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Quebec Says 'Non' To English-Only Video Games
daveofdoom writes "The French-Canadian government of Quebec is saying 'non' to English-only video games if French versions are available. 'It's causing a lot of consternation among retailers and gamers alike, who fear the rules will lead to delays in video games arriving in the province, and may not accomplish what the law intends, which is to promote and protect the French language.' This is a ridiculous rule, as game companies can simply stop creating French versions of games to bypass the restriction."
Wow. Let the French jokes AND Canadian jokes commence!
If you want news from today, you have to come back tomorrow.
Link on page to original article:
http://www.thestar.com/article/611472
Date on original article:
Apr 01, 2009 04:30 AM
Move along, nothing to see.
If the French language is so great, why does it need protection?
I hope this results in the most ridiculous translations possible.
So let me get this straight, if there is a french version available then it is illegal to sell a non-french version? I've never been the Quebec but are their no foreign people who live there? People who may speak french but prefer to game in their own language?
Anyway, do they limit books too or is this some luddite/anti-video game thing?
"This is a ridiculous rule, as game companies can simply arret creating French versions of games to bypass the restriction."
there, fixed that for you.
-I only code in BASIC.-
Most rules about French in Canada are ridiculous. Government officials need to be bilingual regardless of capability of doing a job, for example. Firing a native French speaker from government is almost impossible, regardless of how badly they do at their job. And if people in government has what is deemed an inadequate level of french, the government pays for one-on-one french lessons INSTEAD of for doing your job, and instead of for french classes with other people learning it or instead of for a government billet in a french-speaking area where you can learn the language through immersion. Do you have any idea what that costs that taxpayer? Or how stupid it is?
Protecting cultural heritage is one thing, but this is even worse than political correctness run amuck, because it's groupthink feeding into this mentality that it's bigoted to be against these policies, even when they're ridiculously inefficient.
To make matters worse, I don't believe the requirements are nearly as bilingual in the other direction.
Perhaps it is ridiculous, but not for that reason.
Which game company would stop creating *French* localizations of their games and lose the market in *France* (and any other French-speaking language) in order to get their english version into the Quebec market?
*That* would be ridiculous.
The populations are off by an order of magnitude. The whole point is that a game company may not think it is worth localizing to French *just for Quebec* - but if they localize for French-speaking market, this forces the two versions to play on level fields.
But if they're already localizing in French, why on earth would they kill their other markets just to prioritize this one? If Quebec per se had ever been a priority, they'd have been treating the French version on par with English from the beginning - which is what this rule tries (futilely) to force.
There are a thousand reasons why this legislation may be wrong-headed and is unlikely to have any positive effect - but this is argument is, indeed, ridiculous.
Freedom is the freedom to say 2+2=4, everything else follows...
Government example from 2006:
Needed an English translation of an article in Japanese. By law have to order a French translation along with English translation. French copy goes straight to the recycle bin.
Waste of taxpayer's money: $1500.
Merci Quebec!
Quebec knows that they can not leave Canada and join the U.S.A.: first language must be English, 2nd Spanish! (secret info revealed during last separation referendum)
Quebekers are incredibly racist and have a deep loathing for any language but their own.
Does this make sense to anyone? If it is english only, then it would seem to me that french is unavailable by definition.
Language enclaves generally don't last very long.
Silver Clipboard: Time Management Tips
L'annonce m'a sidere D:
In my experience as a game developer for nearly 10 years who has worked for a few companies, I can tell you that every game I've ever worked on has always had at least EFIGS (English, French, Italian, German, Spanish) localization (with a French North American SKU). I really don't see this as being much of an issue for most decent sized game publishers.
The last part of game testing usually involves all sorts of fun localization issues and me winding up wishing every would just speak English after dealing with some weird Czech voice over bug or something. :) The Sims was probably the worst, I believe they did a localization for every language known to man.
promote and protect the French language
Heh, we'll let anyone speak English, any way they want. Make up new words, take words from other languages, whatever.
Maybe that is one reason why English is "winning".
I guess the other way to popularize French is to have French speakers spend gobs of money all over the world too. That might work, in time.
...There are some days when I'm ashamed to live in the province of Québec; not many but they do exist and today is one of those days...
For me, language is just a form of expression and has nothing to do with Nationality. Unfortunately, some of our leaders are so paranoid of being 'corrupted' by other cultures and loose their french 'identity' that they would go to any length to protect it. Most of them are too stupid to learn English and act like morons to hide their fears.
The Loi 101 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loi_101) with dictates this behavior is often mis-interpreted and goes too far.
A film is a form of art like music and is created in one and only one language. Subtitles can be put to help understand the dialogue but the original voice and emotions of the artist should be heard.
I mean for years; Arnold Schwarzenegger's voice has been dubbed by a guy who sells washers and dryers and picks lottery numbers on TV here in Québec. Talk about a mood killer. Fuck you Corbeil... (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yves_Corbeil)
Anyways, the same goes for music and to a lesser degree, to video games. Let the market regulate itself and let the game publisher decide if it is in their best interest to have a french version.
To regulate that is to go too far and intervene in private business matters.
I live in Alberta so my views are undoubtedly very biased, however Quebec has a knack for both shooting itself in the foot and whining.
I'm not sure how much of our politics get into the news, but Quebec receives an incredible amount of money from the rest of Canada because of its desire to keep its dying language alive (Seriously, are any languages other than English going to be anything more than a curiosity in 100 years? I can assure you that french wont).
Many years ago, Quebec had a strong and irrational separatist movement where they got the idea that they weren't sucking enough money out of our government (And even back then they were getting largest slice of the pie) and decided to vote to separate (It failed 49-51%).
Frankly, if they had separated their economy would collapse, their health care and employment insurance would be gone, their pensions finished and they would likely be forced to crawl back to Canada in a few months. They have nothing aside from some god given right to make absurd demands.
