sergeantaegis asked:
Did your skills in German (and to a lesser extent, French and Spanish) ever come up in your professional career? (For instance, being the "go-to guy" at Obsidian for communicating with customers or partners in Germany).
I am the "go-to guy" for spot-checking German localization but I'm not a native speaker so I miss a lot of things. That said, I have caught some flagrant issues (e.g. strings mixed up, wrong understanding of context, lacking a gender-specific string when addressing a character of variable gender). Still not a good replacement for a native speaker.
I've also done spot checking in French and Spanish localizations but my skills there are much poorer. Again, only helpful for catching errors that someone with even basic skills would notice.
It's never been necessary for me to speak to business partners in Germany because they've always been highly fluent in English. When demoing Pentiment at Gamescom I did speak German to some of the younger players because they weren't as confident in their English skills and it was easier to just use German.
It also came up in English-language interviews for the German markets as a parlor trick because it's uncommon for Americans to learn much German. So I'd say like, two sentences in German and we'd laugh and go back to English.
Just wondering…and no pressure intended with this question haha… What's next after "Pentiment"? Are you planning on continuing doing your own games?
