I'm not sure if this is the best place to ask, but I have a small question for people in GoG. Namely I wonder why Infinity Engine games (Baldur's Gate, Icewind Dale, Planescape: Torment) are available in english language only? I understand other languages might be hard to get, but I hoped to see avialability of at least polish language, considering that GoG is part of - or at least I always thought it is - CD Projekt, who was in turn the company that localized the games here in poland. Can anyone enlighten me on the issue?

Well you can't expect CD Projekt to rewrite the entire game in another language just because there is no official version with an alternate language.

You misunderstood - there IS official polish version for these games. CD Projekt released these versions here in poland, hence I'm surprised that GoG has access to English version only.

At the time most of theses games were released, PC gaming was almost exclusively an English-speaking market. With the amount of written and spoken dialog in the Infinity games, localizing them would have been hideously expensive for very doubtful returns.

Even now, in the era of "global gaming" most big titles are still English only. The gaming business is a business, and they have to do CBA's (cost-benefit analysis) every step of the way.

While I am a native English speaker (so it's not an urgent concern for me) I do hope that these games can eventually be localized by fans.

Again, these translations already exist (I even own them, though I wouldn't mind buying GoG for backup when I get the opportunity). CD Projekt translated all Infinity engine games to polish language, both text and voices; and in good quality too.

My bad, I didn't read closely enough. *blush*. If the translations exist, I certainly hope gog makes them available. Everyone on the planet should be able to enjoy these games.

Oh, sorry. You raise an excellent point then.

Not entirely on-topic, so sorry...

BUT, I wonder why there aren't many games that have been translated to finnish, it's not that hard of a language :)

Just listen :)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TO9SrO0GOwM

TV shows aren't dubbed either except for most kids' animations. The same goes for games. I guess we're just so marginal and not used to demand translations

Isn't that a reason our english is so amazing :P so I don't complain

You know, I learned most of my adequate english skillz from games :D

(I curse the day when my mother had the bright idea that the same can be applied to swedish...)

1) Maybe CDP is from Poland but GOG is internet business.
2) GOG website has no Polish version from the same reason.
3) You can not pay in zlotys here, only $ (not even in €!, only US $).
4) In case on BG, Polish version = a lot of additional download (voices!) and server space.

I take it hanging out at Ikea didn't work either. I tried that, but eventually they figured it out and threatened to make me take home some of their irregular units.

Ultimately the only hope for translations of many games is to use an open frame work which allows people to do there own. Not helpful in cases like this where the patches already exist, but a great start for all the other games.

When I was living in Finland I tried my best to learn Finnish. My god, I had a terribly hard time with it! I'm very grateful that you all speak such fantastic English, so that it made up for my terrible Finnish!

Yeah, it's kind of ironic that their own translation work is being excluded from the titles. Maybe this is to keep down file sizes, but I don't see any reason why, in time, they couldn't provide alternative localized versions for games.