I admit it, I'm bitter. It feels like every year Quebec whines to parliament and grabs a pile of money from our province. I have nothing against being part of a country and support transfer payments to provinces that are less fortunate. I strongly believe in being a unified country but Quebec has an arrogance that never fails to anger me. They have the gall to consider themselves a separate part of Canada but won't hesitate to suck us dry.
It's not like game companies that make french games are suddenly going to stop over laws in a province with a population of 8 million.
The repercussions of this law seem tricky though. It sounds like multilingual versions have to be provided once a french version exists. Someone will have to pay for creating such versions since multilingual versions are uncommon in the industry. Most localization is paid for by local publishers.
It's easy to say the law is silly but at the same time I know I'd give a lot to see game companies be forced to release multilingual japanese/english versions in the US.
TFA at thestar.com, which the cnet one links to, was published April 1st. I'm pretty sure this is a lie.
Today when I'm logged in and look at comments in articles, there's no indentation used to denote what level of reply it is (e.g., a reply to a reply being indented twice from the original). Also, the subject headers have a tweaked out short design with background coloring matching the section and the text messaging not matching it -- for this article it's blue text on a blue background, which is friggin' genius. The AC design right now is much better than what I get logged-in.
Is there some new setting that I have to apply? I went through all the prefs panels that I could find and saw no options that looked relevant (it'd be nice if there was a "put it back the way it was" checkbox). Thanks in advance for any help.
What the French, toast?
Would you like some cheese with that whine?
Stop signs in quebec say 'Arret' instead of 'Stop' which is displayed in France. I am french descendant but hate the self-imposed decision to ignore the worlds decisions. Most Quebecors don't realize they are an abandoned colony. THIS IS WHY THE ENGLISH WON AGAINST QUEBEC. --- And apparently driving school is optional....
quebec is one of the biggest trash heaps in the world. as a montreal resident i say fuck you and speak english to my fellow quebeckers.
Its just wrong that Quebec tries to "protect its F***** cilture from being contaminated" (Sorry, I refuse to utter foul language like the F word). You can't stop time. What they are trying to protect is the past. So just give it up, and quit trying to regulate free choice!
PS Quebec is the wasteland!
Quebec racism is now part of /..
If you read the heading and the article it states that games cannot be sold in English if a French version exists. Would the French not buy the French version and the English buy the English version?
The hatred is so intense in some cases as can be seen by the street signs where there is a complete elimination of English. Considering this is in a country which espouses to be bilingual the amount of hatred shows through.
The French lost a war and signed the treaty of Paris. They gave up North America to the English. It's done already get over it. Protecting the French language does not require the elimination or the hatred that is present.
ok thanks br00tus I won't have to write this post myself ;)
toutes vos base sont appartiennent à nous
No really welcome to Canada, anyone living in Canada for any length of time can tell you this is nothing but common place. Every building sign in Quebec, the french part has to be bigger then the english part. This is really not that suprising.
Tabarnac, people less and less see the point of sticking to French when the rest of the continent ignores it royally! Maudis niaiseux d'anglophones! La la, let's get anal about forcing French everywhere, la!
What you say, forcing French translations of every English word from stop signs to podcasting ("baladodiffusion", can you believe that shit?) didn't help much?! Calice! Let's bribe Celine Dion back here, she's our only hope of achieving a seeming of cultural relevance!!
You just got troll'd!
Non is a prefix; it's a neutral way of saying no. When did this become a word?
Quebec doesn't have malls, chain stores, or suburbs? Really?*
Personally I think if you consider Quebec one of the few gems of North America, you're a near-sighted bigot. But hey, that's just me and my appreciation for the wide variety of places and cultures in North America.
* That's English-Sarcastic for "Vous etes pleins de merde."
I'm not surprised about TFA but what I am surprised about is that anyone else in the world cares about this. This is just another stupid act by the 'language police' in Quebec to protect their *culture* and their *precious* language that us Canadians are used too dealing with on a regular basis. It's absolutely reverse discrimination because we'd never get away with pulling the opposite in the rest of Canada. Quebec gets away with it because they continuously threaten the rest of us with separation, spearheaded by the Bloc Quebecois if they don't get their way. The Bloc Quebecois is a federal political party whose sole ambition is to separate from Canada, and to add insult to injury they are supported by all of Canada's tax payers, for those that aren't aware. I've often wondered if anything similar to what we put up with here happens anywhere else on our wonderful planet. I suspect any such attempt elsewhere would be quelled fast and considered treason. Only in Canada eh, pity!
Back to my original point, anyone that wants to do business in Quebec is already aware of these intricacies or at the very least, not shocked when they pop up. Canada is officially a bilingual country and IMHO does more than its share to accommodate francophone's. Go to Quebec though, and it's like you've already entered another country. Reciprocity is not a factor here! I've travelled extensively throughout Quebec and God forbid you don't have a basic grasp of the French language for even simple things like reading construction, hazard, detour, etc. signs on the highway...because you don't get it repeated in English for you (excluding possibly the Montreal area, but not always). Quebec in many parts is downright hostile to Anglophones, especially if you want to conduct any type of business there.
I live in northern Ontario in a small community that is roughly 80% French. Here, they have it right. Signs are in both languages. If you speak English or French, you can get by fine and people are friendly no matter what language you are most comfortable in. There is no *protection* of one language over another here, and contrary to popular opinion, French is not dying out because of this.
One other thing; I noticed a previous comment suggested that not supporting Quebec was also alienating France. I have a very limited French vocabulary and am not certain about this but I believe the French dialect between Quebec and France is quite different. Supporting one does not implicitly mean you are supporting the other as I'm sure there would still need to be quite a bit more translation.
