D&D General D&D No Longer In Portugese

WotC today released the following statement, as Portugese-language sales have not been enough to warrant their continuation. Some products will continue to be available in English, French, German, Italian, Japanese, and Spanish.

We are making the difficult decision to halt Portuguese product later this year.
We will continue to release D&D products in English, French, German, Italian, Japanese, and Spanish.

On D&D Beyond they provided a little more detail.

Dungeons & Dragons is a global game that we strive to make as accessible as possible to our wide and varied audience. However, we’ve also had to confront rising costs and shifts in global demand, even as D&D continues to grow.

Portuguese language product sales have not kept pace with rising costs across the board, which means that we are making the difficult decision to halt Portuguese product later this year, after the following three planned books:

• Fizban’s Treasury of Dragons
• Journeys Through the Radiant Citadel
• Dragonlance: Shadow of the Dragon Queen

We will continue to release D&D products in English, French, German, Italian, Japanese, and Spanish. While not all products will be available in all languages, or at the same time, we intend to focus on these six languages.

 

[Muso]

I'd gladly give up Spanish translations to save the Portuguese ones. They are atrocious anyway...

Portuguese releases were a mess (first print had a lot of errors and had to be errated day one, the schedule had lots of delays etc.), really sad they gave up instead of fixing it for 2024 edition.

So it seems that the italian translation is not the only one with a lot of errors. The D&D brand manager never answer to any comment regarding translations mistakes, but in my opinon he is the only responsible of this mess. I don't know for the others translations, but before WoC the italian translations made by Asmodee were fine. Now the books are pure junk.

 

[João Mariano]

For Spain they did Euro Spanish, not the Americas, right?
I think that was the same for Port?

It was in Brazilian Portuguese. There hasn't been an European Portuguese translation since SocTip released the Dungeons & Dragons Basic (Mentzer) in Portugal in 1989.

 

[João Mariano]

It is not about the number of Portugese-speakers but the number of people spending money in titles of Portugese languange. It happens with videogames, where lots of times these aren't translated into Spanish but they are to others.

Could any Portuguese-speaker tell us about the rest of TTRPG industry in Portuguese language?

I guess you're asking about Brazil but if you don't mind the aside in Portugal the only Portuguese language tabletop RPG product released in a traditional way was the D&D Basic (Mentzer) in 1989.

We didn't have any other RPG product published like that since then but we are really small market that number in the one to two thousands players.

It has been hard to know if there many RPG fans in other portuguese-speaking countries like Angola and Mozambique but I guess they are a really small minority that do it through the Brazilian products.

 

[João Mariano]

Here in Brazil, in the mid-90s there were translations of systems other than D&D, such as World of Darkness (mainly the basic books on Vampire, Masquerade, Werewolf, the apocalypse, Mage, and the clanbooks, etc.).
D&D received the basic books, Karameikos, Forgotten Realms (and Undermountain), until the responsible publisher at the time canceled the translations (before they released Ravenloft).
During the 3rd ed era of D&D, the core books and some settings were released (Forgotten Realms, Ravenloft 3 ed, Dragonlance 3 ed), and some supplements.
But they were always late translations... very late, generally.
There was even a situation where, practically right after one of the 3 ed class books was released, WotC announced the 3.5 books, making the newly released translation obsolete.

Currently, WotC itself was in charge of translating the 5th edition books (after a conflict with 2 Brazilian publishers who tried to obtain the translation rights).

Here we have some national systems (Tormenta, Paranormal Order, and my unknown Imaginaery).

I haven't followed the systems other than D&D, but translations are rare. I know there is a translation of Call of Cthulhu and Mutants & Masterminds, but I'm not aware of World of Darkness and others currently.

The fact is that RPG books don't sell very well in Brazil. The value of the dollar against the local currency (Real) makes books very expensive, even those translated.

The books written and published here also do not have a very affordable price, and this, combined with the lack of habit of Brazilian players in purchasing books, makes everything more difficult.

