Western Localization: True Horror.

Localization. I hate that word. It always gets flagged as a reason for why we don't get nice things, a catch-all excuse to not bring an eastern game to the west. I hate it when I see it on an MMO announcement because you can consider it shorthand for "You'll get it in like...two years?" which is just a bad day for everyone involved. We live in such an interconnected world at this point it just shocks me that some of this stuff just gets tossed on the back burner for a hell of a lot longer than it should.

Obviously localization is a necessary part of the development process for any game making the jump between hemispheres. Translation, in particular, shines as the primary component in much of the localization done, and that's great! If they just translated it and shipped it I'd be a happy camper, we'd see great games coming out at or near their peaks of interest and a lot more diversity in content. Instead, localization is used to justify changing or "westernizing" mechanics, cultural details, and the kicker...difficulty. This whole stereotype that western game players are stuck with basically insists we have the attention span of a spastic hamster and the willpower and coordination of a particularly listless sloth. I can't stand it!

There is evidence that counters the idea of localization being this lengthy "westernizing" clusterfuck everywhere. Dark Souls, a franchise with origins in Japan, has done quite alright in the west despite its incredible difficulty and steep learning curve. It's proof that not all of us fall into these groupings that so many developers seem to think we do and an indication that we don't need all this back and forth to get a game pushed out.

Console games typically have less of a release gap than your average MMO which is fine in some ways. MMOs typically come with a whole lot of content to work through in localization so some delay is understandable but I'm lost on the concept of not just doing the localization during the initial development cycle. What is it about an MMO that makes localization something you do AFTER the game launches? All too often you end up seeing things like Blade and Soul or Phantasy Star Online 2 that have been out for years without seeing a western release. It's so bad for those two in particular that translation patches are made for free just so we can try them out. People did what the developers could have done in the first place and we all end up playing anyway, so why the pointless bullshit? Even without going through the painful process of finding a western publisher (all of them are just so....ugh.) you can still open up international servers and at least capitalize on the ever-growing western playerbase.

It makes me grumpy how our interconnected world is and disconnected the game industry remains. I find it harder and harder to get excited for games when I see that they're from South Korea or Japan (less so) since I know I won't see it for so damn long. I'm going to be forced to learn Korean/Japanese/Russian at this rate, think of how productive I'll end up being! Oh the humanity!

All that grumpy blathering aside, I have the utmost respect for studios like XSEED since without them we'd lose out on things like Ys and Shadow Hearts...I don't wanna live in that world, man.