I'm curious why people should write to you? There has always been a German version of Deponia 3, which just hasn't been available on GOG and it still isn't.

Because, I think there are german players who bought the game on GoG and also want to play the game in their own language, without buying it 2 times.
Finally its the same product and they have spent their money to the producer.

I know that there are people who want to play it in German, but the whole write to me thing looks bit shady to me and has certain back alley deal sound on it.

I don't know what you mean, but it has nothing to do with cracking/hacking or equal. As most it's a form of modding and this possibility exists for dozens of games.

Yeah. It's illegal and infringes on Daedalic's copyright. Who would have thought?

There's no grey zone. Making your own fan translations is usually fine and dandy, but unlocking localization isn't. You don't automatically get license to other language versions of the game when you buy English language version. And hacking the game so that you'll get official German voice acting is illegal.

Site which you linked in your previous post demands registration, so I haven't checked what it contains.

I really don't know for sure, but I'm thinking that 50-80% of posted "translations" in the internet uses or adopt data from original localized versions.
When, hypothetically an producer would publish a game in 10 different languages, every language one version of game, all with same content, except the languages and all for same full prize. The player should buy 3 full prize licenses of principally the same game, for getting it in 3 languages.
If this is the way to earn money for a product, then it's right and you should support such a sale system. But in a time where player rights wastes away, these are questionable buiseness practices, which I wouldn't support. Would you?

"Grey zone"?!? May I ask how old you are?

Daedalic owns the copyright for the German voices.
Daedalic chooses to not put the German voices on gog.com to keep German speaking customers from buying the game.
Random internet idiot extracts speech files from his fully localized game and uploads them online.

Surprise, that's piracy, ever heard of it?

It's the reason why DRM free gog.com doesn't get the new and shiny stuff.

Sorry, man, you're on the wrong stage for that bullshit soliloquy. Few people here would nod to that crap. If we were ready to just break the law and infringe on copyright just to get our games, no one would buy here. Perceived 'questionable business practices' change NOTHING about that. Fuck it, we're even readily buying Electronic Arts games here, full price!

The publisher has right to decide if they want to charge for other language versions or not. Making localized versions isn't cheap for the company (and sometimes it's a whole different company who makes the translated version) and they need to cover their costs.

Personally I think it's nice if you get the multilanguage version, but I can live without it and I only buy games in the languages which I want to play those, because I don't really need Russian or Spanish translations. Usually one language is enough for me and I don't have need to play the game in all languages which I understand.

I'm buying each of my games and surprisingly from time to time I'm using language patches and I'm graceful for. Where is the crime happened?
That I got more than wat I paid for? How often happens this in life ? And how really big is the damage for publishers/producers so long products will sold.

Are translations (without permission) legal? No

Are such translations really problematic/damaging? - This is the only question.

Away from illegal cracked backups from games spreading over the internet, such patches appears barely problematic.

Not one for you to self-righteously answer.

Es ist zwar vermutlich sinnlos, an dieser Stelle weiterzudiskutieren, aber die Situation ist doch die: Für eine Sprachversion müssen Sprecher antreten, diese müssen bezahlt werden. Aus diesem Grund ist es -- wie schon mehrfach erklärt wurde -- schlicht illegal, sich eine andere Sprachversion aus dem Internet zu ziehen. Ja, und ich weiß, dass Du "nur" von den Audio-Dateien sprichst, das ändert aber nichts daran.

Wenn Du das für Dich selbst in Ordnung findest, fein, ich würd's an Deiner Stelle aber nicht an die große Glocke hängen.

So, sorry for writing this in German. The essence of the above in English: Even though it might be futile to discuss this any more ... Since for any language version there need speakers to be paid for, it is illegal to download a language version (even if it's only the audio files).

Aside from that: Daedalic may be right in that Koch Media is to blame for not having the German version here on gog. But, who signed the agreement with Koch Media in the first place? And did have Koch Media anything against having German versions of Deponia and Deponia 2? No, they didn't. So, where's the German version? :D Joking ... I think at some point we will see a German version here. Until then, I at least will stay away from buying Deponia 3 (sorry gog).
Besides, I couldn't even finish Deponia 2 due to a stupid bug (er, incompatibility with my hardware) which leads to a crash during the fight scene between Rufus, Cletus, Goal and the girl with only one eye (I can't remember her name). Therefore I'm not really interested in the sequel ...

Waiiiiiit, wrong forum. We're not talking about the Black Eye... errrr.... Dark Eye stuff here.

To recapitulate:

Daedalic never said that about Deponia 3, because evidently Koch Media has no say in the matter. ;)

There was a retail version by EuroVideo in Germany, but Deponia 3 is self published, so they, too, have no say in the matter.

Daedalic's Carsten said in a recent interview that gog.com's lack of international pricing was the actual problem, and the anger of German electronics retail markets such as MediaMarkt and Saturn, who would feel ripped off if an online version of the game was much cheaper.

Those arguments, by then, had no basis in reality any more, as online prices had already universally dropped by at least 30% AND Daedalic was selling a cheap international version of Deponia 3 with German voices via Humble widget on their own site.

To sum up:

It's less a shady and more of an idiotic kind of business practice. But neither the shady nor the idiotic practices make me resort to piracy, which MoD256 is blatantly advertising here without being banned immediately.

:D Ok, sorry ... may have misinterpreted the thing about whether Deponia 3 is self published or not. Again sorry. :)

In that case of course it is idiotic that Deponia should not be available in German. Very idiotic in fact.

Well, screw MediaMarkt and Saturn (which are identical anyway), I say. Rip them off, I say. How many times have they ripped off countless customers?! I for one am not entering one of these stupid stores anymore -- ich bin doch nicht blöd!

But my point was the piracy thing ... that was it what really ticked me off. I mean we should be grateful that game studios are willing to let us buy their work DRM free (of course that was once standard) and not risk that. Thank you.