If the demography of the game changes, you'll have to learn polish, or lose gamers from the variation of languages and/or adapt the game in multiple languages.
Here is an example of downside of not enforcing english-only:
http://mmohuts.com/review/knight-onlineFirst released in Korea back in 2004, Knight Online has gained an international popularity. Now played by over 4 million users across the globe, Knight Online shows that good gameplay and a well made PvP system can trump flashy graphics and hyped gimmicks. But there is a complication to the game’s success; most users, even on the official North American servers are foreigners which makes communication difficult. Knight Online seems to be one of those games that veterans continue to enjoy but new players have a difficult time penetrating.
Turkish Invasion
Knight Online has a huge community, there are 15 servers, each with 2 or more channels. The trouble is, many of the players you’ll encounter are Turkish. I’m not sure how or why Turkish gamers decided to flock to Knight Online but a large majority of all players on the Gamers First run servers are Turks. This explains why my usual online name ‘Altay’ was taken. The developers and publishers don’t seem to know what to do with this odd demographic change — the game is localized in English but with poor grammar. Some of the in-game text is still in Korean and after you log in, you’ll be greeted with Turkish game updates. All this isn’t that big a deal but it sure struck me as odd. If you don’t mind playing alone or communicating on instinct, none of this should be a problem but late game PvP coordination may be difficult if you’re not willing to pick up a few words of this middle eastern language.
Posted: Sat Nov 12, 2011 4:43 pm
I fail to see any downside, am I missing something?