Obviously I can only speak for myself but I do believe my opinion is a popular one in Canada. I just wish Quebec would reign in their 'language police' and let the market dictate the feasibility of supporting French. If language and culture is so important for Quebecers, they can speak with their wallets.
Quebec is one of the few gems in this vast wasteland of North America
You, and those with your outdated mentality, should take a reality check. Quebec could not survive without Canada. Quebec, for all its "gems", received $7.2 billion in equalization payments last year as a direct transfer from the rest of Canada (the most of ANY province, by a long shot).
I do not mean to say, by any stretch of the imagination, that I dislike Quebec. In fact, I love Quebec and most Quebecers. I just hate the minority of arrogant pricks like you that seem to think that calling yourself a nation, makes it so.
Shutup and get a real job / cause to fight about!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equalization_payments#Equalization_payments_in_Canada_.E2.80.93_2007-08
Bon dieu!
http://www.4colorrebellion.com/archives/2009/04/03/quebec-legislation-prevents-sale-of-english-games/ I did a post about it earlier, and it's not as worst as the press make it seem
Blue text on a black background is extremely hard to read. I get these with the comment title and score.
God spoke to me.
nice troll
Here are politicians making decisions that will effect an entire industry. One basic facts about video game sales:
Most games have a life span measured in months. Most of the money generated from game sales come in in the first few months and then slows down.
What are game companies going to do if they create a French only version? How many packages of games are going to be shipped back to the manufacturer? What is the manufacturer going to do with copies of the games when sales slow? The end result: this will have the opposite effect on the game market for French speakers.
Protecting the French language is fine; but not at the expense of an industry. The gaming industry is there to make a profit not a loss and if you jeopardize it then the industry will do what is necessary to maintain profits. The game may ship with a French translation otherwise it won't be released due to the fact that millions of English copies will be shipped back to the creators of the game.
Okay, I really don't know where to start. Hi, my name is mclc, I am a French canadian and I feel guilty because of where I am born, and because of my native language, which is French, and because my ancestors were conquered in the Plaines d'Abraham. I play mostly in English, by the way. I watch movies in their original language too. Ho yeah, movies are also under this law. And you know what? I can watch movies in English if I want. I have a contact for that. It's a very dangerous black market to be. By law, watching a movie in English is like buying drugs and hiring a hitman, but worse.
As some people said in a few comments, Quebec has a law to claim the right of French speaking people to be served, to work, live, dream and eat in French. Why you ask? BECAUSE YOU ARE 350 MILLIONS OF ENGLISH SPEAKING AMERICANS AND CANADIANS! Is that so hard to understand? Yeah, we lost a war, so what? We are 80% of French canadians in the province of Quebec. English speakers are protected by the federal laws saying that every service must be available in French and in English (this is applied in Quebec, New-Brunswick and Ontario, but mostly in Quebec as there is no other place in the country where you will really get service in both languages).
Now, because you all like separatists scandals, I will disapoint you. It is not forbidden to sell an English game. Understood? Here's the catch that the evil French speaking aliens set up : you will be forbidden to sell the game in English if, and only if the game is made elsewhere in French. This means that if France (by the way, you just cannot get a game in English in France, by law) does not have the game until a few months, we in Quebec will have the English only version until then. When France (and Quebec) finally gets the game in French, well guess what? The two versions will be available! Bilingual like movies, or books, or every service offered by the Government of Quebec (unlike all other province). Thank yooooouuuuu bilingual country! Naturally, a lot of games are now localized, which means have more than one language in the same CD.
Now, what do you do for us, Rest of Canada, except insulting every frog in Quebec? All I hear is the eternal speak white, only said differently (and usually some stuff about the English Canada who won the war). Live in the 21st century, people. Let us, minority in Canada, speak French as we let you, minority in Quebec speak English. We pass great laws that preserve French and does not affect English in any ways. We almost all know a little of English in Quebec, but hey, IT'S NOT OUR NATIVE LANGUAGE. You just cannot think as good in an other language than your own. For example, all this text was great in my head, and now I don't know where I'm going. But hey, just come in Quebec, speak English in any store and you will be gladly served. French people will switch to English automatically, speak an English sounding more like a wookie, but we will try. I think we deserve the same thing. And in our case, we are only 7 millions in a sea of 350 millions. It is for our protection.
Je vous aime quand même.
mclc
If you had taken the time to read about this specific thing, you'd learn that not only is this old news (this was done in 2007!), but that the CANADIAN association of video game signed this bill.
Also, any computer game has been subject to this exact bill since october 2007. The only difference is that now, console games are also covered.
If you took the time to read the description, you'd have learned that distributor are mandated to offer the french version of a game provided that it already exists somewhere else.
The bill specifies that any reseller can sell the english version as long as they also offer the french version if it exists. I'm a french quebecer and I kept buying english computer games without noticing anything.
The only problem that I heard about caused by this bill so far has been with world of warcraft, for which the french version was originally built for playing on european servers, so you could not play with a friend who bought the english version...
You might find this interesting:
http://www.oqlf.gouv.qc.ca/francisation/consommateurs/secteur/jeux_video/jeuxvideo.html
Usually the PQ starts getting frisky, I can only assume because it's spring, this is normal, kind of like sheep they'll snort and make some noise/butt some heads and in a few weeks all will be forgotten.
ok, so to satisfy this law, the game store buys two english copies and two french copies. now because there are so many native french speakers, the two french copies get sold; but with frenchies being french and all, the english ones sit on the shelf and get scorned at by the local french speakers.
now the store has on sale only the english version while a french version exists. are they breaking the law? are the required to remove the english game from the shelves until they order in more french stock? what if the french version sells out again? are they eternally stuck with a english version they cant display unless they buy more french copies, all because of poorly though out law?
