In the game Deus Ex, They have the same actors doing the voices for the
various characters. Each character either has an American, English, French,
or Asian accent. Believe me, the Asian accent was offensive to me....
Or how about Operative:No One Lives Forever - They had just two actors doing
all of the voices, including Scottish (Stop A'kin like a wee gerrrrlll") ,
East Indian ("Um' bullets are not my favorite ting"), etc...
The fact is, it is the content not the accent.
As I hear it from some one who grew up in London, the Londoners can figure
out where you grew up in London by your accent, and that it is one of the
ways people are judged there.
Here in America, we always make fun of people with diff'rnt accents. And do
I have to mention the evil Canadians and their accent, Ehh?
Let me illustrate the computer components that come from Taiwan, Korea, and
Japan, and the way they write their documentation. It is as funny as "Your
base are belong to us!". Despite the way they use English in the poorest
way, we still buy their products.
Let capitalism do its work here. If Europeans are offended by what game
developers do, they will change.
Nerd From Hell
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Marvin Long, Jr. [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]
> Sent: Monday, June 04, 2001 1:11 PM
> To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> Subject: Re: Holy Cause of the Month
>
>
>
> <I must be in a grumbly mood today.>
>
> Waitacottonpickinminutehere.
>
> We're supposed to take up arms against EA for getting an accent wrong?
> As though the voice acting in computer games were *usually*
> top notch, but
> they just screwed up *this* one because EA are a bunch of,
> ummm, anti-Celtic bigots?
>
> But were NOT going to get mad because the game, a FPS supernatural
> horror game, portrays an Irish family as a bunch of
> bloodthirsty undead
> monsters, which is totally OK because we all know it's just a
> game anyway,
> right-O.
>
> Let's boycott _Brigadoon_ while we're at it. Or march up and down
> protesting "Highlander." And every local performance of Macbeth where
> they screw up the accents. (In fact, I'm willing to bet that
> *Shakespeare* either screwed up or didn't bother to emulate colloquial
> Scottish speech.)
>
> For that matter, let's boycott Japan for selling games into
> the American
> market with lousy English. ("All your base are belong to us!") And
> Taiwan for putting lousy English instructions in their light fixtures.
> And on and on. And the BBC for portraying Americans as self-help
> business-management-cliche-spouting morons.
>
> Bah! Humbug!
>
>
> On Mon, 4 Jun 2001, Kristin A. Ruhle wrote:
>
> > Shame on Electronic Arts for cultural insensitivity. Tell them so
> >
> > I'm American, but many trade publications from different
> countries cross
> > my desk. There is a computer game called Clive Barker's
> Undying. which I
> > gather is sold in several nations. The game's hero is
> supposed to be Irish
> > but they got an American actor to do the voice and
> according to the UK
> > information tech magazine Computer Weekly, it's such a
> phony accent (goofy
> > patois of mixed pseudo Irsih pseudo Scottish pseudo...) that it is
> > insulting. (to anybody, I guess, from the British Isles
> that can actually
> > tell accents apart.) If they are going to sell the product
> in the UK maybe
> > they should have put out a redubbed version. I mean, few
> Americans would
> > recognize the problem and I wound'nt presume to if I hadn't
> been told
> > about it it- nor do I even own this particular computer
> game. Nor do any
> > of you out there I suppose, but the company should not be
> allowed to get
> > away with this sort of thing, not when they sell internationally.
> >
> > Trouble is, I can't find an Email address that is really the
> > vendor/distributor's "corporate" one; on the web it seems
> to be all either
> > tech support or where to apply for a job there. Anybody
> found out where
> > the Complaint Department is?
> >
> > UK (or Ireland esp) readers take note: it's your culture or
> mixture of
> > cultures....
> >
> > Kristin
> > Likes to take up armso n behalf of complete strangers
> >
> >
>
> Marvin Long
> Austin, Texas
>
>
>
