European markets and d20 publishers - a little survey

Regarding Italy, this is simply not true. D&D, AD&D and DetD (Third Edition) were and are today, by an extremely large margin, the most sold and most played RPGs ever. In no other country, excluding the US, D&D/AD&D/DetD have found such a loyal audience.

Hmmm... sorry about that sotterraneo but you seem a little wrong here :D

Take a look at the french market, when WOtC France handled the translations they did an horrible job, with insane delays (we waited more than half a year between the PHB and the DMG), record number of typos, rules that existed nowhere but in France (oh the dwarven Weapon Focus! :cool: ).

But now that Asmodée handle the translated product and Millenium the distribution of the US products the french market is probably (UK excluded) the most important market in Europe. As in Italy the catalogues that you can get at any Game Store show the translations of the whole list of WOtC product. We now have one or two newly translated book each month, and they sell, they sell very well in both language (ok a lot more in french).

IMNSHO UK, Germany and France are the richest countries in Europe and people there have a lot more money to spend for their hobbies than in the other European countries (no offence, it is due to a lot of things, including the way money is handled by the governments).

Bah, anyway I am not an economist so maybe we are the worst DD3 selling country in the world :p

Oh god I did a worthless meaningless post again...
 

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This is a really interesting post, though it does not really concern Sweden, because English is begginning to be the second language of all scandinavians and therefore there can be no market for translated products at all here. The stores are full of english-language (only) products. I began playing english-speaking RPG's when I was around 12 years old and had no problems with that. Maybe this is different in contries in central and souther Europe where they still do not have subttles on their English and American films, but teh put italaian, german and french actors over the english speak. For a Scandinavian that is absolutely foreign as we are used to hear Arnold say: "I'll be back!" and such...

What are my intention with this, you ask? I do not know. Maybe that all Northern Europeans do not bother with translated products and gets evereything they need from internet stores or their local store.
 

I don't think you will likely see any mass translation of material from D20 publishers not because they don't care about europeans but because its just not finacially possible.Look at the total number of people in the 4 largest english speaking countries,Those being US, UK, Canada, and Australia.Your looking at a half a billion people or more, and most D20 products sell about 3-10 thousands units. The cost to translate, re-layout, re-edit and then print the book would cost the companies as much as the original book cost to produce and they would be lucky to sell a few hundred of them.So the cost would have to very high just to break even.

Maybe the answer to your problem would be if a European company would take on the burden of translating and printing the product then splitting any profits with the US publisher or a european publisher could reprint OGC in various langauges and publish it there.
 

Holland

In all these posts I miss Holland... :-)

Let me tell you something about gaming in The Netherlands ;-) Maybe not all of you knew this, but after Germany and the UK the Dutch buy the most games per year. Of course, many of these fall into the family game category, but there's also a extraordinary large amount of people that buy specialized games like German-quality boardgames and RPG's. Look only at the fact that there's at least one specialized game-shop in every decent town (50,000+).

Does this mean that there are a lot of Games in Dutch? No. Strangely enough, Dutch versions of games never were popular. Apparently, *something* loses in the translation, especially with RPG's. The Dutch edition of D&D never established and there are only 3 big Dutch gamecompanies now, one of those imports/translates boardgames. And the other produce boardgames only (Jumbo and Goliath)

Because of this and the fact that distributers raise the price significantly (expect to pay twice the $ price in Euro's for your product!!) most gamers AND shops order directly from on-line gameshops in the USA!!! There is almost no language barrier as English is our second language and RPG's are for the more educated anyway.

Do they sell by thousands? No. But there is a market for a few hundred maybe, if the product is good and people now it's good!

I know the interest to know is there, because I own/maintain a Dutch-language website on gaming and EVERY review of an RPG product gets at least 100/150 reads by Dutch viewers/month. I know that my local gamestore gets requests for these items and I know of at least a few people who order them directly. When we do a demo-session at the gamestore, attendance is high and reactions positive.

Conclusion: As for Holland, there IS a market, but only WOTC succefully penetrated to gameshops, ONLY because of it's name. People just need a little push to try and order from other companies...

Grtz.
Frank
 

sotterraneo said:
"In fact, you're on one! :)"

Is this an European web site? Damn, why didn't anybody told me before? I kept describing to my fellow Italian gamers EN World as an AMERICAN web site. Shame on me 8-P

Hmmm... wait a moment: you are in Southampton, are you? So you are British and therefore, according to the UK press, not strictly Europe (The Economist, for example, keeps writing about 'UK and Europe' and 'the Continent' 8-).

True. You'll be hard-pressed to find anyone in this country who thinks of it as anything other than"ENGERLAAND!".
 

sotterraneo said:
8) Have you ever seen original European d20 products in non English language?


I'm not a company, but I can answer this: Yes. Most also adapt english material as well, but still creates original material.

In France, for example, Oriflam has released an original campaign and the corresponding setting, Archipel (see http://www.editions-oriflam.com/ for their site and http://www.archipels.info/ for the campaign), as well as translate the Elric d20 stuff; Siroz (see http://www.siroz.com/jeux_de_roles/system_d20/ for their d20 stuff) has published several original adventures (as well as several translations like the Freeports or Witchfire campaigns); Hexagonal translate, but also create original material for the Scarred Lands setting; the elder magazine Casus Belli (see http://www.casusbelli.com/actualites/d20/pubd20.html for infos on their "casus master" d20 books) has published d20 adventures booklets, etc.

I wouldn't be surprised if Multisim (one of the Great Three french, with Asmodée/Siroz and Hexagonal) also have some d20 projects as well.
 

drakhe said:

" The language should not be a barrier at all. From what I've heard on several boards
and
experienced myself in my gaming community, those that want games material in their
own
language are a minority. My mother tongue is dutch but I prefer my gaming material
in english.
Why ? Two simple reasons".