I know I'm not a frenchie, but it seems sorta.... well dumb to be honest
just like "African-Americans"?
Most WW2 games would just be reworked for the french version:
A the sight of the first nazi, a dialog would pop up:
Would you like to surrender? OK/Oui
I have the profound displeasure of living in Quebec, surrounded by frenchies, and I can say that they love shooting themselves in the foot. The most ironic thing about it, is that they are obsessed by conserving a language that they can't even use properly, most of them don't even understand the grammar, it's such an over-sophisticated and pretentious language that they spend a big part of the schooling just learning it and failing. And most never learn english, so they force to work low paying jobs because they can't work for companies that are international or national.
All technology emerges from the "supreme will" of man to become GOD!
Cause the Quebec French apparently don't think just localizing into French French is good enough.
http://www.nationalpost.com/news/story.html?id=d645a02a-9a24-4172-a92f-46cf1941cdb1
http://lkml.org/lkml/2005/8/20/95
Just send the english version through babelfish.
Instead of taking a circumstantial approach as many do, trying to save the P.C. face while arguing about inefficiencies, heavy-handed approach, etc... I'll go straight to the heart of the issue -- WHY THE FUCK DO WE HAVE TO PROTECT FRENCH, or any other language for that matter? And even if you buy the argument that protecting the language == protecting the culture, I'm going to ask, why should culture be protected?
The fundamental essence of all cultures is that they change over time. They are born, they are developed, and when the time comes, they die off or are absorbed into other cultures. From the beginning of human history that has been the case. None of our modern cultures have existed from the beginning of civilization -- they are all an amalgamated product of hundreds of independent cultures which have evolved and intertwined over time. Different cultures merge and split, traditions come and go, beliefs, values, ways of thinking and doing things, they all change over time. The very reason we evolve and progress as a civilization is that we accept the concept of changing culture. Language is part of that. Do you see any sizable part of the population arguing that we should go back to, say, ancient Greek, because Greece was the birthplace of western civilization and thus (obviously) we must protect and preserve its language? How about ancient Roman? What about the Medeival Frankish? Or the Beowulfian English?
A culture is representative of a way of life that people who follow that culture observe. When the way of life changes, culture changes accordingly. If language is part of that culture, then the language will change accordingly too. If using a particular language is no longer representative of a way of life that the population follows (as is the case in the anglo-americanization of Quebec, for example), then that language is naturally fated to go from the dictionary books into the history books.
But only recently we have a bunch of self-righteous moralizers that claim that "preserving" a culture is the right thing to do. In other ways, they wish to (forcefully) impose measures on a population and stop the natural course of progress and cultural evolution that the population decided to take, and hang on to something that cannot stay on its legs independently. And if that wasn't enough, they want to pay for this enforcement out of the public purse.
This is a fundamentally and patently wrong approach. Cultures aren't supposed to be "preserved" in any context outside that of a museum. Cultures are supposed to represent the way of life undertaken by the followers of the culture. When a cultural element (in this case being the use of French) goes out of fashion, it should be let dying in dignity, not persistently preserved as a decaying corpse by the high-horse cultural necromancers. And certainly not being funded at public expense.
Cultural attributes come and go. Don't entertain yourself with the delusion that the French language will be preserved henceforth and to eternity. It won't. English won't be either. Sooner or later everything changes, and it's absurd to even speculate what language will be used in a thousand years from now. It's just a matter of time. All the cultural welfarists accomplish is putting the dying body of a cultural attribute on extended life support, using our money to turn what should have been a dignifiend passing away into a long, painful, and quite pathetic freak show.
Let the dying die in peace.
... fucking over Quebec citizens for many many *many* a year.
"English-only video games in Quebec if a French version is available."
Translations for editior: *IF* you have a french version, it's no longer allowed to sell *only* the english version. If you sell both, thats fine. If you have two versions, thats fine. If you have a multi-language-version, thats fine. Noone is stopping you from selling the english version.
You're probably confusing this with movies, there you can't start selling a movie until the french (canadian-french, don't dare to sell french-french versions!) version is available...
all your base are belong to us
Most human behaviour can be explained in terms of identity.
If it wasn't for us, they would be saying, "Nein! Es ist verboten!"
What?
A language does not define a culture, people should be allowed to communicate in any manor of their choosing.>>>>>>> You are completely wrong with this on: Language and only Language is what really defines Culture. Closer to the topic - efforts of Quebec people to protect the basis of their cultural heritage is understandable. However I have my doubts if this is the right way, it might backfire on local game-stores etc. I would recommend positive measures, which support French in Quebec.
Which game company would stop creating *French* localizations of their games and lose the market in *France*
It won't prevent them all but if you shrink the market size it will mean that less will. Plus what if they decide to make a French, but not Quebecois-French version - the differences are greater than between American and English. Will that satisfy the language laws? Even if it does suppose they decide not to make it available in North America would that mean the retailers were off the hook?
Quebec has been a fantastic influence on Canada - it has continuously reminded the government that we are not a mono-culture. The sad irony of laws like this is that the cultural diversity that the rest of Canada enjoys and celebrates partly because of Quebec seems to be actively suppressed in Quebec itself.
I don't work or pretend to work in the retail world of games, but I would surmise that like DVDs, games are delivered to Regions. Now there's a European version, North American Version, etc. Who's to say that the publisher would even release a French version for North America?
Not releasing a French version for North America does NOT require that they don't make and release a localization for France. What are the lawmakers going to do when the PUBLISHERS simply refuse to sell the French version in Quebec? The retailers can do nothing if they can't get their hands on a French version, and good luck slapping a fine on a foreign game developer/publisher.
I wouldn't put it past the major retailers to even ask the publishers to stop releasing French version for the North American region. It's silly that we even have regions to begin with, but now it can suck for the government as much as the consumer.
