Minimal-Global.net

Because of numerous cultural elements that a specific to a place or territory, a game that looks completely fine in one country could be rejected as unacceptable in another. This is one of the reasons why localization - unlike mere translation- is a must for video games.

But one seemingly simple yet relatively deep and complicated question has always bothered me: when does localization cross the line of censorship? Should gamers accept this?

In order to illustrate my thoughts, I'll use the newest installment in the Yakuza series. Yakuza 3 - an imported Japanese PlayStation game - was recently released in the US. A lot of gamers complained because some scenes and important elements of the games where changed when the game made it to US.

Now the question is: do all of these elements actually required to be changed? Isn't that just based on a stereotype that American gamers tend to be more religious and concerned about nudity and violence? I assume that someone purchasing the third installment in a game series would normally have a pretty good idea as to what kind of content they were getting into, especially with a series such as Yakuza, which is relatively well-known. The games even receive ratings similar to films, giving the consumer an even better idea of what the game in question contains.

Most of gamers are reasonable adults who just want to enjoy the game as it is, instead of playing an edited, censored version of it. So please, developers, think of gamers first when you are localizing your games.

Game localization is an important process to bring games to new people, and shouldn't be taken that lightly.

Hello ladies, it's Robert from Japan My passions are Computers and television. I work for a video game qa company. Life's good here!

Hello dudes, it's Robert from Canada I'm fond of Athletism and Computers. I work for a video game qa company. Here is a good place to live in

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