Czech Wishlist Fan Gets Baseball Sim Localized, Steam Launch Set for August 31
The single wishlist gesture turned a niche indie title into a cross-cultural story, drawing cooperation from Czech volunteers, professional voice actors, and a national team pitcher, and boosting wishlists roughly 18 times over.
Key Facts
- 'Ball Collecting Simulator' launches on Steam on August 31 for 700 yen, with a 30% launch discount bringing the price to 490 yen.
- The game gained Czech localization after developer Eba noticed a single wishlist registration from the Czech Republic.
- Steam wishlist registrations surpassed 6,500, with over 2,000 from the Czech Republic.
- Czech volunteer translators and professional voice actors, including Filip Cvejn, will handle the localization and voice acting.
- Czech WBC team pitcher Ondrej Satria will appear in the game through audio and photo compositing.
Reporting from 2 sources: 4Gamer.net, Game Spark.
Solo developer EBA GAME, run by developer Eba, announced that the first-person baseball ball search simulator 'Ball Collecting Simulator' will launch on Steam on August 31 for 700 yen, with a 30% launch discount bringing the price to 490 yen. The game is set in a Japanese high school baseball club and depicts the unreasonable hierarchies of coaches and seniors, described as psychological horror based on the author's real experiences. The project gained worldwide attention when Eba discovered a single wishlist registration from the Czech Republic and decided to add Czech localization for that one person. That decision sparked a viral reaction, with the related X post surpassing 110,000 likes and 2.22 million views. As a result, Steam wishlist registrations surged from about 350 at the initial announcement to over 6,500, with more than 2,000 coming from the Czech Republic. The localization, initially planned as AI translation, will now be done with volunteer cooperation from Czech people, and full voice acting by professional Czech voice actors has been decided. Czech WBC team pitcher Ondrej Satria has offered to cooperate and will appear in the game through audio and photo compositing.
- Czech studio Warhorse Studios, the team behind the Kingdom Come: Deliverance series, replied to Eba's post, along with pitcher Ondrej Satria, who sent a DM asking "Is there anything I can help you with?"
- Voice actors include Filip Cvejn, who appeared in the Czech dub of the movie The Super Mario Galaxy Movie.
- Overseas outlets picked up the story before the Japanese response peaked: PC Gamer covered it on August 4, and Dexerto followed on August 5.
- The X post tied to the announcement passed 110,000 likes and 2.22 million views.
- Czech wishlist registrations exceed 2,000, roughly twice the number of domestic Japanese registrations.
- Eba said the Czech Republic respects baseball and Japan, knowledge he drew from the World Baseball Classic, when he decided to add Czech support for that single registrant.
- Extra balls collected beyond the requirement carry over to the next stage, and the stage structure covers the field, school building, and clubroom area.
- The game depicts the oppression and unreasonable hierarchies of the time based on the author's and those around them's real experiences, but the developer adds that whether to perceive it as horror is up to the player.
Synthesized by Yomimono from the 2 cited sources below, including Japanese-language reporting where cited, then editorially reviewed before publishing.