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.

 

[JLowder]

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.

At a company the size of Wizards, the translations are arranged through the international licensing team. The brand team might have some input over the licenses, but translations are always complicated by the ability of the people involved to understand the translated text. If the staff you ask are not in the loop for the license approvals or they do not have a working understanding of the languages involved, their ability to answer questions will be limited. The reality for most US-based game publishers is they are completely dependent upon the translating partner for translation quality control.

 

[lynnfredricks]

The reality for most US-based game publishers is they are completely dependent upon the translating partner for translation quality control.

Yes, and engaging on such things has a high 'cost' as well. If you have to do it, its like having to re-edit or effectively re-write the entire work again.

Now years ago, I was asked to eyeball one translation and, it was immediately clear to me that a work was done by two translators that didn't really communicate effectively with each other, one that was much older with a poor grasp of current vocabulary in the field and one much younger that had slightly better vocabulary but weak overall language competency. I told the partner to reject the translation and withhold payment until it is re-edited for consistency and used well documented terminology.

 

[JLowder]

Yes, and engaging on such things has a high 'cost' as well. If you have to do it, its like having to re-edit or effectively re-write the entire work again.

Unless the original publisher is working with a language expert on staff or a localization expert, and those are not common in TTRPG circles, in-house review of translated projects often consists of checking for required legal language and proper trademark use, then reviewing a PDF for obvious graphic design problems and content red flags in original artwork (if any). If the content varies in presentation from the original enough, someone might try to look at what appears to be new text, to be sure it's not a problem--if they have even a working understanding of the translation language. But detailed review of the entire text is at least uncommon, likely quite rare.

Any translated product takes up staff time at the original publisher, often for multiple people. Someone needs to negotiate and contract the license. Someone needs to track payments. Someone needs to provide project files and other content support for the translating partner. And each product needs to be reviewed after translation, possibly with associated advertising or crowdfunding material. (For a couple years, each Call of Cthulhu licensed translation required review and sign-off from three staffers--the line creative director, the exec editor, and the VP of licensing. Chaosium may have it down to two people now that they have a licensing director.) It's also common for translated works to require more than one review, as trademark use and legal language frequently have to be revised or corrected. The larger the company, the more this staff time costs, especially if a legal department gets involved. Those are sunk costs that need to be covered by money coming in from the translation.

The higher the in-house costs for the original publisher, the more the translating partner will have to offer as an advance against the typical royalty payments. Even a modest advance can price a lot of small publishers out of the translation license. But the higher the advance and the licensing fee, the more incentive the partner publisher has to use less experienced or even fan community translators, so they can balance their own ledgers. They have their own versions of all the original publisher staff costs cited above, in addition to those associated with print buying and the other standard publisher tasks.

Translations are hard to make profitable for the original publisher and especially the translating publisher, particularly in markets where a sizable portion of the potential audience will settle for the book in the original langauge.

 

[lynnfredricks]

Translations are hard to make profitable for the original publisher and especially the translating publisher, particularly in markets where a sizable portion of the potential audience will settle for the book in the original language.

Absolutely. In-channel margins and volume as well. The positive is that it also can keep the 500 lb gorillas from stomping all over the locally grown product.

 

[LuisCarlos17f]

Some translations of certain names were technically correct, but they sounded horrible. For example the city "Newerwinter" was translated "Nuncainvierno". The Spanish players in internet call it "Devirian" (languange) because Devir was the publisher in Spain during the 3rd age.

In my city I am the only one who buys TTRPG books in a comic store. I don't watch more active forum about D&D in Spanish languange.

 

[Muso]

Some translations of certain names were technically correct, but they sounded horrible. For example the city "Newerwinter" was translated "Nuncainvierno". The Spanish players in internet call it "Devirian" (languange) because Devir was the publisher in Spain during the 3rd age.

In my city I am the only one who buys TTRPG books in a comic store. I don't watch more active forum about D&D in Spanish languange.

In Italian we have always used theEnglish name. For us Neverwinter was Neverwinter. When WoC took translations they annunce that all the names were supposed to be translated. Indeed in one product Neverwinter was Verdinverno (something like Greenwinter... sigh) while in the following books it was again Neverwinter. But this was a minor issue. The problem was that names related to rules or spells were translated in one way in the Player's Handbook and with different names in other books. The same for the name of some monsters. Basically they took away the translation license from Asmodee (where there were some of the old translators of D&D since the second edition, with their glossary) and gave the translation to people unable to do a correct and professional job. But the most funny (sigh) aspect was that in an interview, the D&D brand manager (who is an Italian guy, so I understood perfectly what he was saying) claimed that WoC was taking away the license from Asmodee in order to have a better localized product. They did a mess and the brand manager is still there... he should be fired.

 

[MoonSong]

Some translations of certain names were technically correct, but they sounded horrible. For example the city "Newerwinter" was translated "Nuncainvierno". The Spanish players in internet call it "Devirian" (languange) because Devir was the publisher in Spain during the 3rd age.

In my city I am the only one who buys TTRPG books in a comic store. I don't watch more active forum about D&D in Spanish languange.

Proper names? I'm more bothered by stuff like "puntos de golpe"! The literalist translation is dry, uninspired and very much non-indicative. Either leave it untranslated as HP, or do a more useful rename like "Puntos de vida" or just "vida". But "puntos de golpe" is just awkward to say outloud.

Minor complaint about some class names. "Picaro" is technically correct for Rogue, but I find Renegado, Rebelde, or Foragido better translations.

Similar with Ranger and "Explorador", I'd prefer "Forestero" o mejor aún "Montaraz"

 

[JLowder]

In Italian we have always used theEnglish name. For us Neverwinter was Neverwinter. When WoC took translations they annunce that all the names were supposed to be translated.

It's possible the change in translation strategy was related to trademark concerns. This topic can get quite complicated when dealing with translations.

 

[Nikosandros]

It's possible the change in translation strategy was related to trademark concerns. This topic can get quite complicated when dealing with translations.

That wasn't the issue. The Italian branch of WotC did a very sloppy job, it as simple as that.

 

[schneeland]

@MoonSong The uninspired translations are something that seems to be plaguing localized 5e versions in general. At least the German versions seems to be affected, too. And that's on top of some terms that have a long history of being translated now appearing in English.