arterm Russian Federation Local time: 08:47 Member (2002) English to Russian
preliminary outline of the session I proposed. Comments are welcome
Jan 9, 2007
Game localization
Session outline.
Proposed session format: forum, group discussion.
Proposed aspects to discuss (I plan to provide an overview & some samples for each):
1) Game types
a. Game genres (7 – 15 min)
i. Fairy tales
ii. Sci-fi
iii. Gambling
iv. Erotic
v. Other: discussion
b. Game platforms (7 – 15 min)
i. Table games
ii. Real world games
iii. PC games
iv. Mobile games
v. Internet, Web games
vi. Other: discussion
2) Game localization issues (15 – 30 min)
a. Choosing a genre for the target game wording
i. Common points with software localization
ii. Common points with fiction translation
b. Localizing mobile (& PC) phone games
i. Source format
1. Possible source formats
2. Converting unusual formats for a typical translation environment: RC files, XML files etc. Understanding Unicode conversions.
ii. Limitations
1. Length limitations – abbreviation versus editing the target text to make it significantly shorter
2. Cultural and ethical limitations
a. Accepting or declining certain game translation offers for ethical reasons
b. Using appropriate lexicon for a game and a target audience – keeping source style versus smoothing or adapting it.
c. Localizing table games – discussion. (I can share our experience with Magic: The Gathering game)
d. Localizing real world games – discussion. (I hope that someone had ever translated scenarios for games like paint-ball, quazar etc and this person would share some experience with others)
3) Things to be localized for games:
a. Game texts
b. Game names
c. Marketing materials
d. Legal agreements: end user, game and game symbols (devices) related rights transfer etc.
e. Game keywords for search engines: leaving in source language versus translating
4) Market of game translation
a. Becoming a game translator
b. Choosing the way to charge for certain types of projects
c. Necessity to regularly translate extremely small assignments
d. Most growing & promising sectors of game translation: discussion
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