If you accept that it is a valid thing for Quebec to promote and protect the French language, then the law makes a lot of sense. Just like mandating that restaurants provide both English and French on their menus, this helps prevent the English language from squeezing French out of usage.
I've never had a strong opinion on whether it is a valid thing or not, but perhaps Americans can understand it better by considering how threatened people feel by rapid growth of the Spanish language in the Americas, and efforts to prevent/slow that.
For every problem, there is at least one solution that is simple, neat, and wrong.
I'm English so I speak slow stuttery French (England is about 20 miles from France.) I've been to Quebec a few times (ski-ing or on business) and whenever I try my French on the locals they tolerate me for a short time but then voluntarily switch to English just to speed things up.
Crucially though I've run into plenty of people who honestly don't speak English at all. Usually this is at the financially poorer end of the scale like people who serve me in Wal-Mart. So it could be that protecting those people is the real intent of these weird laws even if it fails in practice.
"Don't belong. Never join. Think for yourself. Peace." V.Stone, Microsoft Corporation
It is still a stupid idea. People won't wait. Many will go across province to one of their neighbours and pick it up there. Others will turn to the likes of amazon.ca and such to just order it in. In general, it will just hurt Quebec retailers, and have no real impact on language.
...French is an ancient obscure language.
My dear Americans and frustrated English Canadians friends,
Why do you care about our local laws that much ? I never understood that anti-Quebec bigotry and racism from the ROC (Rest Of Canada as we call it up here). We're not telling anyone what to do on their territory, so why do you care that much about our local laws ?
If you don't want to hear, read or speak French, the solution is quite simple : DON'T LEARN IT !
But without our language law, French would only be a souvenir in Quebec. It's not like knowing French and raising my children in the language of my ancestors who arrived from France in 1640 stops me from speaking English.
So apart from the usual anti-Canada, anti-French bigotry, why do you care ?
In Belgium we're having 3 major languages ; French and Dutch are the two most used in this country.
While there are problems inbetween those two factions, the movie industry keeps making money on selling two types of DVD's to Belgians:
(1) The French edition and
(2) the English/Dutch/With all languages you can imagine except French!
Causing a much more rift inbetween these two factions, because there is TOTALLY no support at all towards an universal translation; making it possible to watch such movie with TWO instead of buying two different DVD/TV and Surround sets..
I've been writing about this at my blog (in English!)
--- I am known for the ones who want to find me on the net. Is that a privacy risk or a privilege? One might wonder..
"English, motherf*cker, do you speak it?" - Jules
I can only hope that the author's French is better than his English.
A lot of racist, bigotted responses labeled informative, insightful or interesting. Sad, sad, sad. I would not mind if they were labelled funny, at least, some of the are :-).
The french canadian situation can be complex. Trying to protect your language / culture is quite difficult. Errors are made, most initiatives or not well understood, compromise will make some people angry. And of course, people will label you racist or bigotted unless you are already the majority.
Personnaly, in this case, the solution seams wierd. Incentives should be made so that more french canadian quality dubbing of games are made. I don't think this will be the case.
I am starting to play more complicated RPG games with my kids (like Baldur's gate for instance) and my kids don't read english yet. But the translation is so awful it is difficult to play.
Though in time, I suppose they will learn english by playing video games like I did in the day playing King's Quest I on my PCjr.
And please stop labelling nice seperatist like me racist and bigotted. :-) Some of them, are, of course. Sadly racism is everywhere. But independance is more about speaking equal to equal, nation to nation, not "hey english guys, we hate your guts!". Anyway, politics are evolving and independance will probably not be the prefered way of proteting our culture (and I would promoting is a better idea than protecting).
The politicians are not understanding the Internet correctly, but it is probably something most nations have in common right know...
Hey I was born and still live in Quebec.
We are NOT all separatists ! It's only 30% of the Quebec population that's gone crazy about protecting the language.
So please don't throw the baby with the bath water ;-)
Valtor
"Sockets are the standard networking API, also useful for stopping your eyes from falling onto your cheeks" zeromq.org
I hate watching movies that were doubled in French ! Thus most of the time I go with the dutch version of the movie. The only probleme being that when I want to watch the movies with friends that don't understand english .... they'd better understand flemish (dutch), finish, arabic or swedish cauz' the dvd doesn't come with french subtitles.
I am not going to decide who is my friend according to their english proficiency !
It's really a shame that in Belgium very few people can make key decissions that often tend to divide us more than unite us.
Our national motto being "In our unity lies our strength" (or Unity Makes Strength)
is defaced everyday by angry people and attention whores politicians. They now have the power in our country and our democratic system is now a complete joke.
A few years ago, it was difficult to find a french-speaking belgian that had a bad feelings towards the Flemish. Nowadays politicians succeeded so well, that everybody has got a point of view. Reality doesn't matter on either side of the linguistic border.
It's a country where its inner communities want to win over the other ones. There must be a winner and there must be a loser.
But in the end we are all losing in this.
It takes work and commitment to make a country and build unity. And it seems nobody wants to do that job.
Quebec only has 7,750,504 people.
Who cares? Globalization means not everyone gets their way.
semantics are everything!
"This is a ridiculous rule, as game companies can simply stop creating French versions of games to bypass the restriction."
I've heard there's this place called France... It's like Quebec, except they don't even speak English at all! Anyway, apparently it's a pretty big market, about 2.5 times as big as Canada, or 10 times as big as Quebec! People buy a lot of videogames there, and they even have their own videogame company, Ubisoft. You provincial cunt.
That for all it's faults, Montreal has really beautiful women there.
Just an FYI.
