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[Christian223]

Never heard of this, what do you mean?.

[eld]

So you've never played any game or watched a movie that was not from your country?

[Aloshi]

I play pretty much all games with subtitles on, always watch TV with subtitles/captioning, and usually watch DVDs with subtitles on (often I forget, though). I think it's mostly habit, but I do find it's easier to read text than to listen to words for some reason. All of these apply to both things in my language and those in other languages.

[TeeGee]

I'm not a native speaker. If I fail to catch what the characters are saying, because of accent or whatever, I still have subtitles to fall back on. That's why they are there. It makes it more convenient for people who are not from the USA or UK (yes, such people actually exist).

[Zest]

Quite frankly, not enough games have subtitles. It should be a standard like in film and television, so that we can accommodate gamers who are hard of hearing.

[J. Kyle Pittman]

Many modern games are developed exclusively for surround sound, with no option to switch to basic stereo. If you don't have a full surround sound setup, spatialized sounds located behind the player may be muted. I can't count how many times I've had to turn on subtitles just so I can tell what the characters are saying.

I'm fully in favor of the trend of turning subtitles on by default.

[ThemsAllTook]

do you guys watch movies in your native language with subtitles as well?

I used to have a lot of trouble picking out what people were saying in movies. Without subtitles on, I'd miss a LOT of the dialogue and not always be able to follow what was going on. I've gotten out of the habit these days and am now somewhat better at hearing words, but there are still times when I have to pause and rewind to replay a line several times before I can figure out what it is.

It does seem odd that games would turn on subtitles by default, but I can't say I've really noticed that.

[[RM8]]

I'm not a native speaker. If I fail to catch what the characters are saying, because of accent or whatever, I still have subtitles to fall back on.

Same here.

[Thomas Finch]

I have odd hearing and many, many times it's hard for me to hear what a character is saying. So, I love subtitles and always turn them on. I can understand why it would distract or bother other people, but I watch Japanese anime so I'm used to subtitles.

[Landshark RAWR]

i like subtitles when other people in the room WONT SHUT THE HELL UP 

[C.A. Silbereisen]

it's useful in games where you can walk around during cutscenes or where characters talk a lot during gameplay. i believe assassins creed has subtitles  off by default. i eventually had to turn them on. i missed a lot of dialog because i wasn't close enough to the speaking character to understand what they were saying.

also idk i dont find subtitles distracting at all and i live in a country where most foreign movies etc, are dubbed. im not
a big fan of animus and stuff either. 

[Andy Wolff]

Deafness runs in my family so I like watching everything with subtitles on. That way if I go deaf too, I'll be used to the subtitles already. Anyway I like subtitles and don't see why having an option for them would ever bother anyone. Just keep them off if you find them distracting

[eld]

I understand what subtitles are and why they're a necessary option. I've just always wondered why it's only popular in games and why it's almost always a default option.

So you've never played any game or watched a movie that was not from your country?

native language

I'm not talking about foreign languages, should have made that more clear.

Aaah, I thought you just meant native movies, not games aswell.

In that case: there are deaf people, and in my case: I have no problem with english, but in the midst of massive amount of other sound effects or if I'm playing some game late and have to keep the volume down, it helps a bunch to have subtitles.

[Tumetsu]

it doesn't bother me or anything; I get why they're there. again, just curious why it's default so often.

All games I have encountered seem to have subtitles turned off by default and also can be turned on only after first cutscenes which is sometimes annoying for non native speaker. As of the subtitles in general, I'm familiar with them since in Finland dubbing is usually thought worse and most of people prefer watching subtitled films rather than hearing (usually) bad voice acting byt their own language.

[biomechanic]

I guess whether you see most of games as having subtitles on by default will depend on what kind of games you play. For me thats RTS and FPS (western AAA) and I usually have to turn them on.

Personally I'm all for subs, especially in dialogue/cutscene heavy games. I can read the whole badly written conversation in the timespan of one terribly voice acted line.

[TeeGee]

All games I have encountered seem to have subtitles turned off by default and also can be turned on only after first cutscenes which is sometimes annoying for non native speaker.

Same here.

[Tumetsu]

Something I have sometimes wondered is why these fine and dandy AAA+ games can't have settings/options menu in the main screen before actual gameplay. Sure, many of them have, but many do not, at least the PS3 games I have.

[PaleFox]

Games have terrible voice acting and usually horrible writing. Why would I want to have to pay any attention to that?


Subtitles are so I can read the dialog quickly and then skip it.

[Daiz]

I don't use subtitles if the spoken audio is in my native language (Finnish). Otherwise I always prefer to have subtitles for clarification. This leads to me basically playing all my games with subtitles on, and whenever they're not available (luckily very rarely) it's a large bummer. I was very disappointed to find out that the first Assassin's Creed didn't have subtitles, especially when near the start of the game you have to listen in on an conversation through an air vent and it was such mumbling that I couldn't make out basically anything from it.

I also always prefer to consume my foreign media in its original language with subtitles. Dubs can severely detract from the experience with their poor quality, and even if they're not horrible, they're basically always inferior to the original.