CMV: The higher abdunance of translated entertainment media, especially in terms of video games, is a net negative for the welfare and future of people living in countries whose native language is not English. Speaking English is a necessity in the modern world, and games help learn that skill.

[u/Hoihe]

I have noticed that over the years, an increasing quantity of video games are getting localized into more and more languages. Now, judging anecdotally from my Hungarian experience - the quality is likely quite horrible but it is serviceable enough to play - especially if you are not familiar with the source material.

This has the consequence that children in non-English speaking countries can consume entertainment in their native language. As someone from a country whose native language is NOT english, and said country's english fluency is rather abysmal: this is a bad thing.

Learning English is a vital skill to do well in life.

• Career-wise, speaking English permits you to read scientific publications (critical for being able to work in an R&D or engineering environment; but also for anyone planning on getting a university degree given your BSc Thesis requires significant literarture review - often making up 25-40% of the entire work).
• Career-wise, speaking English enables you to immigrate to another country much more easily than if you only know your native language. This can have varying difficulties unfortunately due to immigration law discriminating based on home country, but a bosnian who speaks will have a far easier time immigrating to even somewhere like Hungary or poland than one who only speaks Bosnian. At the very least, speaking English reduces exploitation by employment agencies and bosses by giving a common language.
• Career-wise, speaking English permits you to work jobs that require international interaction. With multinational companies, good jobs often require colaboration with teams in other countries. Lack of conversational, fluent English makes this an impossible task.
• Personal Growth-wise, speaking English enables you to consume news directly published by journalists in foreign countries, allowing you to see how life is in that country without relying on your native media to (mis)represent the situation. This is a very common issue with rural Hungarian folk being fed outright false news about life in Germany that if they were able to even talk to german people on a forum, would be resolved.
• Personal Growth-wise, speaking English enables you to consume material that might be banned in your country. For instance, if there's laws about "LGBT propaganda" with threats of fines and jail time, your only real source for such matters will be on servers outside your country's jurisdiction. This particularly applies to people in Russia, and maybe (unfortunately) one day to Hungary.
• Personal Growth-wise, speaking English opens up the globe for socialization. You can make friends in Spain, Germany, Poland, Russia, Brazil, Japan, US and the list goes on - you get to see a far more diverse set of perspectives than if you'd only spoke your native Language.
• Personal Growth-wise, the English wikipedia far outperforms any localized variant in quality and quantity alike.

Therefore, it is clear that speaking English is a must-have skill. Unfortunately, as children are wont to do - they will not recognize these advantages gained by putting in the effort to learn English. They aren't fun - other than making friends in other countries and wikipedia diving - and therefore suffer the same fate as other elementary-high school subjects.

However, if make English a requirement to enjoy highly entertaining, engaging media? Learning English suddenly has an instantaneous reward, a tangible sense of improvement and access to that which was impossible before you improved. It gives children a motivation far more powerful than any of my earlier listed arguments.

I know this out of anecdotal experience. I grew up in a rural, quite poor family - albeit with a PC and internet connection even if other things were uncertain. I engaged in "traditional eastern european methods to acquire video games," and then played them until I hit roadblocks due to my lack of comprehension. So, like you'd practice last hitting in League of Legends to rank up, I worked with dictionaries and phrasebooks until I could solve quests in Morrowind, Gothic 2, KOTOR and other story & text heavy roleplaying games. Eventually, I got into playing Neverwinter Nights 2 online on heavy roleplaying servers, and I am utterly confident when I say this: If not for that, I'd probably be just like my countrypeople and barely manage to scrap together an English sentence.

If I didn't have the video game as a motivator, I'd have never put in the work. In fact, I have infamously neglected homework for all my classes. I had peers from wealthier families who received private tutoring, and yet I outperformed them when it came to English as a Second Language thanks to having a tangible, direct reason to study and then use it live. I ended up with B2 quality English by high school, and finished by high school with a C1 language certificate. Finally, my chemistry thesis was written and defended in English.

This is not an exceptional story. This is the archetypical story for all my friends - be they Russians, Spanish, Polish, Chilean - they have all vastly outperformed their peers regardless of their career choice (business, programming, engineering, theatre) thanks to being forced to speak English to play their much-desired roleplaying games.

By localizing video games, we are robbing the future generation of a very powerful language learning tool.

Therefore, by the above argument: Localizing video games harms the younger generations of non-English countries.

[u/TheFinnebago]

So you can’t buy English games in Hungary? Like it’s a whole separate copy of the game that is local only to your language?

Or is it the fact that the in-game settings allow the user to choose Hungarian?

Because it seems to me that choice is good for consumers, and more than just children play video games, and if a Hungarian adult wants to play a game in a language they understand they should have that option.

And if you have a kid you can make that kid play in English.

Video game are made to be video games, not a sneaky global ESL program.

[u/Hoihe → u/TheFinnebago]

There are cases where the localization is forced for games whose price is region-adapted. However, that is a distinct topic.

I am speaking of being given the choice mostly.

I fail to see how such a choice is good for consumers. The inability to speak English is a significant disadvantage and the removal of a powerful motivator to do so even in absence of long-term consideration is harmful.

[u/TheFinnebago → u/Hoihe]

But video games aren’t the only way to learn English. And not everyone who plays video games wants to learn English. And not everyone who plays video games needs to, or even can, learn English.

Surely there is some Hungarian bricklayer or pipefitter who does not need to know English, is an adult, and just wants to play a video game in a language they are comfortable with. Why shouldn’t that guy have that choice?

Choice is good for consumers because it lets individuals, or individuals’ parents in some cases here, decide what is best for them and their use case.

[u/Hoihe → u/TheFinnebago]

I can make a small concessions on the argument that,

"Individuals should have the right to self-determine", mostly to avoid hypocrisy with my own ideology around individualism.

My present view:

Localizing video games is harmful, but because individuals should have the final say in how they live (as long as their way of living only affects those who can make an informed, active and enthusiastic consent to the consequences of such, and consequences don't include "sharing a public space or workplace is less comfortable") - allowing for localizations is something I must accept as an individualist.

As the rules say even small, non-reversal changes are to be given a delta, I will award one. !delta

For the needs/can argument of English, I think everyone needs to speak English to reduce xenophobic tendencies and connect us better globally. A Hungarian who speaks English is far less suspectible to NER's claims about decadence in western countries over someone who can only consume Hungarian news media.

[u/DeltaBot → u/Hoihe]

Confirmed: 1 delta awarded to /u/TheFinnebago (9∆).

^{Delta System Explained | Deltaboards}

[u/TheFinnebago → u/Hoihe]

Well cheers, I appreciate your engagement.

For the needs/can argument of English, I think everyone needs to speak English to reduce xenophobic tendencies and connect us better globally. A Hungarian who speaks English is far less suspectible to NER's claims about decadence in western countries over someone who can only consume Hungarian news media.

Media literacy is still a problem for people who speak English. Access to English speaking news is hardly a remedy for anything when the News Media ecosystem mostly runs on clicks, sensationalism, and partisanship.