Valve, time to dub the game to spanish and other languages...

[Liberty]

In VR to read subtitles is really awful and breaks the immersion.

Valve, you are a wealthy company, please dub the game to spanish and other languages, all the Half Life games are dubbed to spanish...

[temps]

im happy with it how it is. if they want to add languages, i suspect German or an Asian language like Chinese would be a better bet than Spanish though in terms of getting more game sales.

[Liberty]

Yes, in terms of sales probably is more lucrative to dub to german or chinese. But spanish is a language spoken by more than 400 million of people, and all the Half Life games are dubbed to spanish and other languages.

But we are not talking about money. Valve is a wealthy company, they can pay the dubbing to several languages.

We are talking about preserving the immersion when english is not your native language and you need subtitles to understand some names, some expressions. About offering the same complete experience to all your customers.

Subtitles in VR break the immersion because you are reading 2D text over a 3D image. And they tires the eyes because if you move the head, the subtitles move with you. It is a frustrating experience. So I hope Valve adds the dubbing in major languages.

[Dicehunter]

My guess as to why they haven't dubbed it to Spanish is due to low VR hardware sales in Spain and south American Spanish speaking countries, The financial return wouldn't be worth the time and effort.

[Liberty]

Well, they haven't dubbed the game to any language, and Germany or France are important markets... And Spain is the ninth videogame market in the world... But not in VR, it is true.

But as I have said since my first post, Valve is a wealthy company. And even indie VR games like The Red Matter are dubbed to spanish.

With Half-Life Alyx, shouldn't be about the money. This game is a benchmark. The reference in VR. And should be a perfect experience to everyone. But subtitles breaks that experience.

It is Valve. They can pay some dubbing...

[Kiba]

Originally posted by Liberty:

And Spain is the ninth videogame market in the world...

There are several countries that speak spanish, not only Spain. And valve has A LOT of money.
I won't play this game in english, it breaks all the immersion.

[necrophonic]

It might happen one day. It's not just a matter of money/profit and it doesn't matter how "wealthy" Valve is.

We're in the middle of a global pandemic. Valve had to pull everyone off other projects to get Alyx done. Right now it's not so easy to "just hire some people and dub it" as would be in a more "normal" year.

Previous HL games may also have been Spanish dubbed because of staff that Valve had then that they don't have now (it was a long time ago).

Personally I hope Valve do dub Alyx to as many languages as feasible as I'd love more people to be able to easily enjoy the game.

[cJ]

This is something I find really jarring with Half-Life 2. That game and its episodes are fully dubbed in multiple other languages - I'm not sure why Valve decided against it for Alyx.

[necrophonic]

Originally posted by cj:

This is something I find really jarring with Half-Life 2. That game and its episodes are fully dubbed in multiple other languages - I'm not sure why Valve decided against it for Alyx.

As I said above, probably purely due to resource issues these past couple of years. They want Alyx to hit to the widest audience it can as they want to promote VR. They're not going to intentionally cut off a market if they weren't constrained.

[Polysorbate]

Rumors say that Alyx was to a great degree torn apart and rebuilt almost at the last moment before release, which would probably necessitate re-recording new dialogue. This was right as COVID was really setting in, so they probably didn't have an opportunity to get recording sessions done for international audio considering travel restrictions, etc. I assume that wherever possible they'd like to have the original voice actors reprise their roles.

[ExpectationSinker]

really? cause for me it'd probably be quite the opposite; having a dubbed version would, at least for me, completely ruin the atmosphere, Half Life always had to be english for me, then again, I am that guy who would rather watch something in a language he doesn't understand rather than watch a dub

[Wesker]

Originally posted by Kiba:

There are several countries that speak spanish, not only Spain. And valve has A LOT of money.
I won't play this game in english, it breaks all the immersion.

I wouldn't use that factor of the several other Spanish speaking countries or the 400 million speakers of the language that Liberty stated in a previous message, because I suppose both of you would want a Spain dub and not an American Spanish dub.

The latter dub variant is being reinforced/refocused each more by videogame companies, especially American ones like Microsoft and WB Games, willing to please the American Spanish speaking countries, and sometines they dismiss the Spain variant when they do that, even if that has always been the de facto standard for videogames in Spanish language (including previous Half-Life titles), because of not wanting to spend the necessary funding to perform both Spanish dub variants, which would be the ideal as it's done in the other audiovisual media industries and as Sony (and sometimes Microsoft, but not always) especifically does regarding videogames.

So I'd say stick with the "Spain is the ninth videogame market in the world" motto if you really want a Spain dub like the previous Half-Life titles had (and let's hope it's doesn't turn out into a cheap London-based dub like Half-Life 2 and its episode extensions had, those low cost guys from abroad still haven't bettered their acting skills at all as evidenced with Control) instead of that other, double edged sword argument. For better or for worse, in Europe we are all alone with this matter.

Originally posted by Die Ziegel:

really? cause for me it'd probably be quite the opposite; having a dubbed version would, at least for me, completely ruin the atmosphere, Half Life always had to be english for me, then again, I am that guy who would rather watch something in a language he doesn't understand rather than watch a dub

Choices were done for something.

[ExpectationSinker]

Originally posted by Wesker:

Choices were done for something.

what

[Wesker]

Originally posted by Die Ziegel:

Originally posted by Wesker:

Choices were done for something.

what

It's easy to understand. Just choose your desired language and that's it. There's no need to disregard the localizations done to the other languages (especially when they are mainstream languages with big potential revenue behind them) just because you are not planning to use them. But other people prefer to use them and will gladly pay to have them, and that's why they are normally done.

So, again, choices were done for something.

[necrophonic]

Originally posted by Wesker:

...So, again, choices were done for something.

I'm going to assume English isn't your first language and the phrase you're probably after is

"Choices were made for a reason"

[Wesker]

Originally posted by necrophonic:

Originally posted by Wesker:

...So, again, choices were done for something.

I'm going to assume English isn't your first language and the phrase you're probably after is

"Choices were made for a reason"

Right. At least you got the intention of the message.