Gale Force 9 Comments On Brazil Translatorgate

In the wake of Brazil Tanslatorgate, Dungeons & Dragons licensee Gale Force Nine has made a statement regarding the dispute between Fire on Board and FMR about the rights to translate D&D 5th Edition into Portuguese for he Brazilian audience. They have put translation plans for Brazil on hold pending an investigation. As yet, WotC has issued no comment.

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Gale Force Nine Comments on D&D Localizations

Gale Force Nine has been working for over a year on our plan to publish localized language versions of DUNGEONS & DRAGONS fifth edition products. Throughout the process, we met and considered many partners around the world based on the same criteria: a passion for the material and a commitment to deliver the complete plan. We wanted to offer every country the entire D&D fifth edition experience and the partners we have chosen to work with will be doing just that.

Currently, we are speaking with all parties involved in Brazil to sort out the situation. Our goal is to ensure fans can enjoy the products in their local language of choice and we are committed to supporting those fans and their community. As such our product release plans for this market are on hold until we ​fully investigate and ​hopefully resolve th​is issue. We apologize to D&D fans in Brazil for any delay this may cause but we’ll do our best to have a solution in place soon.

John-Paul Brisigotti
CEO Battlefront Group
GF9 is a wholly owned subsidiary of the Battlefront Group

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[seebs]

Where have you been looking for your evidence?

Talked to guy running FLGS, have also noted that everyone else seems to be able to sell PDFs, and yet I see their books in stores. If selling PDFs made people not carry your books, I wouldn't be able to find GURPS and Pathfinder books in stores.

 

[robus]

I remember how 3e and 4e were translated only in a couple of months after release. I don't know how these contracts are made, but i'm pretty sure the major investment comes from whom is traslating, due to the license and all the translating and distribution expenses goes to the licesee (I guess).

Even though 5e is a massive hit, the way they treated their old foreign partners is weird, and even lost some partneship to Paizo along the way.

I think they burned through a lot of cash in 4e and are on a much shorter leash this time around.

 

[unknowable]

It's my opinion that, after OGL allowed the unintended creation of the Pathfinder giant, which eclipsed D&D for years, WoTC is taking things reaaaaaly slow now. Better being late to the market than completely losing it. And there are still some things that would basically bring in a lot of money, but WoTC won't allow: like PDF versions of books.

Eh, that said if WotC hadn't retired Paizo from the magazine and adventure writing side of things it wouldn't have ever have been an issue.

WotC created their own issue with the OGL for 3.5. Until they decided that they wanted more control over their upcoming 4e they didn't have any real issues with how it was functioning.

 

[Morrus]

Talked to guy running FLGS,

Oh, that old chestnut!

One guy running an FLGS isn't evidence, and an anecdote is not data. I can tell you that distributors and retailers are concerned about both PDFs undermining their sales, and about Kickstarter. And I've spoken to more than a guy running an FLGS.

If selling PDFs made people not carry your books, I wouldn't be able to find GURPS and Pathfinder books in stores.

You've just moved the goalposts and stuck a big giant strawman in the goal. I didn't say that selling PDFs made people not carry your books. It's easy to score points when you argue against a position of your own creation.

WotC has a vested interest in supporting brick and mortar stores, because those very stores are one of its main avenues of player acquisition and retention through it's organised play programs. The industry leader also has traditionally had the role of growing the market.

Even more so, WotC maintains a network of WPN stores which receive support and early product.

Whether that works or not is another discussion, but that's what's going on (amongst other things). If you want to see the impact digital downloads can have on brick and mortar stores, look to the video game stores.

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[Shasarak]

Oh, that old chestnut!

One guy running an FLGS isn't evidence. I can tell you that distributors and retailers are concerned about both PDFs undermining their sales, and about Kickstarter.

Not sure why retailers would be concerned about Kickstarters as there would be no product to sell without them.

They may as well be concerned with the phases of the moon.

 

[Morrus]

Not sure why retailers would be concerned about Kickstarters as there would be no product to sell without them.

They may as well be concerned with the phases of the moon.

Google some of the anti-KS posts retailers have posted. Many of them view Kickstarters as competition.

