The Canadian Press reports that the Quebec government and the Entertainment Software Alliance have reached an agreement under which all video games sold in Quebec will be translated into French.
Quebec Gov’t Strikes Deal with ESA on French Language Video Games
						August 19, 2007
						
		Share this post
3 Comments

Law Bytes
Episode 247: My Senate Appearance on the Bill That Could Lead to Canada-Wide Blocking of X, Reddit and ChatGPT
byMichael Geist

October 27, 2025
							Michael Geist
					October 20, 2025
							Michael Geist
					October 6, 2025
							Michael Geist
					September 22, 2025
							Michael Geist
					September 15, 2025
							Michael Geist
					Search Results placeholder
Recent Posts
 We Need More Canada in the Training Data: My Appearance Before the Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage on AI and the Creative Sector We Need More Canada in the Training Data: My Appearance Before the Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage on AI and the Creative Sector
 The Law Bytes Podcast, Episode 247: My Senate Appearance on the Bill That Could Lead to Canada-Wide Blocking of X, Reddit and ChatGPT The Law Bytes Podcast, Episode 247: My Senate Appearance on the Bill That Could Lead to Canada-Wide Blocking of X, Reddit and ChatGPT
 The Law Bytes Podcast, Episode 246: Mohamed Zohiri on the Rise and Emerging Regulation of Stablecoins The Law Bytes Podcast, Episode 246: Mohamed Zohiri on the Rise and Emerging Regulation of Stablecoins
 Senate Bill Would Grant Government Regulatory Power to Mandate Age Verification For Search, Social Media and AI Services Accompanied By Threat of Court Ordered Blocking of Lawful Content Senate Bill Would Grant Government Regulatory Power to Mandate Age Verification For Search, Social Media and AI Services Accompanied By Threat of Court Ordered Blocking of Lawful Content
 Government Reverses on Bill C-2: Removes Lawful Access Warrantless Demand Powers in New Border Bill Government Reverses on Bill C-2: Removes Lawful Access Warrantless Demand Powers in New Border Bill

Great!
Just great… Another stupid political move that will serve no real purpose and will limit the products available to us in Qubec. When will the government understand that with only 7 million people, we aren’t a big enough market to force our policies on the world? If a content producer wasn’t going to translate it in the first place, this won’t change that. They’ll just choose not to sell it here.
I disagree
To have more game available in French in Qubec is good news.
As I understand it, this deal will only force games that are translated anyway (for Europe) to be made available in French over here too. If it’s the case, it only means that games available in French in France, for example, should be localized from PAL to NTSC so they can be played in French here too.
If that’s the case, what’s the problem?
Of course, if Qubcois gamerss
are denied some games because the publisher don’t want to pay for the localization or because the law is too strict to allow games that are not translated (what happens to indie games in that case?), then everybody lose.
Can you say “mail order”?
How do they define ‘sold in Qubec’? I can see Amazon’s sales of video games to Qubec going up… then I can see an amazon.qc.ca shop that doesn’t sell Engll
ish only games 🙂