As an anglophone living in Quebec, I can say that while historically, some of the language laws did help improve a situation ripe with prejudice against French, in the last 25 or so years, the tides have turned and the laws are now oppressive, prejudice against English, and more importantly, counterproductive. It is clear that the intent of this law is to promote French language video games in Quebec. It is also obvious that this will fail.
Punishing noncompliance will have an adverse effect on French video games. Let's see some incentive. Tax breaks or grants to companies that release in French at the same time as English. Money talks, bigotry walks.
And I'm sure your momma burned the cookies at least once - does that suddenly make you claim that ALL cookies are evil? Lots of people have had bad experiences visiting every country, province or state, or city. Irrelevant. Totally irrelevant. Anecdotal evidence isn't data.
Gee, maybe the rest of the world should have a negative view of all Americans because of George Bush. Or all Japanese because of Sony DRM. Or all Germans because of Hitler. Or all Italians because of the Pope's retarded comments on condoms.
If they generalize all Canadians because of it, they have a bigger problem ...
And you haven't had bad experiences with non-frech people? The part of your sentence in parenthesis says otherwise. So, why do you cut others slack, but not the french? Sounds like it's not just "your friend" who has problems with stereotyping people.
Really? Despite the fact that for the majority of its' existence, the Prime Minister of Canada has been a French-Canadian? Are you test-driving Steve Job's RDF?
[citation needed] BTW, why not take a few shots at the Atlantic Provinces while you're at it ... or is it only Quebec that you bash because "they're french."
Check your history. Manitoba and Ontario did the same thing to their french minority. BC did the same thing to their asian minority. There's ignorance everywhere ... but, unlike *certain* other provinces, at no time did Quebec say that the english can't have their own government-funded schools.
All they're asking is that stuff that's sold be available in both languages if possible. Something that any manufacturer, looking out for their own best interests, would want to do anyway, right? This just helps overcome a certain amount of corporate inertia (companies don't necessarily act in their own best long-term financial interest - just look at GM and Chrysler - so sometimes they need a bit of prodding).
And for all the non-canadians looking in ... not all market regulation is "evil." How many other countries haven't had to bail out a single bank? For the record, we've had 2 small bank failures in the last 80 years - and none during the Great Depression. And for most of that time, the Prime Minister was french ...
And for the record, no, I'm not french. I'm 100% english ... but my daughters are both, and that's about as "relevant" as skin colour or anything else; in other words, not at all. This whole thing is not an "english vs. french" thing, despite some old farts wanting to make it look like that. They need to move on. This is not the 20th century any more.
Dude, what does EQUALIZATION mean? To make equal. Well, what's wrong with that. You probably are paying less taxes than your MD, right? When Alberta becomes a poor province, introduces a provincial tax and starts talking about getting increased equalization payment, will you stick to your point?
Unless you feel you should get out of the federation. In which case, who's the separatist?
Although this may be a little extreme, I am not sure many Americans would be willing to play a game if it were only in German or Spanish. Certainly there are a good number that would be willing to put up with Japanese texts in imports which aren't available in a localised version, but this hardly represents the majority.
Irrespective of what laws may be passed in Quebec, or elsewhere, I am already seeing a slow move to translate some of the more popular titles. Like films, it would appear that games companies recognise there is some value in allowing players to play in their own language.
I think we just need to put all this in perspective, and take it cool. Its not as if they are saying that only titles in French can be sold.
Jumpstart the tartan drive.
Crap. The North of Belgium and the Netherlands speak the same language, but the culture is quite different. South Africa too, and they're even more different.
Britain and the USA speak the same language (well, sort of) and the latter don't even have a culture!
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
A "pure virgin wool", eh? ;)
First of all, as the update to the article says, this doesn't make it illegal to sell english versions of video games, only that if there is a french version available it must be sold along side of it. This does not lead to delays of games and will not make companies stop selling French versions. Actually, since 2007, the opposite has been true with most new titles having french options which broadens the game market, not shrinks it (ie. there are lots of people in quebec who don't speak english).
Remember that the *only* official language in Quebec is French. Moreover, 80% of the population speaks French as their mother tongue, vs. 8% english.
Finally, language is important part of culture. Language protection laws have been really successful in Quebec and are part of what makes it such an amazing place with a really vibrant, rich, cosmopolitan, and arts-rich province. If you live in Quebec and have seen the rest of Canada (I mean for more than your 3 or 4 year university degree), I think you will agree that Quebec is a unique and special place, due mostly to it's french background. Canada is so huge and has a huge amount of diversity, Vancouver, the BC. mountains, the praries, the badlands, Ontario, Quebec, the Maritimes, Northwest, Northeast, Canadian Sheild, the north praries... and many more, each distinct for different reasons.
Why are all these anglophones so upset about a bill that promotes french culture in Quebec without affecting them nor preventing any gamers in Quebec from getting english games on the same schedule they would have without the law?
Manitoba and Ontario did the same thing to their french minority.
Also Alberta.
For starters, if they speak French then it should be reasonable to get to play games in French.
Secondly, why does this matter? It shouldn't really cost extra because games already have to be translated to French. If anything, give them the same version you give France. They're happy and the rest of Canada can have their game in English.
I live in Quebec, in french. Years ago I tried to buy Zelda on GBA for my kids (10 at the time). The packaging was bilingual, but the game was english only! How nice is that? The european version of Zelda was in 5 languages, including french of course. We ended up playing in french on an GBA emulator...
Game distributors, for a tiny insignificant extra profit, are willing to force an entire nation where french is considered important to forget its culture. That's unacceptable. This deal only requires the distributor to be a little less lazy (and greedy) and put the french version, if one exists, on the shelves next to the english one. Is this "saying 'non' to english video games" ? hardly.
By the way, all this french and Quebec bashing is what will make Quebec leave Canada sooner or later. Think about this before you bash.
