They Are Review Bombing This Game Over The Chinese Translation — Transcript

Full transcript

1. 0:00All right, ladies and gentlemen, so in
2. 0:01today's video, we're going to be talking
3. 0:02about Hollow Knight Silk Song again.
4. 0:04Now, we spoke about the player base not
5. 0:07being too too happy with the difficulty
6. 0:08of the game with some people saying to
7. 0:10get good and other people saying to the
8. 0:13you know, they they're not just it's not
9. 0:15just a get good situation that they have
10. 0:17to you know, Nerf the game make it
11. 0:19easier because it's broken right now,
12. 0:20whatever. Apparently, there's another
13. 0:22situation that is happening with Hollow
14. 0:23Knight Silk Song and this one has to do
15. 0:25with Chinese players. Now, apparently
16. 0:28the game is getting review bombed in
17. 0:30China right now and we're going to take
18. 0:32a look at that in a second. But the game
19. 0:33is getting review bombed because of
20. 0:35apparently a poor translation for the
21. 0:38game. The translation is apparently so
22. 0:40bad for China that is caused Chinese
23. 0:43language fans to not exactly be very
24. 0:45happy about it. Now, a lot of people
25. 0:47probably are not even going to know
26. 0:49about this unless they either watch this
27. 0:51video or they switch their language
28. 0:53preference to Chinese in steam because
29. 0:55if you guys remember steam change their
30. 0:57rules recently that reviews outside of
31. 1:00your language is not going to show in
32. 1:02reviews that you can personally see when
33. 1:05you're looking at a game on you know, on
34. 1:07steam. So if I go to look at Hollow
35. 1:09Knight Silk Song right now, I'm only
36. 1:11going to see English speaking reviews
37. 1:13that Chinese reviews are not going to
38. 1:15affect the score that I see for the
39. 1:18game. So they made that change and now I
40. 1:20can see why they made that change
41. 1:22because of situations like this. But in
42. 1:24any case, Hollow Knight Silk Song is
43. 1:26soaring on steam. We already know that
44. 1:2824 hours after release the game is doing
45. 1:30gangbusters numbers over 560,000
46. 1:33players playing as of 12 hours ago. The
47. 1:36game has done astronomical numbers. But
48. 1:39to our Chinese speaking fans, apparently
49. 1:40they're not liking it. In China, the
50. 1:42long-awaited Metroidvania has been said
51. 1:44been getting review bombed by the
52. 1:46Chinese language users on steam who feel
53. 1:49that the translation this time around is
54. 1:51much worse than that in the first Hollow
55. 1:54Knight. The head of marketing for the
56. 1:56game has already promised to put things
57. 1:57right. So this is why and again, this is
58. 2:00not the fault of the Chinese players
59. 2:01necessarily. Sure, maybe they're going a
60. 2:03little bit extreme here. But
61. 2:05unfortunately, you know, it seems like
62. 2:07they're right. You know, Team Cherry has
63. 2:08openly admitted that there is a major
64. 2:10problem with the translation for Hollow
65. 2:12Knight Silk Song for the Chinese players
66. 2:14and they're going to fix it. So here's
67. 2:15what they said.
68. 2:17To our Chinese speaking fans, we
69. 2:19appreciate you letting us know about
70. 2:21quality issues with the current
71. 2:22simplified Chinese translation of Hollow
72. 2:24Knight Silk Song. Matthew Griffin, in
73. 2:27charge of publishing for the game
74. 2:28brought on next, will be working to
75. 2:29improve the translation over the coming
76. 2:31weeks. Thanks for your feedback and
77. 2:33support. Despite the good news, his post
78. 2:35has been inundated with comments and
79. 2:37quote tweets. Many slamming the fact
80. 2:39that the game launched without better
81. 2:40quality checks for the Chinese
82. 2:42localization. Now, to my knowledge,
83. 2:44there is only three people that are
84. 2:46working on this game. To my knowledge, I
85. 2:48don't know if they outsource any kind of
86. 2:50work to anyone else. But the simple fact
87. 2:53is this is a very small team, extremely
88. 2:56small team and it's not to excuse them
89. 2:58for providing a poor translation.
90. 3:00But unfortunately, it seems like they're
91. 3:02just getting hit for this. According to
92. 3:03localization expert Lorc Van Cooten, one
93. 3:06of the main issues in the Silk Song's
94. 3:09evocative but concise writing has been
95. 3:11turned into a high school drama club's
96. 3:14Elizabethan improv night in the Chinese
97. 3:16versions. He cites the following as an
98. 3:19example of how the prose read. With nary
99. 3:22a spirit nor thoughts shall thou
100. 3:24persist bereft of mortal will, unbent,
101. 3:27unswayed, with no lament nor tearful
102. 3:30cry, only sorrow's dirge to herald thine
103. 3:33internal woe. Born of gods and of the
104. 3:36fathomless abyss, grasping heaven's
105. 3:38firmament in thine unworthy palm,
106. 3:40shackled to the endless dream, tormented
107. 3:42by pestilence and shadow, thy heart
108. 3:45besieged by fantasmal demons, thou art
109. 3:47the challenge of death
110. 3:49I'm sorry, thou art the chalice of
111. 3:50destiny. Verily, thou art the primordial
112. 3:53knight of hollowness. Van Cooten goes on
113. 3:56to point out that one of the two of Silk
114. 3:58Song's Chinese translators listed as
115. 4:01Hertz Liu in the credits had a habit of
116. 4:03gloating about their involvement in the
117. 4:06game and leaking small details about the
118. 4:08development process over the summer
119. 4:10prior to its release this week. The
120. 4:12first Hollow Knight on the other hand
121. 4:14had six Chinese translators including
122. 4:17one who also worked on Stardew Valley.
