On the other hand, I would say that ValuSoft doesn't give a shit because dtp doesn't give a shit about what happens to their games outside of Germany. They just hand it off to whoever will take it and don't even care what they do with it. It's not like Atari has done anything with Venetica, unlike, say The Witcher 2 which they have really promoted. Hell, they even promoted Daggerdale more than Venetica and it's not like that game is winning any awards.
At this point, I think we're lucky we're even getting non-German localizations of dtp games at all.
On the other hand, localized versions are hard to come by in some countries.
What I see here is the frustration of bitterness of the English-language RPG gaming fan base - which is just
used to have games in "their" language *all of the time* - but now finds that parts of the English-languuage market is being treated like non-English speaking ountries have often been treated for quite a good time.
I know that this is ancient, but just look at games up to the mid-90s : non-localized English games were the NORM here in Germany ! Some distribiturs/publishers didn't even bother on translating !
Ultima - this whole series : Untranslated. Except Ultima 7. and NOT the add-on ! Which was, I think, not even sold within Germany. Ultima IX was also translated, I think.
Quest For Glory : Never released here in Germany at all - except the very last game.
What you experience now is nothing but what non-English countries have experienced for a long time. That the English-language market is delivered first, this puts you in a very good luxury position of having virtually EVERY game in your own, native language - or at least in a language that most of the world's gamers can understand. Some exceptions are Japan (or even the whole asian market as such), Spain and France. Next will probably be China.
In do understand this frustration and bitterness - because I hve too often felt it myself. Only vice versa.
nd I have no idea what could be done against it. Maybe "liberate" ValuSoft/THQ from their bias against European games (which they definitively seem to have if they treat the Drakensang series so badly that they just don't care if you complain on the lack of handbooks or not). And Atari - well they didn't do a too good job in some countries as well.
The only guess I can give is that this handling of the Drakensang games is a direct materialization of how they think about the Drakensang games - or perhaps european games in general ?
Are the original devs required to distribute the manual? Just dtp I would imagine, which still survives.
I really have no idea. Ask ValuSoft, they are responsible for this mess.