1 Topic by tenyuhuang (edited by tenyuhuang 2019-02-22 14:06:54)

  • From: Shanghai, China
  • Registered: 2018-10-12
  • Posts: 60

Hi everybody, I'm tenyuhuang a.k.a. Tenyu, from mainland China. I've joined redump.org last October, and has been dumping and submitting games since then. While I'm glad to have all the support and help from the team, since most of my submissions are either Chinese or Japanese, we began to run into some practical problem - one of them being: how to properly name a Chinese submission.

This proposal aims to solve, or figure out a way to solve that issue and move things forward, while providing hints and hopefully valid inputs to other related issues.

I've been writing this during the holiday where there is a lot of distractions, so my apologies in advance for my indecent English writing skills and grammar mistakes.

The full version of the proposal can be seen here.
Since it's a bit too long, I've also provided a significantly shorter version for easy reading and reference.

Bear in mind everything is suggested based on my own experience and knowledge, most of the content will be open for discussion, and I'll be expecting your valuable input.

Thanks in advance!

Update:
If no further suggestions / feedbacks are received by 2019/2/28, I'll finalize the first version of Pinyin adoption plan and CJK naming workflow for review and approval.

tenyuhuang's Website

  • From: Sweden
  • Registered: 2017-10-30
  • Posts: 45

Is there a particular reason you are suggesting to not mark tones? Problems with storing them in databases, or just that they're inconvenient to type? I'm not saying that it necessarily is a bad decision, but it would be good to note the reasoning.

3 Reply by tenyuhuang (edited by tenyuhuang 2019-02-06 17:50:24)

  • From: Shanghai, China
  • Registered: 2018-10-12
  • Posts: 60

JosJuice wrote:

Is there a particular reason you are suggesting to not mark tones? Problems with storing them in databases, or just that they're inconvenient to type? I'm not saying that it necessarily is a bad decision, but it would be good to note the reasoning.

Majority of the media outlets (in English), both domestic and foreign ones, aren't adopting tones either - maybe for the inconvenience to type, maybe because tones make the texts less readable, I'm not very sure, but it seems to be some kind of unannounced rules everybody magically abides to.

Also, I thought it would be a good a idea to introduce as little extra characters as possible to Latin name field, that is also why I'm reasoning about Umlaut ü smile

tenyuhuang's Website

4 Reply by KailoKyra (edited by KailoKyra 2019-02-07 15:30:18)

  • Registered: 2019-01-15
  • Posts: 454

For imported / exported release, use the in-game title to rule out everything else;

What is the current rule on this with english/latin alphabet submissions ? (as sometimes it even varies between US/EU, or even US / US depending on the packaging, I agree that it makes sense to use in-game titles, even if slight variations of the cover or an alternative name exist.
In which case, for CJK submissions, would the english in-game title prevails, or the one used by the version from the country of origin of the game) ?

If not, what if the in-game title is also localized ?

I feel like the packaging title is more important than the in-game title to reference a game, but sometimes it's indeed not applicable or just wrong.



If it's a domestic game without an official Latin / Germanic title, pick an appropriate Latin main title Romanized from the language of that region;

So just the name using pinyin for Chinese-only releases ? Or a "litteral/personnal translation" of the title to English ? I think that the latter might not be a good idea as the main title for an entry tongue



For Russian submissions already in the database for exemple, it seems that the title is romanized but not translated (eg for "Dreamfall: The Longest Journey": Бесконечное путешествие = Beskonechnoe puteshestvie = "Endless journey". But "Dreamfall: The longest journey..." is also on the russian box somewhere, and not in the title in the database for this entry, even if the english/french ect version are referenced with it...).

Will these entries, with other alphabets need to be fixed as well ? (and thus extend these naming principles to other games than CJK submissions ?)


Either way, I'd like to propose the implementation of "Edition / Release (Non-Latin)" field


In the same way the game title would be romanized, this seems indeed to be a good idea to keep the original name with the original alphabet/charset somewhere.

  • From: Shanghai, China
  • Registered: 2018-10-12
  • Posts: 60

KailoKyra wrote:

For imported / exported release, use the in-game title to rule out everything else;

In which case, for CJK submissions, would the english in-game title prevails, or the one used by the version from the country of origin of the game) ?

If not, what if the in-game title is also localized ?

I feel like the packaging title is more important than the in-game title to reference a game, but sometimes it's indeed not applicable or just wrong.

Some examples would be better - so here's a few hypothetical but very common situations:

(A) A US game got imported to China, in-game title retained English -> use the English title;
(B) A US game got imported to China, in-game title translated into Chinese -> use the Chinese title.

This is where redump's non-Latin name & parent / clone function becomes useful big_smile

Also actually, I'm not sure whether deciding by title or language is more appropriate in this situation. That's one of the things we'll either need to think over or decide on a case-by-case scenario.

KailoKyra wrote:

If it's a domestic game without an official Latin / Germanic title, pick an appropriate Latin main title Romanized from the language of that region;

So just the name using pinyin for Chinese-only releases ? Or a "litteral/personnal translation" of the title to English ? I think that the latter might not be a good idea as the main title for an entry tongue


Will these entries, with other alphabets need to be fixed as well ? (and thus extend these naming principles to other games than CJK submissions ?)

To be honest I'd like to keep both, but yes you're right - the main title for each submission should be more objective, thus a literal translation is not preferable, i.e. plain Romanization is still a better option with main Latin title.

