
No, i don't know japanese. Hell, i can't even recognize when one word ends and another begins. However, when i read something and i'm hearing things that sound like words but AREN'T the same words i'm reading, i have a very hard time actually comprehending what I'm reading. Doesn't matter if it's the same language or not. If it's in English and the written subtitles don't match the spoken words, my brain tries to mix the two and i come out confused. When i'm reading something in english and hearing something in another language, it gets even more garbled. It's distracting and I end up either getting pulled out of the story or just getting frustrated to the point i have to turn voice audio off entirely.
OOOOOOOOH I definitely misunderstood you then.
Unfortunately, there are people who know like five Japanese words and actually mean "hurr I know that Japanese word means X but they translated it as Y, the translation is bad!" even though they don't understand that Japanese has a lot of weird idioms.
But what you're saying here? That makes sense and is completely understandable. I can see how that can be annoying or disorienting to some people, I have some family who are like that.
I think this is one of those points that really justifies having English dubs.
First of all - I don't think it has any, or very little, influence on the amount of sold copy's for this game. Yes, there are some (very vocal) people that swear they won't play the game without English dub, but in practice most people that like the Atelier games don't care very much about it.
Secondly - Voice actors are expensive... Very expensive. And even more expensive if you want decent ones! And keep in mind that only one voice actor is not enough. To do a decent voice acting you need several of them, increasing the costs even higher. Don't forget they already payed a lot for Japanese voice acting. Don't underestimate the costs involved.
Thirdly (as a result from the above). If you want expensive voice acting, you have to cut cost on another part of the game. Don't forget that the Atelier games are no main stream top sold games. The sales income must be decent, but far from spectacular. So a cost cut hast to be made to pay for the extra voice acting.
There are several way to do that:
a) You can keep the voice acting to a bare minimum (only do a few lines and the rest silent). You can then end up with only partial English voice acting, and full Japanese voice acting. Most players will then switch to Japanese voice acting anyway. It will increase the cost of the game however, even with bare minimum voice acting. The price of the game would increase or things will be cut out and sold as DLC's. Somehow the price has to be payed.
b) You can keep full voice acting, but cut in the development costs of the game. That would result in a shorter game and/or a shallower experience. Another way to do that is to cut cost in the graphical department. Or you can reduce the amount of characters in the game, and/or use more silent characters without voice acting.
c) Increase the price of the game. I do not think this would be a popular option, seeing the whining that already takes place here on this forum.
d) Cut out huge parts of the game and sell them as story DLC's. As with c, I don't think that would be a popular thing to do. The amount of complaints and whining would be spectacular.
These are a few ways to compensate for extra voice acting costs. Keep in mind that if you want to pay the same price for this game, you have to cut cost somewhere else. No matter what.
The last option is the most simple of course. Just don't do English voice acting.
I mostly agree with everything except English voice acting is actually dirt cheap. Well, the low to mid tier voice acting is cheap. They get paid peanuts, which is unfortunate. The problem is RPGs have sooooooooooo many lines, that even at dirt cheap prices it adds up quick.
But yeah, good to great English voice acting is EXPENSIVE. There's a ridiculous difference between the middle and upper skill-levels in price. I think they could manage to get away with dubs if they really wanted, considering they did before. But there really is no real financial reason for them to do so. It's unfortunate for some people, but they are in the minority.
Though I want to see the results of the recent poll Koei did asking the fanbase if they want dubs or not.
And - What an coincidence... The last Atelier game with English voice acting was in the year 2017. I won't say this is all connected, but there seems to be some very funny smelling dots and arrows around here...
Well, I said what I said based on what VAs have told me. But I decided to do some hard-research and have this.
https://www.gravyforthebrain.com/how-much-do-voice-actors-make/
https://www.voicebooking.com/en/voiceover-rates
https://www.voices.com/rates
Which I think backs up my point that most VAs aren't paid that much (average of $31k with the 25th to 10th percentile earning only $51k average). It's only the top of the top that earn a good amount of money (top 10% earning almost 6 figures).
The difference is, RPGs have a lot of lines. A LOT of lines. The cost for voice acting in a RPG comes from the sheer bulk of content to be voiced rather than the innate price of voicing.