I don't know what the Belgian reality in gaming is, but I'm sure that French Spanish and Italian
realities are different. Translations are needed and English is used only by a minority of the overall
market. Sure, if you go to a convention you have the perception that English speaking gamers are a
big majority and that translations are not needed, but if you go to a store in these countries and ask to
the retailer, the situation is different: I'm one, trust me. If not, why translating the books?


"To me english is as much THE gaming language as it is for instance for computing.
It's in
english that most games are originaly developed and therefore it's in english that most
material
is available. And I've simply had to deal with way too many BAD translations (in:
gaming,
computing, novels, ...) that I simply prefer material in its original language ! (think for
instance
the problems created by having to translate rules for RPG's, subtelties in translation
could
eventualy lead to a completely different game !)".

As I stated earlier, in my country and in most of the bigger ones translations are needed for tapping
a larger market. If you want to sell only English langiage products, you confine yourself in a niche
market. This is true for RPGs, novels, compuer games, mnovies and so on. Perhaps in Belgium
English usage is much more widespread...

"The second reason is as simple: us inhabitants of the european community have
always
needed to be able to express ourselves in several languages (added to that: the
country I live in
is bi-lingual dutch-french, maybe you guessed: Belgium) so english is spoken and
understood
by most people with basic schooling. This gives us a practical tool: In my gaming
group we
simply use dutch for OUT-game conversation and english for IN-game conversation.
(or any
other language appropriate to the game/character)".

Ah. Oh. Gulp! Not here, I'm sure. If this attitude is widespread, then Belgium IS different!

"As a side note: I remember the days that Magic was printed in several languages:
WOTC had
very quickly declared the english version of the cards as the only tournament legal
version ! And
I've already heard talk of certain rules loopholes created by the french translation of
the PHB".

It was declared the only legal version in INTERNATIONAL tournaments (for example, European
Championship) because, for example, if an Italian and a German meet in a tournament, they MUST
be able to understand the cards of the opponent! But here in Italy, for example, cards of all languages
are tournament legal, assumed you have a copy 1) in Italian 2) in English to help foreign players. And
if you see sales figures in the biggest European countries (no offense intended to Belgium!), you will
see that translated Magic cards are much more popular than English ones (barring UK of course 8-]).
Again, why spending good money for translating them if nobody wants them translated in the first
istance?

"So to summarize my 2 bits: the majority of gamers in europe (that I know of) prefer
english
quality material over (bad) translated material".

Market realities are different. If you don't believe me, whrn in holiday in Italy, France, Spain or
germany make a tip to some game store and look around...
 

Archibald Theocliste said:


"But now that Asmodée handle the translated product and Millenium the distribution
of the US
products the french market is probably (UK excluded) the most important market in
Europe. As
in Italy the catalogues that you can get at any Game Store show the translations of the whole list of WOtC product. We now have one or two newly translated book each month, and they sell, they sell very well in both language (ok a lot more in French)".

There has been a little misunderstading. My post didn't mean "More copies of D&tD books are sold
in Italy than in any other European country" but "In market share, no country - excludng UK that has not the translation problem and it's GW dominated - D&tD/D&D/AD&D have such a big share of
the overall RPG market".

"IMNSHO UK, Germany and France are the richest countries in Europe and people there have a lot more money to spend for their hobbies than in the other European countries (no offence, it is due to a lot of things, including the way money is handled by the governments)".

As Italian, it's my patriotic duty rushing in defence of my country against French arrogance 8-P. Seriously, this is not the place to discuss economics, but please note my friend that France and Italy are not far in economic terms (have a look at Eurostat's or to The Economist's web sites) and if you take a look to Paris or London in summer you will notice plenty of my countrymen... This said, Italy has so
far the largest catalog of D&D books translated - bar none (if you don't believe me, check it yourself at www.dungeons.it). I'll not bother my fellow gamers listing everything here...

"Bah, anyway I am not an economist so maybe we are the worst DD3 selling country in the world"

What? I have NEVER written this and I'd NEVER write it too. France is one of the largest gaming
markets in thw world (surely far ahead of Italy) and when I peruse Casus Belli, Backstab or Roliste.com I am green with envy - and hope that, sometimes, Italy will be similar to France (in gaming...).

"Oh god I did a worthless meaningless post again..."

Well, I enjoyed this little excange of ideas 8-]
 

Morrus said:


True. You'll be hard-pressed to find anyone in this country who thinks of it as anything other than"ENGERLAAND!".

Then we could discuss about European websites, British (English? SDcottish? Welsh?) websites, US websites, Canadian websites... 8-]

Anyway, as my sister (who lives in London) loves to say to British friends, until maps will invent another continent, British Isles, UK is struck as being part of Europe so we vcan safely count En World as an European web site.

Today geography, tomorrow the euro: bwahahahaha!

Sorry about that - I lost control... 8-]
 

Originally posted by sotterraneo
Well, I enjoyed this little excange of ideas 8-]

Well I wrote my post in such a hurry that I asked myself if I didn't put a lot of idiot things inside :) I'm glad I didn't started a war between our two countries ;)

By the way since we are not so far away do you want me to post you a french WOtC catalogue? You'll notice that WOtC France and Italy have totally different politics about publications (ie. the french market is already saturated with D20 modules so they seem to have no plan to release the 8 base DD3 adventures but OTOH they seem more focused on FR publications than in Italy).

P.S. : Ah, now I remember, Paris or Aix-en-Provence in summer, the sun, the heat, all your countrywomen walking everywhere in their short.... errrrr, nevermind... I need... a cold shower!

Cya Cya
 

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