Market version: everything that changes besides the words
A market version is a release adapted for one place: dialogue, names, setting, visible text and any reference that would not land. A language count describes the dialogue and none of the rest. As of 2026-09-22.
| Layer | Changed for a market | Covered by a language count |
|---|---|---|
| Spoken dialogue | Yes | Yes |
| Character names | Often | No |
| Setting and street detail | Sometimes | No |
| Text visible in the picture | Has to be | No |
Inclusion rule. The layers a market version touches, marked for whether any published language figure describes them. Order. Fixed order, the layer language figures do cover first.
1Sounding local and looking imported
A release with translated dialogue over unchanged names, architecture and signage reads as foreign material dubbed rather than as local production. Audiences notice without being able to say why.
That is the gap between a language and a market. Every published figure in this register addresses the first, and nothing in it addresses the second except one vendor statement about region presets.
2In a generated pipeline the levers exist earlier
Names, appearance and setting are written into the documents a generated pipeline produces before any picture exists. So a market version is cheaper to make than in live action, provided the decision is made at that point.
Made later it is as expensive as anything else that requires regenerating pictures. The ordering is the same argument that applies to text drawn inside a frame.
3Why it is a term here and not a column
A column needs several vendors publishing comparable material. One vendor mentioning region presets is a fact about that vendor, and a column with one entry would suggest the question had been asked of everyone.
So it is defined here and recorded where it appears. A reader can then ask a vendor directly, which is the most a register built on published evidence can usefully set up.
A definition, not a measurement: no vendor figure appears here that is not also in the register. Where a vendor publishes a region or appearance statement, it is recorded on its cell.
Nearby terms: Working document, Localisation. The whole vocabulary is at terms; nothing on this page is a claim about a named product.