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EarthBound Fans Take Matters Into Their Own Hands
Reid Young writes "EarthBound fans have waited 11 years for Nintendo to release the game's sequel, Mother 3, which came out in Japan in April 2006. However, following a recent announcement by a Nintendo employee that it almost certainly won't happen, the fans are taking it upon themselves to get the job done by organizing a fan translation with some of the finest names in ROM hacking. Is it ethical? Does Nintendo even care?"
Don't misunderstand me, the people behind this patch are GOOD at what they do. I have NO doubt that they will come out with a high-quality translation, but I also know that there's at least one other group already translating it, and I believe they're really close to finishing it. I wish them both the best of luck, I can't wait to play the game.
They can be found here.
"When a game is as popular as Earthbound, or SD3 (the sequel of Secret of Mana, I just can't spell the name), I don't quite understand why game companies resist localisation so much"
Well, I can. ^_^
You have many more additional costs besides just paying the translators:
1. QA time to test new localised builds.
2. Marketing costs to sell new product. Both print costs, additional costs associated with art changes for your new market, and the payroll costs of your marketing department.
3. Sales people have to actually go out there and sell it when they could be selling something else.
4. The cost of the physical product. (This is usually non-trivial.)
5. That you're spending money that you could have spent on another product that you think would be more successful (ie, opportunity costs.)
6. Customer service/tech support additional hours.
7. Cash payouts to get better reviews (well, okay, maybe not this one... ^_^ )
I don't think you realize that Mother 3 is a fairly new game. It came out this year, in fact.
I hate grammar Nazi's.