Some years ago in Montreal I went into a bank with a $20 bill looking for change (because the parking meters there don't take american quarters of course, even though ours take theirs - or used to).. The bank teller lady just looked at me like I was crazy, as if she couldn't figure out what I wanted.
So I guess this doesn't surprise me much!
"ALL YOUR BASE ARE BELONG TO NOUS"
Remember when Conan took his late night show to Canada?
'You must be a Quebec video game player. I can smell your crotch from here.'- (Triumph the Insult Dog)
Yes, there are examples when people speak the same language but belong to different cultures. However people who speak different languages always belong to different cultures. You picked up an excellent example yourself - North and South of Belgium...
Nope, it's capitalism.
Not that they're actually forcing anyone to do anything; I wasn't aware that playing video games is legally mandated or a biological necessity.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
Now they can have the pleasure of reading Toutes votre base sont appartiennent à nous!
The cake is a pie
From my days as a Dreamcast pirate (yarrrr), I can tell you there were a good many European games which had English, French, German and maybe Spanish all on the same disc. I don't know if that's still the case, but if it is couldn't the companies just give Quebec the European versions (region reset to whichever region Canadia is, of course).
Bonjour à tous,
Hi everyone,
Student in software engeneering;
It's always better to keept to the sound "original soundtrack", but the subtitle in french is a nice-to-have too!
It's all about marketing, if they want to sell more they have to satisfy more client..
Why are you people so lame?
I could never understand their holding "pure laine" as being so special ... after all ...
Q: Where do you get virgin wool?
A: Ugly sheep.
I'm in Quebec, my first language is french too, and I can honestly say "screw people like you".
Sticking laws all over the place to force a language thats only spoken by a minority of people on the damn continent (yeah its a lot of people, but its still a minority) is holding us back. The 101 law alone is keeping american companies from opening up shop here in many cases. Salaries half of what they are in other large cities and the government ponying it up to compensate is the only reason there's anything worthwhile in Montreal.
But no, they have to keep it up and make it worse. If there's no fucking demand for french videogames (go to Walmart: they sell french videogames when available. They're all in the god damn BARGAIN BIN), then they just take room that could be used to sell more variety, or to lower cost of doing business and maybe lower prices (you know, to compensate of the fucking tax that is higher than the damn exchange rate half of the time).
Protect french all you want, its a culture and its worth preserving. But not with laws that affect non-government entities!
Ce n'est pas du protectionnisme, c'est une langue différente.
Stereotypes are not necessarily a bad thing. The key is that you need to be careful in where you draw the boundaries.
And I'm sure your momma burned the cookies at least once - does that suddenly make you claim that ALL cookies are evil?
Stupid comparison. No, that means that "momma" gets one strike on her cookie-making ability. If she screws up too many times, then her reputation as a cookie-maker becomes poor.
Gee, maybe the rest of the world should have a negative view of all Americans because of George Bush.
No, but speaking as an American, the rest of the world should realize that a majority of American citizens aren't very good at picking a leader, as it was proven in not one, but two elections. Of course, the other 49.99% who picked the other guy aren't very good either, since their pick wasn't so hot either.
Or all Japanese because of Sony DRM.
Another stupid comparison, like the cookie one. No, Sony's DRM means that everyone should view SONY with contempt, and never buy their products again. It has nothing to do with the Japanese as a nation, it's about one evil, multinational company run by people of different nationalities (isn't the CEO an American these days? I'm really not sure.)
Or all Germans because of Hitler.
Actually, there's not much wrong with having a poor view of WWII-era Germans, as evidenced by their choice of leadership. However, since the Germans who voted for Hitler in the 30s are probably all dead now, I think it's time to give up any animosity there. That's just like some dumb Americans who still refuse to buy anything Japanese because of WWII; all the people who supported Hirohito are either dead now, or at death's door. Even the oldest people actively running the country were probably children at that time, so they can't be faulted. And since Japan is now a republic just like the US and other western democracies, and its emperor is only a figurehead, the idea that modern Japanese society and government bears any resemblance to imperial WWII-era Japan is ridiculous and idiotic.
All they're asking is that stuff that's sold be available in both languages if possible. Something that any manufacturer, looking out for their own best interests, would want to do anyway, right? This just helps overcome a certain amount of corporate inertia (companies don't necessarily act in their own best long-term financial interest - just look at GM and Chrysler - so sometimes they need a bit of prodding).
I disagree. GM and Chrysler don't need any "prodding", they need to go under, and their parts can be sold off to the highest bidder. That's what's supposed to happen to companies that don't know how to run themselves. That "corporate inertia" you talk of? That's something that companies either need to figure out how to fix (perhaps by splitting up into smaller companies), or it needs to be their undoing, so that newer, younger, smaller companies can take over their market with better, cheaper products and service.
Same goes for manufacturers not putting French on their products. If that causes them to lose French-speaking customers, then so be it. If they can be more profitable by leaving French off their labels, then more power to them. If it causes them to lose a lot of marketshare to a competitor that puts French on their labels, then that's the lesson they need to learn. Governmental intrusion doesn't help in this case. We in the USA are already seeing why the government shouldn't be getting involved with private companies; instead of helping the situation, all we end up doing is throwing billions of taxpayer dollars at horribly-run companies so they can give themselves lavish parties and giant bonuses, at taxpayer expense. IMO, the only main thing government needs to be doing with private companies is instituting regulations so that companies don't get too big, and competition exists and stays fair, and also consumer protections so that, for instance, people don't get poisoned by th
FYI: The current Papa Ratzinger, a.k.a Pope Benedict the XVI, is as German as you can get 'em. You probably never heard with what horrible German accent he speaks...
