EarthBound Fans Take Matters Into Their Own Hands

Reid Young writes "EarthBound fans have waited 11 years for Nintendo to release the game's sequel, Mother 3, which came out in Japan in April 2006. However, following a recent announcement by a Nintendo employee that it almost certainly won't happen, the fans are taking it upon themselves to get the job done by organizing a fan translation with some of the finest names in ROM hacking. Is it ethical? Does Nintendo even care?"

Is it ethical???

[Daetrin]

It probably isn't legal by a strict definition, but you'd have to have a pretty twisted sense of ethics to have an ethical problem with this. Nintendo hasn't released it in the US in over a decade and has indicated that they probably never will, so who could the fans possibly be hurting by translating it themselves? One might argue that everyone who wanted to try it out would be _more_ ethical if they imported a japanese copy of the cart before playing the translated ROM, but given that Nintendo has taken steps to try and prevent imported games from working (though admitedly pretty lame attempts for the NES and SNES) and that any carts you could get ahold of at this point would almost certainly be used so no money would be going back the original creators anyways, i think that argument doesn't hold much water.

This has always seemed weird to me.

[Shados]

I mean... localisation is basicaly a "throw more money at it" type job. It doesn't take an incredible amoun of internal ressources: you just need a few internal people to make sure the job is correct, but it is a job that DEFINATELY can be outsourced, and is often better off that way. Outsourced here not meaning china/india/whatever, but meaning external companies.

When a game is as popular as Earthbound, or SD3 (the sequel of Secret of Mana, I just can't spell the name), I don't quite understand why game companies resist localisation so much

Its literally a matter of spend X amount of money, and return a nearly garenteed profit.

So why the bloody hell not?
I hope the Virtual console brings some never before seen in north america games, because we missed out on a lot, and playing hacked up ROMs, even if it was legal, often doesn't cut it. Dejap does good stuff, but there's just so much they can do.

2 cents

[trytoguess]

The ethics are arguable, then again Japanese gaming has already profited from fan translated material, (FFIV, Rockman & Forte, Tales of Phantasia, etc) and I don't even have to mention the anime industry.

Re:There's another group further underway...

[muel]

Two groups working on the same game at the same time? The only reason in the world that the two groups wouldn't combine forces is pride; here's to hoping pride is pushed aside to get this done sooner, as the mother3.org team already has the original ROM hacked and worked out quite a bit (and, uh, so what if I'm impatient?).

Re:Additional Costs Beyond Localisation

[AuraOfDeath]

8. Why invest money in something that OBVIOUSLY wont sell on the US market... Make another First person, spy based shooter... Or more sports games... Sports games are hot sellers.. ... So frustrating.. Japan gets games that would boggle the mind... And we get.. (Insert Nascar Driver name)'s Nascar Rally! .. The US gaming industry is mentally retarded in every sense of the word... It lost touch with the Gaming market eons ago....

Re:Is it ethical???

[bilbravo]

The game in question is Mother 3, which is the sequel to Earthbound. It was just released for GBA in mid 2006, and the GBA is region free.

I agree wholeheartedly with your point, though I just wanted to clear up that it is very possible (and is being done by alot of SM.net members) to import the Japanese cart. However, it is very difficult to find an original Earthbound cart!!!

As far as I know, Nintendo doesn't seem to have a big deal with imports... at least not as much as Sony appears to... I'm sure everyone has seen the slamming Sony has taken because of Lik-Sang.