How about translations ?

[Tymophil]

Hi all,

I fear that the next D&D incanation will be a english-only affair. The license for D&D4 was a fiasco in France, and even a bigger one in Germany.

Therefore, D&D5 will be only sold for a very tiny portion of the roleplay community in France: the one that can read english. It also means that getting young people to play the game will be impossible. So people will introduce the game with older material, and the young aspiring Dungeon Master will find nothing in game shops.

Moreover, the fact that DDI will likely be a big part of the future D&D iteration mean that a translation is even harder to consider: keeping up with web content is next to impossible.

I may play D&D5 iteration, but this is quite unlikely to tell the truth. It is sad...

 

[Alzrius]

The license for D&D4 was a fiasco in France, and even a bigger one in Germany.

I had not heard about this. Can you (or somebody else) tell me more about this?

 

[Tymophil]

I had not heard about this. Can you (or somebody else) tell me more about this?

In France, the license was held by Playfactory that translated (above average translation) every book and adventure up to Monster Manual 3.

Then, translations stopped brutally. It seems likely that sales did not reach a high enough level... Months later, it was announced that books would not be published anymore.

Somehow, we have a complete picture of pre-essentials D&D4... But books are now hard to find...

It seems logical that D&D5 would not be translated in France, especially because of the importance of DDI content that cannot be translated bu licensing, just as books are.

 

[Daven]

In Italy we had the same situation. Almost every book was translated in italian by MM25, then in the middle of Essential pubblication they closed the line D&D. The reasons? Few sales in the last months, but since beginning of 4E, the english-only DDI (not possible to translate by contract) did many italian players to use english books to have same names for classes, races, conditions, powers, feats.
I think that this is a problem of contracts: "pay more and you can sell and traslate DDI too". I don't think that any italian games house could pay so much, but maybe Wizards would lower the price for their licenses.

 

[Zireael]

There was a similar situation in Poland. In fact, when WotC launched the Essentials, 2/3 of the original core were already translated and then the publication was stopped because people thought Essentials would maybe be better. Polish PHB 4e IIRC was recently announced to be published, and then the licence got given to another company, and now we don't know anything.

 

[kitsune9]

Hi all,

I fear that the next D&D incanation will be a english-only affair. The license for D&D4 was a fiasco in France, and even a bigger one in Germany.

Therefore, D&D5 will be only sold for a very tiny portion of the roleplay community in France: the one that can read english. It also means that getting young people to play the game will be impossible. So people will introduce the game with older material, and the young aspiring Dungeon Master will find nothing in game shops.

Moreover, the fact that DDI will likely be a big part of the future D&D iteration mean that a translation is even harder to consider: keeping up with web content is next to impossible.

I may play D&D5 iteration, but this is quite unlikely to tell the truth. It is sad...

D&D 4e was translated in Chinese too (not pirate copies either). They give you a lot of cool stuff with each book too. For the PH, you got free dice and a thick packet of character sheets. For the DMG, you got "encounter sheets", power cards, and a DMG screen. For the MM, you got a card cut-out dice tower. They also did an intro set too that mimics the blue intro set that 4e originally put out. Unfortunately, the company didn't translate any other products into Chinese, but they sold miniatures from the various sets.

 

[erleni]

In Italy we had the same situation. Almost every book was translated in italian by MM25, then in the middle of Essential pubblication they closed the line D&D. The reasons? Few sales in the last months, but since beginning of 4E, the english-only DDI (not possible to translate by contract) did many italian players to use english books to have same names for classes, races, conditions, powers, feats.
I think that this is a problem of contracts: "pay more and you can sell and traslate DDI too". I don't think that any italian games house could pay so much, but maybe Wizards would lower the price for their licenses.

I bought some books in Italian, but then stopped as cross-referencing with DDi material or books I had to buy in English was becoming a pain in the neck.

 

[Klaus]

This is the extent of the Brazilian translation of D&D: : : : DEVIR : : : RPG — Dungeons & Dragons : : :

They said they'd begin releasing Essentials later this year, but I'd put a stop on that and prepare for an almost symultaneous release of the next iteration when it became ready.

 

[Tehnai]

Well, I should be graduating with a bachelor's in Translation (from English to French) at about the time of the release of fifth edition...

That being said, the chances of me getting such a contract is pretty slim, but hey, a guy can dream.

 

[Oldtimer]

I once held a contract from TSR for the translation of D&D into swedish. We did publish two boxed sets and five adventure before went broke from it.

After 3E was released, I approached WotC about a translation, hoping that they would be willing to consider something more unorthodox than what TSR demanded. However, I was told that International deals were made with Hasbro, and not directly with WotC. I realized the folly of my ways and gave up when I heard that. Even for a major market, I don't think you can handle the translation of D&D the same way you handle translations of Monopoly or Risk.

I agree with the OP that 5E will stay an english language product. And there's not much Wizards can do about it, since Hasbro seems to run the show outside of the US.