Xseed has not given a confirmation on the status of this that I know of at this point (and I don't follow what they are doing since reading about the cry baby translator holding a knife to his chest. I just lost all respect I had for them when they made that public knowledge as a sympathy plea for what took them so long as a professional company to release SC).
I feel I should address this because it's incorrect. Especially
BECAUSE XSeed is a professional company, they never made Dice's circumstances public knowledge. In fact, I've never seen them make an official statement on that matter. It was Andrew Dice himself who posted the blog containing the details of what happened. If he hadn't, XSeed most likely would have limited themselves to pointing out the vast size of the script and the extremely iffy technical nature of the game, which
WERE ALL THINGS THAT FACTORED IN TOO. (the technical issues forced them to delay the game from their announced summer 2015 to fall 2015, long after Dice left the project)
Mileage will obviously vary on Andrew Dice. There will no doubt always be people who'll echo the sentiment you voiced here and claim that this warrants a major loss of respect. I see things different.
XSeed never released Dice's circumstances, despite the fact they could have done so to avoid responsibility, but they didn't and still don't make any official statements regarding the situation. I can respect that. Likewise, XSeed wouldn't have ratted him out, but Dice still made the move to publish that blog himself, taking responsibility for the delay instead of hiding behind XSeed's desire to remain professional. It takes guts to throw that blog into a sociopathic environment such as the internet, knowing there'd be people who'd childishly mock him for it. He still did it. It's a fine example of taking responsibility that I can respect.
The situation made you respect Dice and XSeed less, for me, it's the other way around.
I specifically asked the translators to give me a very literal translation. I did not want them to be responsible for having to worry about context in terms of writing the story without a full translation of the entire game (we are very very close to that point). That is the script writers job. To take the translation and make something amazing out of it. That is where I will come in.
I'm not trying to flame, but this sincerely puzzles me. Japanese is a very contextual language to begin with and when localizing something, the important thing is not so much what words the original writer used, but what point he was trying to get across. Using literal translations and working from there, rather than using the original lines, is like taking a screenshot of something, saving it as a lossy JPG first and THEN doing pixel-editing on the result. It adds an extra step to the process that has very few benefits and significantly risks finer details slipping through and getting lost in translation. I'm really puzzled why you'd use this method.
There are few fan translation team that manage to translate such huge game in terms of raw text. Some project have smaller game and didn't even manage to finish. Appreciate that there are people who actually worked in their spare time to localize a game that is unlikely to get official translation. Even if you don't like the people, appreciate the work, and if you can't, what is it to you people that you are bothered with what other people do with their spare time?
Okay, soapbox time. I hope people bear with me.
First of all, I'm not a fan translator, but I HAVE spent the better part of 8 years working on fan games (fan remakes specifically) in the past, which in many ways is similar; you're working for free, you're using your spare time to create something for other people to enjoy and you're working on another party's franchise, of which you are a fan. I get being frustrated when people come in and take shots at your work. At the same time, it's not like you're working on a free indie-game, you're working with an existing franchise, so additional skepticism from fans of that franchise, going hand-in-hand with the publicity accompanying taking up a project using said existing franchise, comes with the territory, especially if you haven't proven yourself yet.
It's tempting to use the "you get what you pay for" and "don't play it if you don't like it" arguments as get-out-of-jail-free cards. Heck, I've used them from time to time. You don't want to overuse them, though.
Yes, you're doing this for free, but that's not always a disadvantage. You're not getting paid, but there's also no lead shareholder breathing down your neck and imposing a strict deadline. Whenever someone complains about it taking too long, feel free to use the "it's free"-argument to your heart's desire. Since you're not getting paid, people can't reasonably expect commercial timeframes from you. But since you're not getting paid and there's no commercial deadline, nothing stops you from witholding the release until it's polished to perfection. The "it's free"-argument is valid if a project like a fangame has slightly below quality voice acting and people complain about it. Renting a professional recording studio costs lots of money and sending out professional recording equipment to all your voice actors is similarly unfeasable. No amount of extra time and audio tweaking will completely close the gap between amateur and professional work here. If people take issue with something that could have been improved by putting more time/effort into it, such as dialogue translations, the non-profit argument stops protecting you. Which brings me to the next point.
It's also easy to say: "Don't play it if you don't like it." Yes, it's a tempting one too. But again, you're not working on an indie game here. You're working with the fruits of another party's labors. (Falcom in this case) In fact, by calling your project a fan translation, you're suggesting you hold that party in great esteem. By working with and modifying this other party's work, you're affecting the goodwill associated with this work, for good or for ill. A high-quality translation would shine a positive light on Falcom's work. A low-quality translation would reflect badly on Falcom's work, fairly or not. The fact that you're working with the work of a party you admire is something that should be in the back of your mind at all times, no fan would ever want his or her actions to reflect badly on the company they're a fan of and lots of folks who call themselves fans will care very much how your work reflects on their favorite franchise. At the end of the day, the question will be: "Is this project something Falcom would have approved and blessed if copyright law were taken out of the equation?" If the honest answer to the question is: "Hell yes!" then great. If the honest answer is either "Who cares?", "Any attention I get is good attention." or "But Ghagarv...", you're not working on a fan project, but rather a "fan" project.
So yeah, "it's free" and "don't play it if you don't like it" are often used arguments, but limited in real use.
Time to put the soapbox away now.