I'll use my case as an example, I launched my system in English and Portuguese at DTRPG, and although far from being a success, the English version sells absurdly more, even though the Portuguese version is sold at a lower price due to the exchange.

The same thing happens with the D&D books that I release on the DMs Guild. Books in Portuguese sell around 1 in 30 compared to English, even though they are cheaper (the only exception was one of the launches I participated in, Weathermay's Survival Guide to the Mists), where sales were close.

Recently I released some Planescape material... sales in English were reasonable. In Portuguese there were no sales.

Sorry for the long text, but in short, I believe the problem here is a mix of 3 factors:

• The price;
• The lack of habit of buying books (many prefer to resort to piracy, and believe that it is not worth investing in the hobby);
• The delay in launching;

Just to add to what LAbaddon wrote Tormenta20 is one of the most recognised and popular tabletop RPG in Brazil and recently collected about $500.000 pledged by 5600 backers.

Tormenta20 is the latest edition of a medieval fantasy game based on the d20 system that was created almost 25 years ago.

 

[MoonSong]

Just to add to what LAbaddon wrote Tormenta20 is one of the most recognised and popular tabletop RPG in Brazil and recently collected about $500.000 pledged by 5600 backers.

Tormenta20 is the latest edition of a medieval fantasy game based on the d20 system that was created almost 25 years ago.

Do you know what happened to Defensores do Tokio?

 

[MoonSong]

So it seems that the italian translation is not the only one with a lot of errors. The D&D brand manager never answer to any comment regarding translations mistakes, but in my opinon he is the only responsible of this mess. I don't know for the others translations, but before WoC the italian translations made by Asmodee were fine. Now the books are pure junk.

My reaction is more an indictment of Spain's translators who are very insular and not serious enough.

 

[Jolly Ruby]

Also, contributing to the issue: when they started selling translated 5e books here they were selling it at R$ 150 (30 USD), which is somewhat more aligned to the local book market for hardcover books with glossy paper. Now they are selling it at R$ 300 (60 USD), which is way too expensive for the local market.

 

[João Mariano]

Do you know what happened to Defensores do Tokio?

A new edition called 3D&T Victory was crowdfunded past september collecting about $160.000 pledged by around 3.000 backers.

 

[LuisCarlos17f]

And in other countries our purchasing power is lower. This means a worker needs working X hours to earn enough money to buy certain product, but other worker with the same job and maybe the same salary would need the double of time working to earn enough.

Could the Brasilian setting "Tormenta" to be licenced in D&DBeyond?

Tormenta - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

If am not wrong Devir was the translator publisher in Brasil. Somebody says the golden age of the RPGs in Spain (1995-2008) ended when the card games became more popular (you only need your cards, a second player and, not time to create a game). It wasn't the same after the end of D&D 3.5 and the old World of Darkness.

The fact is there are only player communities in the capital cities, those with enough space for universities. I can enter into a MMO and I can play with people from different continents, and not even talking the same languange, but if I wanted to play a TTRPG it would be more difficult to find a group in the same city, and this shows different preferences. Maybe they would rather to play Vampire or Ravenloft, but I would rather Mage: the Ascension, Changeling: the Dreaming or Dark-Sun. I guess this may the reason because Hasbro wants to bet for the digital market.

Here in Spain I have to await a lot of time for the translations, and I am only interested in a limited number of titles. Now the main Spanish publisher is Nosolorol, and even this released its own "retroclon" or d20variant "El Resurgir del Dragón" (the Rise of the Dragon).

 

[lynnfredricks]

Recently I released some Planescape material... sales in English were reasonable. In Portuguese there were no sales.

Sorry for the long text, but in short, I believe the problem here is a mix of 3 factors:

• The price;
• The lack of habit of buying books (many prefer to resort to piracy, and believe that it is not worth investing in the hobby);
• The delay in launching;

There might also be 'opportunity cost' factors as well, where accommodating a different system of publishing (which would itself be cost effective) creates additional overhead support costs. A lot of company management teams still view foreign sales as 'found money.'