(Untitled)

[spizzy]

New French language laws in Quebec come into force today prohibiting the sale of English-only video games if a French version is available

Comments

[beatonna]

I guess I can see what they are going for, popular culture vehicles like television and radio play a big part in english coming to dominate other languages in people's minds. But Quebec language laws usually leave me a little perplexed and with the feeling that they are executed in poor taste, or perhaps that is just how they are reported to the english speaking world.

Language laws in general are really tricky, they are meant to help and communication is made more effective for everyone if they speak in complete understanding, but there are no English language laws, is it really up to the goverment to make sure French is enforced? As for minority languages, we fought for years for Gaelic rights in Nova Scotia, and that is a language that has been in Canada for hundreds of years, I understand ho important language preservation is. Now it is available in school and gets government funding for some programs, but it isn't forced on anyone.

[jennuass]

I think that it is good to have a push for bilingual video games but that push should be from the stores and from the consumer, not through government legislation.

But you're right Jon, they're just going to get the games from Amazon, so in effect, the laws end up just being a negative force on the small gaming business.

[somerled]

I don't know. It is easy to say that there should be "a push" for multi-lingual games, but why

[snowmit]

As someone who broadly agrees with everything that you said here, and who tends to be in favour of working things out in the marketplace, especially when the law of unintended consequences is so likely to rear its ugly head, AND as someone who has noticed that the chorus so far primarily supports the idea that these laws are wrong, I feel that it behoves someone to try to make an argument in the other direction

This is interesting

[snowmit]

((From the article)) "In the past, technical aspects, such as different game console versions sold in North America versus Europe, prevented even games released in France from appearing in Quebec. The result was that Quebec had mostly English games available.

Those "technical aspects" are region encoding. Because the DVD and game makers wanted to be able to stagger releases around the globe, they put in this lock. And as a result, Quebecers will denied French translations that EXISTED in France.

Market distortions abound.

Re: This is interesting

[somerled]

That is interesting. You know, I wouldn't be surprised if those very same games, available in French in France but not in Quebec, were in fact translated in Montreal.