An Unusual Request Regarding God of War Collection

P

PseudoFinrod

CAGiversary!
I have an unusual request. I am hearing impaired, and have trouble picking up the dialogue (and by proxy, the storylines) in games that do not have the option. I had this problem with the original God of War games.
When I heard the announcement that the first two games were being rereleased for PS3, I wondered if a subtitle option would be amongst the improvements. I decided to ask Bluepoint Games directly. I found their website's contact page:
http://www.bluepointgames.com/index.php?page=contacts

I sent them the following email (to the address [email protected]):

Hello. I am very interested in the upcoming God of War Collection that your studio is working on. I had played the original Playstation 2 games, and found the gameplay of the games to be quite fun and enjoyable. However, as a hearing-impaired person, the lack of a subtitle option for the games made it very difficult to understand the storyline. And as this link indicates, I am not the only one who had this problem:

http://www.deafgamers.com/07reviews/godofwar2_ps2.html

Will your studio's upcoming collection of the two include a subtitle option for spoken cutscene and/or in-game dialogue? If so, that would make it a day-one purchase for me. I am excited about the possibility of experiencing the saga's storyline for the first time, and I am sure other deaf and hearing-impaired gamers would be very interested in your product if such an option was added.
Thank you very much for your time.

I sent the above message last week, and have yet to hear back from them. I was not really sure if I should expect a response at all, but I did get one last year from DICE in regards to whether Mirror's Edge would have subtitles or not (they thankfully affirmed that it did).
Getting to the point, would anyone be willing to drop Bluepoint Games a line regarding the possibility of subtitles in the GOW Collection? Even if they do not respond, perhaps multiple inquiries will persuade them to add the option to the re-release.
I realize this is far from the usual CAG request. Thank you for taking the time to read this.
 
The original releases didn't have subtitles? That seems strange.

Just sent them an e-mail, good luck.

Hello,

I am sending this e-mail in support of user "Pseudofinrod" from the Cheapassgamer.com community who is deaf. As a person who absolutely loved both GoW games, I think it's a shame that Sony's Santa Monica studios chose not to include subtitles in the original God of War titles. I believe that everyone who is a fan of video games deserves the same chance to enjoy any game at the same level as everyone else, regardless of any standing disability.

I implore you to address this issue and either ensure gamers with a hearing imparity like Pseudofinrod that subtitles WILL be an option in the game or that Blue Point Games will do their best to cater to the hearing-impaired gaming community's needs.

Below is a copy of his original e-mail.

Thank you,
Signed
 
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Assassin's Creed was the same way, no ability to find out what was going on at all. I will send something and have my friends too, subtitles are a needed option on all games these days, no good reason to not have them
 
I found your post to be very interesting and I was surprised to hear that such a major release may not have subtitles included for gamers who may want, or in some cases need, them to understand the story. I just shot Bluepoint Games an e-mail adding my support for subtitles if they are not already included. I'll post here again if/when I hear back.
 
I'm afraid I may have jumped the gun on this a bit. I just got this response from a Bluepoint employee:

"Due to contractual restrictions I cannot comment on any specifics regarding the GoW Collection. However, I did forward your email to my contacts at Sony, so I anticipate that they will reply to your email (although as you can imagine, they are really busy right now, so it may take some time).

I appreciate your email, and I think you make a compelling case as to why all video games with extensive storylines should contain an option for subtitles."

It may no longer be necessary to email the company. But thanks to all of you who did so :D
 
I feel your pain brotha .. Im hearing impaired as well (born deaf in my right ear) .. subtitle option is a much needed option these days .. its pretty important to me when it come to buying games now .. no subtitles doesn't make the game less accessible but sure does hurt the game play experience .. let start a grassroots collation to make it mandatory for games to have subtitles .. whose with me?! ^_^
 
[quote name='PseudoFinrod']I'm afraid I may have jumped the gun on this a bit. I just got this response from a Bluepoint employee:

"Due to contractual restrictions I cannot comment on any specifics regarding the GoW Collection. However, I did forward your email to my contacts at Sony, so I anticipate that they will reply to your email (although as you can imagine, they are really busy right now, so it may take some time).

I appreciate your email, and I think you make a compelling case as to why all video games with extensive storylines should contain an option for subtitles."

It may no longer be necessary to email the company. But thanks to all of you who did so :D[/QUOTE]

Still, the more people who do, the more likely it is that they'll put them in there. It's ridiculous that they'd leave them out in this day and age.
 
[quote name='blackhole82']I always turn subtitles on in games and I'm not hearing impaired.[/QUOTE]

Yeah, me too. Sometimes it's easy to miss a word or some part of a sentence characters may be saying with all the sound effects, music, and whatnot going on in the background so I always turn subtitles on.

I'll fire off an email tonight backing you up OP. Even though your email was forwarded, the more emails Sony gets, the higher the chance they'll do something about it.
 
Another not hearing impaired person who turns on subtitles. I can't tell you how many times I've been in the middle of a game, I'm in the middle of some dialogue or cutscene, and someone calls me on the phone, and I have to turn the volume off.

Or I am playing late at night and I simply can't have the volume up high because I'll wake up other people in the house. (And I've yet to find earphones that I can comfortably wear for more than an hour).

Or some creative person involved in the video game making process decided to give a voice actor a ridiculous, hard to understand accent, so I have no idea what the fuck they are saying.

Or the voice acting is so gawdawful I HAVE to turn it off to keep my ears from bleeding.

There are so many reasons why a person with a normal range of hearing would want subtitles to dialogue!
 
Count me as another one who is not hearing impaired but turns on subtitles whenever possible. There is no excuse, in this day and age, for any game on a current-generation console to not have subtitles.
 
Another gamer who always turn on the subtitles. I watch television and DVDs with the subtitles on too, but I especially like them for games because I'm often playing late at night while my wife is sleeping. The most recent game I've played that didn't have subtitles was Battlefield: Bad Company and it was very disappointing to have to strain to hear the dialog (and just miss a lot of it) in an otherwise awesome game.
 
Deaf left ear, impaired right ear here. Just sent an email in support. Game on, bro. Thx & Kudos to all in the hearing community who are also in support. For me it isn't as much of an issue (my wife will repeat dialogue for me that I miss and allow me to turn the volume up to what would be ridiculous levels in any other context), but it can be a fucking pain sometimes.

/s Vector
 
good luck with this!

I'm not hearing impaired, in fact I'm a musician, but if there's something hard to understand it's always great to have the option of showing subtitles so I don't have to listen to the darn thing over and over to understand what's being said.
 
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