No Export For You / Tabletop Games

• Tabletop games produced outside of the US rarely make it to our shores, to the point that it's easier to list the exceptions — although this is starting to shift, at least for Roleplaying Games, with crowdfunding, print-on-demand and digital release making the effort and expense of translating such games somewhat easier to bear.
  • Games Workshop's products.
  • Bushiroad has released English editions of Card Fight!! Vanguard and Weiss Schwarz TCG, but not Chaos TCG, aka Character Operating System, including sets for Aokana: Four Rhythm Across the Blue , Aria the Scarlet Ammo, Chaos;Child, God Eater, The Idolmaster, Ikki Tousen, Is the Order a Rabbit?, Non Non Biyori, Steins;Gate, The Testament of Sister New Devil, etc.
  • Maid RPG got packaged into one book by combining the core game and expansions during the translation. It helps that this quirky game is very well done and became quite popular.
  • Carddass trading card sets and TCG card sets have not been exported, including Data Carddass, compatible with arcade machines, AR Carddass, compatible with smartphones, and Net Carddass, with online features. Carddass card series have included Black Butler, Bleach, Code Geass, Digimon, Doctor Slump, Dragon Ball, Final Fantasy, Fullmetal Alchemist, Gintama, Gundam, Hunter × Hunter, Inuyasha, Kamen Rider, Kinnikuman, Naruto, Neon Genesis Evangelion, One Piece, Ranma ½, Revolutionary Girl Utena, Rurouni Kenshin, Sailor Moon, Slam Dunk, Soul Eater, Toriko, Ultraman, Yu-Gi-Oh!, YuYu Hakusho, and Zatch Bell!.
  • Dragon Quest: The Dragon Quest Official Card Game, Dragon Quest Card Game: Battle Arena, and Dragon Quest TCG were not exported.
  • Engel got a few books brought over to the US, before the US version of the line unceremoniously imploded, with the majority of books remaining untranslated.
  • Final Fantasy: Several trading cards sets were not exported, including card sets based on Final Fantasy V, Final Fantasy VI, Final Fantasy VII, Final Fantasy VIII, Final Fantasy X, Final Fantasy XI, Lightning Returns: Final Fantasy XIII, Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles, Final Fantasy Tactics Advance, Final Fantasy: Unlimited, Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within, and the Final Fantasy Art Museum series. The Final Fantasy Trading Card Game was not exported.
  • In Nomine Satanis / Magna Veritas got a loose adaptation by Steve Jackson Games — very loose; they have some of the same concepts, but the execution is hugely different.
    • Specifically, the original is clearly a satire. The Steve Jackson version is a more serious take.
  • The card game King's Blood was originally Japanese.
  • The RPG, miniatures game, and card game Anima: Beyond Fantasy were originally Spanish. Even there, though, most of the sourcebooks haven't come over yet.
  • Mutant Chronicles and its Spinoffs... but not the RPGs that led into it, Mutant (in either edition) and Mutant RYMD.
    • Considering the fact that the third edition of Warzone was published by Excelsior and Mutant Chronicles: Collectible Miniatures Game was published by Fantasy Flight Games, and both companies have their HQ in the US, this is doubly odd.
  • KULT.
  • Qin: The Warring States has made it over, but the translation process is understandably sluggish, almost to the point of Development Hell.
  • Queen's Blade: Only four gamebooks have been localized: Alleyne, Melona, Nanael and Tomoe. The CCG Queen's Blade: The Duel (Duel System TCG) was not exported outside of some promo cards. The card series Queen's Blade Collection Card was not exported.
  • Senran Kagura TCG Unlimited VS was not exported.
  • Victoriana RPG and its Abney Park Spinoff Airship Pirates
  • Tenra Bansho Zero
  • Little Wizards
  • Golden Sky Stories
  • The Dark Eye
  • In the late '90s, French PC game Dark Earth was ported over by Microprose. However the tabletop rpg games set in the Dark Earth setting never got translated.
• For boardgames it's very different, with many German and other European games being released in the US.
  • Another more likely candidate is Japanese CCGs and miniatures games, especially if they have an Anime to tie into them — examples include the various tabletop Pokémon spinoffs, Yu-Gi-Oh!, and Bakugan.
    • Battle Spirits had an English Release in August 2009, however, it was cancelled and we won't see anything past the sixth set to Bandai's Invisible Advertising and failure to even bother stocking the cards.
• Yu-Gi-Oh! has two forms of this: early cards, and promo cards. In the former case, the earliest sets released internationally were cobbled together from several Japanese sets, which meant a lot of cards didn't make the cut. Since most of these cards are Com Mons, few people care—there aren't a lot of people begging for The Drdek. More painful are promo cards, or cards released with video games or for special events. They're getting slightly better at releasing these, but they still tend to lag. Blue-Eyes Ultimate Dragon is probably the most infamous one; despite being one of the most iconic cards in the anime, it was released in 2000 and didn't get a wide English release until 2008. Even Blue-Eyes Shining Dragon, its upgraded form, was released in 2005. Sixth Sense might set the record for a promo, being released in 2003 in Japan and 2013 in the West... though many wish it hadn't.
  • A particular case of a card that seems reticent to come out is Magi Magi ☆ Magician Gal, which was originally released in 2011 and has yet to be released internationally to this day. By some accounts, this is due to the fact that its artwork was done by Kazuki Takahashi and contains some elements prone to Bowdlerization in foreign releases (such as a pentagram gem), and Takahashi is none too fond of his artwork being censored, meaning the choice is between releasing the card with the artwork as-is or not releasing it at all.
  • Yu-Gi-Oh! Rush Duel is a particularly frustrating example. Despite being the new format being pushed hard in it's home region of Japan, to the point of getting two anime adaptations to advertise it, the physical game has only ever been exported to Korea. The only way for western fans to play the game legally is through Yu-Gi-Oh! Duel Links; and that was introduced three years after the physical game debuted, with still no word on if the physical cards are ever being exported.
• Magic: The Gathering has the entire Three Kingdoms block, based on (you guessed it) Romance of the Three Kingdoms. Originally produced for an Asian audience, the set only saw an English printing in Europe and Australia, never officially making it to US shores. Only a few cards from the set have ever officially made it here as reprints.
  • The Unglued and Unhinged expansions were only printed in English, due to the large majority of the plays on words, puns, and other jokes that didn't translate well into other languages.
  • The ante cards in early sets never made it into Portuguese print editions. Why? Well, it turned out that Brazil was/is the major market for these editions - and gambling is illegal there.
• Atmosfear had this on two occasions:
  • A second booster tape for The Harbingers was only made available in the game's native Austalia.
  • One of the DVD games, Khufu the Mummy, never saw a release in the US. Likewise, the Express version of the 2004 game was only ever released in Spain.