You can blame Pierre Trudeau for this. In his drive to leave a legacy, he saddled Canadians with a terribly flawed constitution in 1982 that actually reduced our rights and freedoms. In particular, the biggest one of the "Mack-truck holes" in our protections is that any government can pass a law that violates the Constitution simply by including the word "notwithstanding" in its language. The Quebec language laws flagrantly violate the Canadian Charter of Freedoms and universal human rights, but they are legal because they say "notwithstanding". Thanks a bunch, Pierre.
Ditto. This is supposed to mean racial purity, which is totally absurd when you talk about the most mixed-race people on Earth: for 10,000 years, France has been the final resting place of all european invasions. We have blood from all over the world, and when we came here, we added indian blood to our gene pool. So you cannot talk about racial purity in those conditions...
I agree with you 100% that GM and Chrysler need to go under, for the overall good of the economy in the long term. Keeping them alive is like preventing all forest fires - eventually, you get so much deadwood that, instead of a more-or-less controlled burn and renewal, you get catastrophic disasters (is there any other kind of disaster? :-)
Government intrusion, in the case of the language of packages, helps overcome a different problem - that of manufacturers or distributors who are pressured too much to look at this quarters' profits, instead of long-term growth. Now they actually *have* to do something that will help them in the long term, as it grows their market.
Besides, the majority of the population of Quebec speaks, reads, and writes french ... what's so bad about including the extra language(s)? It's just a question of a new wrapper on the dvd case, a new instruction booklet, and some i18n work, much of which is probably already done, seeing as french is used in about 50 countries world-wide).
Canada has had bilingual labeling for decades. As Prime Minister Trudeau said at the time when someone complained about french on a box of cornflakes, "If you don't like it, turn the bloody box around!"
On a related note, Quebec does allow for importing of unilingual-labeled products in the event of an unforseeable shortage. This happened circa 1991 when the Hells Angels increased cocaine sales to the point where Preparation H was temporarily in short supply (coke-heads use it to "reduce swelling of sensitive tissues" - in the nose).
We know you're 100% English - otherwise your post would reek of cheese and Gauloises.
Read what I mean, not what I wrote.
Canada is a country and recognising Quebec as somehow special is what created this mess in the first place.
Stuff like recognizing Quebec is precisely why Canada isn't the USA. Multiculturalism vs the Melting Pot and all that.
But there are plenty of American politicians that prefer the US drop the whole "melting-pot" concept altogether, and adopt multiculturalism as official policy. I'd say we're damn close to doing that anyway. I haven't heard "melting pot" in awhile, but I hear Congressmen, journalists, intellectuals, etc, droning on about the value of multiculturalism all the time. Unfortunately, the US is becoming as Balkanized as Canada and much of Europe.
Life is hard, and the world is cruel
How quaint! Most of the rest of the nation has simplified the process down to "He who can buy the most legislators, wins." It is very efficient.
Orwell: "In a Time of Universal Deceit, telling the Truth is a Revolutionary Act"
More Montreal video game industry news, information and jobs here:
http://www.gamesmontreal.com/blog/
I'd like to ask you to send a comment on the blog too, since these reactions will be sent to the Ministers of Culture, together with the reaction of the public. As long as the public doesn't know, there won't be a change. It's as soon as the problem gets discussed and seen (in public), things could change ...
How many Belgian people are confronted with this problem, only those who want to rent a movie with two languages. If we speak up we can change things too..
If we stay silent it sure won't get noticed at all...
--- I am known for the ones who want to find me on the net. Is that a privacy risk or a privilege? One might wonder..
Yes, there are examples when people speak the same language but belong to different cultures. However people who speak different languages always belong to different cultures. You picked up an excellent example yourself - North and South of Belgium...
OTOH there are people who speak Welsh and Scots Galic that belong to the same culture as their English speaking neighbours...
If I have nothing to hide, you have no reason to search me
They cannot stop people from buying English games online by digital download from steam or similar services. They are just hurting local merchants, with no effect at all on gaming companies.
Maudit Troll ?
/.ers that have some freaky hatred towards Québec, and French in general. Is it the obligatory love of Linux, or is Microsoft secretly planning to move their Siege-Sociale from Redmond to here? What causes this? I am completely mystified.
LOL! Troll, huh? OK, Hostie, I'm one also.
Au Québec soviétique, c'est le jeu d'ordinateur qui joue avec VOUS !
Moi, pour un, je me met à mes genoux devant nos nouveaux suzerains Loi-101. (OK, d'abord- anciens)
As an Anglo-Québecois, I have no problems here. All the rednecks (hopefully) left about 25 years ago.
Malheuresement, en Québec, we DO have our malls and Mal-Warts and other American shit.
And thankfully, the FLQ crap is a thing of the past. That's the price for being part of North Amerika, whilst fighting to maintain a "unique identity", whateverTF THAT means.
Calice! I am continually astonished at the large percentage of
And these dorks are peculiarly PROUD to confirm themselves as being perfectly unilingual! WOW! What an accomplishment.
Oh, you poor benighted Albertans. At least the USA gets some respect by having a nuclear arsenal. All you got is a lot of sticky tar. Not "oil"; TAR!
Hostie, Tabarnouche! What an odd set of folk on this continent!
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- aqk
F U
What does it say about a language that has to be protected, that its on its way out of usage much like Latin...
Is this a smart move to get more video games into the hands of French speakers? Or, is it misguided, xenophobic protectionism? I'm going with the latter.
"misguided protectionism" is the right term for that. Quebec Office de la langue Francaise has been trying to impose all sort of similar restrictions in the IT world: we are now supposedly forced to use FRENCH operating systems, even when you're a development shop for a US customer. It just doesn't make any sense.
Add to it, in the case of games, translations usually suck. WoW in english is great and immersive, WoW in french looks and sounds uterly ridiculous.
The trouble with Quebec gov is that they don't give people the choice. They impose it when no one wants it. It usually fails and costs us money.