GMAN-GAMES: Language Selection Screens

Language Selection Screens - Respect

March 8th, 2006

Last weekend I had an interesting experience with accidentally calling someone based on an ancestry they did not want to be called. It was not pleasant.

Today that got me thinking though. Many many games use country flags for language selection screens. After last weekend's experience I wonder if that is being disrespectful.

For example, to choose the French language you might be asked to pick the French flag. But what if you live in Quebec? Why should you have to pick France? If you are Taiwanese or Chinese Malaysian or a host of other countries why should you have to pick the Chinese flag for the Chinese language? If you are from Australia or a New Zealand why should you have to pick the American or United Kingdom Flag?

The #1 reason we do it is because it requires no words (nothing to translate), the #2 is because a screen of flags is prettier than a screen of text. Still, I know it's probably a small issue but maybe companies shouldn't be using flags for language selection since it is arguably a form of disrespect for people that don't live in those countries yet speak the language.

Pass it on

Comments:

Cycle

People with this mentality are the ones that perpetuate the idea that we have to conform to everyone's happiness. It's a language. Pick it. Anyone that gives this a second thought obviously is spending too much time being PC and not enough time designing software. Anyone who is offended by picking a flag for a language that you speak but don't live in, thinks far to highly of themselves.

posted by MeMarch 10, 2006 at 7:31 [ e ]

Of course if that flag represents a country you are a war with and killed your family I'm sure you might not take this so lightly.

posted by greggmanMarch 10, 2006 at 22:44 [ e ]

Feelings, warm and fuzzy

If the video game had you killing your country men, that could be offensive based on its presentation and the player's ability to tell difference between fantasy entertainment and reality. But if a simple flag offends you, that's just asinine.

posted by MeMarch 11, 2006 at 4:33 [ e ]

I agree with you that it's arguably silly to get offended by a flag.

At the same time, to give an example, 8 years ago when I worked at Sega we were told to take 100% of the Japanese out of the game I was working on for the Korean market version. (An Arcade game). They said if there was any Japanese what-so-ever in the game the machines would be vandalized and destroyed in the arcades in Korea.

While from a personal perspective I might not understand the Korean rage against a machine with Japanese language in it I'd still rather have my game sell then lose money seeing them destroyed. So, you can not worry about offending people by something as simple as a flag. OR, you could make a few minutes effort to see if you are limiting your market for something so simple and if so, change to something else.

posted by greggmanMarch 11, 2006 at 12:38 [ e ]

Argh

Grudgingly I'll agree that my personal opinions don't matter in the eyes of the consumer and they are the ones that pay the bills...

posted by MeMarch 12, 2006 at 12:03 [ e ]

text vs graphics

Slightly OT, but: Another thing to consider is the text used for each language. Just the other day I saw a kiosk at Hertz that had all the languages it supported listed on the very first screen, but they were all listed in English, using the Roman alphabet. That's just dumb.

posted by bwanaMarch 12, 2006 at 20:32 [ e ]

transparent

i'm doing an internship at a game development studio and here they just use whatever language the console is set to; if your console is english language the game is english language, etc.

it's not applicable everywhere and it only shifts the problem somewhere else (the designers of the console UI for switching languages) but i think it's a pretty neat way of solving it.

posted by callecMarch 23, 2006 at 5:45 [ e ]

That works if your console supports all the languages your game supports. Ours doesn't. Our game is planned to include Finnish, Norwegian, Danish, and Russian but the console OS does not have those as options.

posted by greggmanMarch 24, 2006 at 1:11 [ e ]

I agree with me, I think you're being far to PC to consider this.

You could choose to think of it as "the flag representing the origin of that language".
Does it piss you off when you have to select the Union Jack instead of the American flag to play in English? (although, I think I've read that you're not 100% American...)

In fact for me, I see it the other way, if I play a game and the language option for English is an American flag, I think that THAT is wrong. The language is /called/ English, yes Americans might have added bits on here and there, but it's pretty much guaranteed to be standard English*.

If someone is so offended by an image of a flag (and it's connotations), then they're just as likely to be offended by actually using the language, no?

*to reach the widest audience, of course.

posted by fishMarch 27, 2006 at 14:57 [ e ]

So, which flag would you put up for Arabic?

posted by greggmanMarch 27, 2006 at 20:57 [ e ]

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