123. 4:20Now, again, so they went from two I'm
124. 4:22sorry, they went from six translators to
125. 4:25two. So needless to say, I can see why
126. 4:28they probably have a lack of quality
127. 4:31control when it comes to the translation
128. 4:34for the Chinese version. I don't know
129. 4:36why they went from six to two. I don't
130. 4:37know if they were downscaling budgets or
131. 4:39switching money around. I really don't
132. 4:41know. But apparently, that's just what's
133. 4:43going on here.
134. 4:44No, you don't hate localizers enough. We
135. 4:46need translators not a fanfic writer
136. 4:48that doesn't convey author's original
137. 4:50intention. The whole localization
138. 4:52industry is a scam. According to Matthew
139. 4:55Griffin and again, this is something
140. 4:57that is the post that I was going over
141. 4:59before. So it seems as if people are
142. 5:01accusing the Chinese localization
143. 5:04translators of changing everything.
144. 5:08They're basically saying that the people
145. 5:09that translated for China for China,
146. 5:12they changed everything from the
147. 5:13original intent of the game and people
148. 5:15caught on to that and that's pissing
149. 5:17them off. It's very similar to what
150. 5:18happens to us with anime and manga
151. 5:21localization where a lot of stuff gets
152. 5:24changed to things that were never meant
153. 5:25from the original release. We get a
154. 5:27whole bunch of ideology nonsense getting
155. 5:29pushed in manga and anime these days.
156. 5:32It's something very similar. Now, again,
157. 5:35here is a valve translated portion of
158. 5:37one of the steam reviews blasting the
159. 5:39Chinese version. Okay, this is coming
160. 5:40from a Chinese player, but it's
161. 5:42translated. It says first, the god awful
162. 5:45Chinese translation that everyone is
163. 5:47mocking. It's not just pretentious
164. 5:49pseudo artistic nonsense. The phrasing
165. 5:52and even the localization of place names
166. 5:53are an absolute mess. I don't understand
167. 5:56how Hollow Knight's fantastic quotable
168. 5:58translation turned into this
169. 6:00unsalvageable heap of garbage in Silk
170. 6:03Song. The utterly idiotic localization
171. 6:06has even affected the game's world
172. 6:07building and storytelling forcing me to
173. 6:10guess at character relationships and
174. 6:12main plot points. Thankfully, the combat
175. 6:14holds up or else I would be completely
176. 6:16disgusted. Damn, that is a
177. 6:20oof. I mean, listen,
178. 6:22I feel I feel the pain. Okay, I want to
179. 6:24I want to be very clear. I feel the
180. 6:25pain. Do I think the game gets to get
181. 6:27review bombed? I don't know. I don't
182. 6:29know at this point because again, I feel
183. 6:30the pain and I understand what it's like
184. 6:33to see something that I know is one
185. 6:34thing and get completely changed to
186. 6:36something totally different all because
187. 6:38some random localizer wanted to
188. 6:41go into his fake you know, localization
189. 6:44philosophy. That's what they view
190. 6:45themselves as. That's what they view
191. 6:47their profession as. One woman who is
192. 6:49very famous in anime views localization
193. 6:51as localization philosophy. She thinks
194. 6:53she's a philosopher when it comes to
195. 6:55changing things and and changing it to
196. 6:57her worldview. So I get where they're
197. 6:59coming from and I get their frustration
198. 7:00and I totally understand. And if it
199. 7:02really is coming off like that in the
200. 7:04Chinese versions, well, that sucks,
201. 7:06right? That really sucks and
202. 7:07unfortunately, you know, I hope it gets
203. 7:09changed. I hope they get some new
204. 7:11localizers and this article doesn't seem
205. 7:13to mention why they went from six to
206. 7:16four. I mean from six to two. I I don't
207. 7:18understand why they did that. Silk Song
208. 7:20currently sits at a staggeringly low
209. 7:22rating of 50% out of 10,000 reviews in
210. 7:25the simplified Chinese category. That
211. 7:27would be enough to significantly stunt
212. 7:28the game's steam rating worldwide at
213. 7:31least in the short term. Had Valve not
214. 7:33implemented a recent change that
215. 7:34segments steam reviews by language for
216. 7:36exactly this reason. Now, review bombing
217. 7:39in one country for region specific
218. 7:40issues doesn't bleed over into a game's
219. 7:43overall perception globally and that's
220. 7:45what I talked about earlier in the
221. 7:46video. So unlike when Hollow Knight
222. 7:48released 8 years ago, Chinese language
223. 7:50users now make up the largest group on
224. 7:52steam. While poor translations don't
225. 7:54hurt a game for anyone not relying on
226. 7:56them, they can limit a game's trajectory
227. 7:58on the valve own storefront. Somehow, I
228. 8:00ultimately don't think that will be a
229. 8:02problem for Silk Song especially once
230. 8:03Team Cherry gets the Chinese translation
231. 8:05sorted. So again, they don't mention why
232. 8:08they went from six translators to two.
233. 8:11They don't mention it. I have no idea
234. 8:13why. But I got to imagine that is going
235. 8:15to be something they're probably going
236. 8:16to regret regarding the Chinese
237. 8:18translation. So you guys let me know
238. 8:20what you think in the comments down
239. 8:21below of this entire debacle regarding
240. 8:23Silk Song in the Chinese version. Do you
241. 8:26feel like you understand where they're
242. 8:27coming from considering what we deal
243. 8:28with with anime and manga or do you
244. 8:30think it shouldn't matter and
245. 8:31they need to get over it? Let me know in
246. 8:33the comments down below what you think.
247. 8:35Thank you guys so much for watching this
248. 8:36video and if you enjoyed it, consider
249. 8:37hitting that like and subscribe and I'll
250. 8:39see you guys on the next one.