Games languages, almost no effort or consideration for people who don't speak English

[HanSolo4570]

Hi all,

Dear Oculus team, I really want to play many of your games (Lone Echo, Wilson's Heart, and many others...) but many of them don't even have subtitles. Not all the people know perfectly English, maybe you are not interested entering in some international market, surely not in Italy (where I live), even if there are many people that have VR headsets. I am not asking the full localization in italian (it would be a dream) but If at least there were subtitles I could make many purchases, I will never buy a game where I can't understand the story and what I have to do. There are a lot of people all around the world complaining about this problem in the VR world. I think you can't even imagine how much money you are giving up.

I am very disappointed that many people have been discussing this kind of topic for several years but no one is never be taken into consideration by developers.

And also, in the details of the games, in the store, it's impossible to understand anything about the languages. Voices? Subtitles? Many times I have to go on the Steam store to get some information, if the game is only in the Oculus store I am completely lost. Please fix this.

A disapponted user.

[RuneSR2]

Yup - I'm from Denmark. So annoying not to have Space Quest, King's Quest, Leisure Suit Larry - and most of all the Commodore 64 version of The Pawn - in Danish  😉 

Then again, as a teenager I sat down and got help from a great book  B)

Might actually have caused me to get better grades in English Class!  o:) 

In short - learn English instead - many VR games have limited budgets, do not expect them to be translated to many different languages. 

That said, some have gotten at least subtitles - I think that goes for Asgard's Wrath... 

[HanSolo4570]

Yes, it's true it could help :smile:  I know English, and quite well, but not so well to follow a fluid speech, and anyway is quite stressful the effort to try to understand a different language during a game, a game must be funny, not stressful. But anyway I would also be satisfied with English subtitles, for games that cost 40€ I don't think it's too much to ask.

Thank you for the info about Asgard's Wrath, I will give a look.

[lensmandave]

There are 6,500 languages spoken in the world today
just saying

[HanSolo4570]

Ok, but anyway they can do the effort to put subtitles in english, it is only 1 language, one thing is to try to understand what they say and another thing is to read it. Maybe, I can understand for games that cost 10€ is a big effort, but if I pay 40€ for a game is another story. Anyway, not a problem, I will not buy the game that costs 40€, I will buy the one that costs 10€. It is their choice. Moreover, I have a job, I have a house, a family, I will not use my few time to learn english as my first language, simply I will spend my money in antoher way. Lot of people all over the world are complaining for the same reason. If they want to spread VR all over the world and make big money, they have to understand that not all the world will learn english like an englishman only to play VR.

[HaselHoof]

You realise that the majority of games are made by small studios and not by Oculus themselves ? the Oculus store has games from many different game makers , so if you like a game that is only in english perhaps message the makers and ask them for subtitles.

[TomCgcmfc]

Maybe one day we will all have Universal Translators like in Star Trek, lol!  That would be nice imho.

[Anonymous]

Oculus is taking this question seriously and the Oculus team is happy to share this issue with the community 😛

[Howie_Doodat]

I do natively speak English (and don’t know any other languages), and agree that it’s a damn shame there aren’t subtitles for other languages, BUT for the most part these are privately made low budget games and the developer speaks english. It would be no easier for them to learn your language and translate everything than the other way around, except they’d have to do that for EVERY language. 

It is definitely a shame, but it’s also not fair to say that some person at their house making a game can’t put it out without the budget/means to translate it to every common language.