Kickstarter often get used as a pre-order system for what is essentially mail-order (and there is nothing wrong with that - its as fine a model as any). Like PDFs, the products often don't go near a brick and mortar store, and don't need to to make a good return. That undermines b&m stores and trains customers to look online for their products. As I said, just check out the video game industry for how that affected video game stores.

Now, whether they're right to take that position is another discussion. But they certainly do. In fact, one of the first questions a distributor asked us about the upcoming Judge Dredd & The Worlds of 2000AD was whether it would be Kickstarter.

 

[seebs]

Oh, that old chestnut!

One guy running an FLGS isn't evidence, and an anecdote is not data. I can tell you that distributors and retailers are concerned about both PDFs undermining their sales, and about Kickstarter. And I've spoken to more than a guy running an FLGS.

Even if I grant that they're concerned, so what?

You've just moved the goalposts and stuck a big giant strawman in the goal. I didn't say that selling PDFs made people not carry your books. It's easy to score points when you argue against a position of your own creation.

Dude. Chill. I am not trying to "score points", and there is no possible reason this needs to be treated like a life-or-death battle.

But the question is: What benefit does Wizards gain from not selling PDFs? The opinions of distributors and retailers matter only if those opinions will result in lost sales. Which would require them to, say, stop selling the books. If they continue selling the books, then Wizards isn't losing sales.

WotC has a vested interest in supporting brick and mortar stores, because those very stores are one of its main avenues of player acquisition and retention through it's organised play programs. The industry leader also has traditionally had the role of growing the market.

Even more so, WotC maintains a network of WPN stores which receive support and early product.

Whether that works or not is another discussion, but that's what's going on (amongst other things). If you want to see the impact digital downloads can have on brick and mortar stores, look to the video game stores.

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That's a good point; in theory, Wizards might be better off with people supporting brick and mortar stores.

But they might also be better off with a better gameplay experience. I know people who would have bought D&D books, except they couldn't get PDFs. I absolutely prefer PDF to hardcopy for most purposes, but I still buy hardcopy books. If there were PDFs, I'd have bought twice as many D&D things, and I'd be having more fun and my games would run better, because I wouldn't be stuck flipping pages or trying to remember where things were.

We've also got a lot of data on how PDFs and epubs and things affect book sales, and the answer is exactly what anyone familiar with media purchases would have predicted: If you give away the full text of a book completely free, hardcopy sales increase. This is why Baen has a free library of complete books you can download, and has had it for years. It's why authors make special deals with Baen to get their books there even if they're published elsewhere; it increases sales.

If it weren't paying off, the people doing it would have stopped. They haven't; they've accelerated.

Yes, it's totally comprehensible that, in the absence of a decade and more of solid empirical data on how electronic formats affect sales and customer base, people would be afraid. But that's all it is; comprehensible. It's not justified by the facts. It's a knee-jerk reaction. And it's by far the biggest problem I have with 5E, which is otherwise probably my favorite game.

 

[Morrus]

Even if I grant that they're concerned, so what?

Well, I don't care, and you don't care, as it doesn't affect us. They do, and WotC clearly does.

But the question is: What benefit does Wizards gain from not selling PDFs? The opinions of distributors and retailers matter only if those opinions will result in lost sales. Which would require them to, say, stop selling the books. If they continue selling the books, then Wizards isn't losing sales.

It's not about sales (for WotC), though it is for B&M stores. WotC sees other benefits from supporting B&M stores. I'm not trying to sell you on whether that's the right or wrong choice, but that's what's going on. Whether you think it's a good idea or not is your call. I'm just providing the information. I personally only use PDFs in my games when I have no other choice, so it's all a wash to me.

 

[seebs]

But we have pretty solid evidence that PDF sales increase hardcopy sales for B&M stores.

That's what makes this offensive to me; they're not just having different priorities, they're doing something which has been empirically shown to severely undermine their claimed goals.

If they really want to improve sales for B&M stores, they should refuse to sell to Amazon.

 

[Morrus]

But we have pretty solid evidence that PDF sales increase hardcopy sales for B&M stores.

Do we? It's not something I've ever investigated, not owning a game store or being the industry market leader, but I'd be quite interested in seeing that research. It's contrary to everything I've ever heard in 16 years of doing this, and I've not heard of any large scale market research done in this subject in the RPG industry. It sounds fairly unintuitive to me, as downloads largely killed B&M video game stores.