That's why I've additionally proposed an optional "Literal Translation" field for reference, despite not necessary for everyone (?).

For submissions of other languages, I'm not sure if similar regulation is in demand or necessary, so that's another story. I'd like to hear everyone's opinion about it tho.

tenyuhuang's Website

6 Reply by tenyuhuang (edited by tenyuhuang 2019-02-22 08:53:29)

  • From: Shanghai, China
  • Registered: 2018-10-12
  • Posts: 60

So, after a few discussions with some collectors and archivists, it seems that under certain circumstances, overriding everything with in-game title (especially for domestic games) isn't a favorable plan.

For example here's a Chinese game called 致命武力2：觉醒, this Chinese title is seen on box, in media, on the official website, pretty much everywhere except in the game - when you get into the game, there is only "Thunder Force 2 Rebirth", which is only a small subtitle on the box and otherwise seen only once in the title screen. Given the situation, romanizing 致命武力2：觉醒 and make it the Latin title would be a better choice.

Therefore, it might be better to pick a title based on the language for domestic games (unless it's a phonetically translated title).

tenyuhuang's Website

  • Registered: 2006-12-24
  • Posts: 3,847

When the ingame title is completely different from the box title - use the box one, the ingame one goes into the comments.
When the box has both Western and Eastern titles and the ingame title is Western - the Western one can be used as main title, another one goes into the comments.
Each case should be discussed separately, though.

Tones can be used, but they can't go into the filenames, you will need to convert them somehow.

Russian translations usually keep the original English title, if I remember correctly, so it's usually fine to use it for naming.

Can't really comment about which romanization system is better for Chinese, since I'm not familiar with any smile I can only suggest something that supports all the dialects, since, as far as I remember, Taiwan uses its own dialect and there are Taiwanese game releases.

  • Jackal
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  • Registered: 2006-12-23
  • Posts: 4,132

The No-Intro rules aren't suited for Chinese releases.. games can have really weird box titles that are completely different from the (often English) ingame title.

  • From: Sweden
  • Registered: 2017-10-30
  • Posts: 45

F1ReB4LL wrote:

Can't really comment about which romanization system is better for Chinese, since I'm not familiar with any smile I can only suggest something that supports all the dialects, since, as far as I remember, Taiwan uses its own dialect and there are Taiwanese game releases.

There isn't really any convenient romanization system that works with all dialects. If there's a game out there that is in Hokkien, it'll most likely just have to use a different romanization system.

  • Registered: 2006-12-24
  • Posts: 3,847

Jackal wrote:

The No-Intro rules aren't suited for Chinese releases.. games can have really weird box titles that are completely different from the (often English) ingame title.

Aren't Japanese translations often the same? Also, there are sometimes purely idiotic cases, like this:
http://www.videogameden.com/cdrom.htm?bab
http://www.pcengine.co.uk/HTML_Games/Baby_Jo.htm

Front cover: Baby Jo: The Super Hero
Box sides, spine and CD front: Baby Jo
Ingame title: Baby Jo in "Going Home"

  • From: Shanghai, China
  • Registered: 2018-10-12
  • Posts: 60

F1ReB4LL wrote:

When the ingame title is completely different from the box title - use the box one, the ingame one goes into the comments.
When the box has both Western and Eastern titles and the ingame title is Western - the Western one can be used as main title, another one goes into the comments.
Each case should be discussed separately, though.

Since the box would most likely be in the language of the region, so I assume it's overall a language-first approach? i.e. Games in Eastern languages use romanized Eastern titles, and vice versa...which we actually agree with, despite our approach are seemingly different.

Jackal wrote:

The No-Intro rules aren't suited for Chinese releases.. games can have really weird box titles that are completely different from the (often English) ingame title.

That is why I needed more site codes big_smile Fortunately it seems that I can do that with HTML codes anyway, not sure if there will be a difference in terms of indexing and searching tho.

tenyuhuang's Website

  • Registered: 2006-12-24
  • Posts: 3,847

tenyuhuang wrote:

Since the box would most likely be in the language of the region, so I assume it's overall a language-first approach? i.e. Games in Eastern languages use romanized Eastern titles, and vice versa...which we actually agree with, despite our approach are seemingly different.

As I've said, it depends on the case. Japanese titles often have an English title and Japanese one is only on the side of the box or on the spine and the 'main' title is the English one.

  • From: Shanghai, China
  • Registered: 2018-10-12
  • Posts: 60

F1ReB4LL wrote:

As I've said, it depends on the case. Japanese titles often have an English title and Japanese one is only on the side of the box or on the spine and the 'main' title is the English one.

In such scenario, are those Japanese texts usually Katakana transcriptions of the English title?

Deciding titles case by case is of course what we should do when actually adding something, but yeah the purpose of this post is to figure out a (mostly) working, supplementary rather than obligatory guide to let people who have no idea which title to pick for CJK games get their submission optimized big_smile

tenyuhuang's Website

  • Registered: 2006-12-24
  • Posts: 3,847

tenyuhuang wrote:

In such scenario, are those Japanese texts usually Katakana transcriptions of the English title?

Nope, the translation.

http://pcengine.co.uk/HTML_Games/Sherlock_Holmes_2.htm - like this ("Images" section)
https://www.amazon.co.jp/パック・イン・ビデオ-カルメ … B0000ZPSPC - or this

The recent Kyrandia II case is a variation of this (the Japanese title presents on the front cover, but written with a much smaller font).