How important to you is the English in a game?

[Cryswar]

Writing in a game is very important to me. I've gotten a surprising amount of enjoyment from even some MTL'd games that didn't completely butcher the original excellent writing, and I can deal with a lot of typos and the occasional grammar issues as long as I'm enjoying the general direction of the writing. If I dislike or outright loathe the writing though, that game had better have some real fucking good pics/animations or it's not going to live long on my SSD, and even then I'll probably delete it soon after I get bored.

 

[DaCreat0r]

We may not forget that most devs (like me) aren't native speakers and thus can not have completely natural English. I've just had this discussion somewhere else the other day when one of my works was criticized because some of the adjectives I used weren't "technically wrong, but no one talks like that" which lead some folks to the conclusion that I must have written the game in another language and hastily translated it. I had not.

It is very hard to please English native speakers who are not aware of the fact that all the writing is done in a language most of the world does not use from day to day but only in contexts like communication online and thus might not have the most natural style in.

 

[GingerSweetGirl]

While I understand that English is a very challenging language, I have a pretty high standard for what I expect in games. Improper English is one thing, but I find that it almost always comes with a jumbled story and that's a back breaker. In my opinion, improper English is a symptom of a larger problem- a lack of attention to detail. While I don't expect Shakespeare from my games, there is something to be said for getting the basics of a language right. When you can't proofread your script, suddenly things like story structure and continuity seem to suffer as well.

This is why I have begun to offer my services in localization. I'm not a professional, but if I can help some good-faith developer tweak their script for accuracy, I'm happy to do it.

 

[Cynicaladm]

I myself am involved in the writing side of a game in development, so of course writing is important to me, and the quality should be high.
whether I find it essential for it to be as correct as possible, really depends on the nature and overall quality of the game itself. There are games that I play purely for the visuals or kinks "in play".. and I might even skip dialogues once I've got the gist of the setting or scene.
other times I find the writing to be incorrect but broadly accessible and not too terrible; clearly the product of a non native speaker (such as myself)..and I appreciate the effort.
Then there are games that have clearly been written in another language and roughly thrown into google translate, or a worse iteration of the same.. without the least attempt at proofreading or verifying if the text makes sense. that's a big no no for me... especially so if they've been around long enough and have a big enough fanbase for the dev to have had ample opportunity to rope in a volunteer proofreader.

The main thing for me is a coherent plot and believable characters, possibly with some originality to it... if that's dealt with with a modicum of competency, typos and nonsensical English, whilst grating, aren't always dealbreakers..
But if the plot is lacking, nonexistent or just too basic, no amount of Shakespearean flourishes can save it from being skipped through to get to the juicy bits... provided those are of an adequate quality... if not, the whole thing goes to the bin.

 

[Syntex]

It depends, if the game has few errors I can ignore it, however, if the game has so many grammatical errors that makes it impossible to understand, I will just drop it and wait for a better translation.

 

[pymalion]

Language contributes to how well the DEVs present the game, so it is critical. Though I don't mind minor errors.

 

[Diconica]

It needs to be good enough it can at least be pieced together.
Also none of the crap where half the sentence goes off the screen and you can't read it at all.
Also none of the crap where it puts in 20 periods because it doesn't know what to substitute for that part.
I don't remember what it was I was playing the other day out of 4 lines there was maybe 8 words and 100 periods and it made ZERO sense at all.
If the MTL is that bad there is no point in even trying to translate it. I can do a fucking better job with a dictionary.