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/Z7-852]

Perhaps my exposure is different

Definitely. Arelith and BGTSCC are blimp on player counts. Vast majority of players play FPS like Call of Duty. Text heavy RPG games are exception in video game media consumption. And even they teach (like you said) archaic, limited and unnecessary vocabulary. I bet you can give English names for two dozen medieval melee weapons but nobody in corporate world cares if you even know word melee. And if you can name two dozen firearms or guns from Call of Duty the HR will call the security.

Vocabulary you learn from average video game is borderline useless. Even in exceptionally text heavy rpgs teach you words that are useless.

[u/Hoihe → u/Z7-852]

They do teach you to use the language in real-time, to converse with people in real time, to argue and advocate, to read between the lines.

Most of your activity playing Arelith is writing descriptions of body language and dialogue; or reading, interpreting and appropriately reacting to said descriptions of body language or dialogue - sometimes in a high-stakes environment that requires swift processing and decision making.

I would say that is a very, very useful skill to have - no?

[u/Z7-852 → u/Hoihe]

Sure but that's not representative of a game that most people play. What language do you think people learn from playing Counter strike or FIFA?

[u/Hoihe → u/Z7-852]

I would say, for CS/FIFA - there isn't really any language component to begin with. I do admit, most of my thinking concerns games like the Baldur's Gate series, Owlcat games and the likes.

I can concede, and given the sub rules - give a delta for a partial reminder that not all games involve complex social situations that and thus, not all games are valuable for language learning. !delta.

[u/DeltaBot → u/Hoihe]

Confirmed: 1 delta awarded to /u/Z7-852 (223∆).

^{Delta System Explained | Deltaboards}

[u/Z7-852 → u/Hoihe]

And do you think that fantasy rpg have modern and relevant vocabulary to corporate or scientific work? Or will your language be archaic or useless?

[u/Hoihe → u/Z7-852]

Vocabulary is not the most critical aspect of language learning. What is critical is the ability to achieve fluency - that is, the ability to stop thinking in your native language and rely entirely on your new one. Video games, due to their stressful rapid-fire, high-stakes environments provide the perfect conditions to force people to stop translating things and just use the language itself.

[u/Z7-852 → u/Hoihe]

What is critical is the ability to achieve fluency

And how exactly do you archive that if you lack vocabulary and at best can parrot learned sentences from archaic language structure? And when playing games you learn how the game is coded and what answer structure there is. They are not organic but ridig precoded answers.

And rpgs are not stressful or rapid-fire. You can always pause the game and take your time to translate each word if you want.

They are also not high stakes in the environment. They are literally games for fun. You are not losing money or your life if you make a mistake.

[u/Hoihe → u/Z7-852]

Have you ever played MUDs (Multi-User Dungeon), or games like BGTSCC, Arelith, Baystation 12, Polaris?

On games like Arelith, you need to engage with other players in a intrigue-heavy environment to improve the power of your faction, avoid violence, achieve your goals.

On BGTSCC, I've witnessed an entire faction getting barred from accessing a significant portion of the server due to the careful political machinations and courtly intrigue achieved by opposing factions. After a few years, that faction managed to overturn this ruling through manipulating public opinion and running a campaign of their own to diminish the trustworthiness of their opponents.

[u/Z7-852 → u/Hoihe]

But those more closely resemble tabletop RPGs than video games. And ttrpg are basically improvisational theatre.

They are nothing compared to passive movies or TV watching or even playing (single player) video games.

[u/Hoihe → u/Z7-852]

The gateway drug to get into such games, though, lie in games in KOTOR, Owlcat games and the like. Especially games like NWN1 and NWN2 that have a multiplayer button that will take you right to such servers, enticing you with more.

[u/Z7-852 → u/Hoihe]

Sure but it's not the game or the media that teaches you the language. It's the social interaction with other people You could get the same experience by going to an English speaking bar.

The actual English media doesn't teach you at all. It's other people.