About the Localization/Translation

[yararezon]

Does Kenshi project have any plan to localize/translate several languages?
I think that some non-English talkers are interested in it. e.g. Japanese and Russian, Spanish and so on.

At the case of Japan, some games were often localized by volunteers and released as jp_patch.
So project don't need to localize aggressively, but I hope that it has easy-localize or easy-modding system.

[ArcaneSaint]

Such a thing would be very nice indeed. Personally I prefer my games in English over Dutch (which is my native language), and I don't expect any translations to Dutch. But translating the game to another major language like Russian, Chinese etc. could potentially boost sales quite significantly.

Of course, there are some potential issues. the first one being that in order to translate, one must know both languages very fluently. So unless (skilled) people are willing to do it for free that mean hiring extra people to do the localization. That costs money, which brings us to the second problem, that of the markets.

Not every type of game has the same potential everywhere, sometimes it might just be because of a difference in cultures (some games being clearly meant for a certain way of thinking), which can be difficult to "translate". Sometimes it might simply be because there aren't enough customers who would purchase that version to make it worth the trouble of translating. And sometimes a game is plainly not allowed to sell in certain countries (censorship).

And then there's the whole legal paperwork that is involved when letting some other company/group work on a your Intellectual Property for localization or distribution etc.

Though I suppose that the only *real* problem Kenshi would stumble upon is that of money, or more specifically, the lack of it. Though I'd prefer it if Chris first finishes making the game before worrying about localization. And as always, the decision about localizing or not is up to Chris the Great, and I will support his decision.
In any case, localization/translation has my full support.

[Citizen Goat]

Translating in several languages with the help of professional translators is very expensive, and even if medium/big gaming companies have no problem hiring them it's different for small indie developers.

There's indeed the possibility of finding volunteer to help translate and promote the game in other languages, that could be beneficial for the game but it's up to the creator to decide if he's interested in this kind of help or not.

[Captain Deathbeard]

I will do my best to make it easily moddable, so that modders/fans can translate it if they wish to, but otherwise I won't worry about it at least until the game is finished.