| | Powwow Report for Japan - Tokyo (Mar 17 2013)
Note Browniz will be credited and the list of attendees will be visible when the organizer enters attendance
| Report from Alain Dellepiane | This past 17th of March we held the second loctalk event. Ten people attended, mostly freelance translators, but also one project manager, one game developer and one student. Most of the event was held in English, but we had a couple of questions in Japanese too.
All the participants sat at the now usual large table and chatted along. A list of topics was provided, but conversation was more free flow than last time, also due to a couple of more general questions from attendees.
Some topics covered:
“Videogame translation industry in general. Fan translations.“
The question was raised about the main differences between fan translations and their professional counterparts.
In general terms, if game localization is a young field (15/20 years old for most languages), fan translations have surged even more recently, with digital distribution tying developers more and more closely with their online communities.
Paradoxically, this is the inverse process of translation as large, where the surge of full time professionals only came with the XX century.
One point raised was the different drive of fans and professionals: where the former only work on what they like, the latter are bound by their client’s requests.
From a fan perspective, this can lead “translators for hire” into being superficial and inaccurate.
This is partially confirmed by some translators, who admit dealing with material they don’t personally enjoy for sheer business reasons, like staying in touch with a client they are interested in.
A different perspective is that translators, for being invested in the translation and not in the product itself, are free of emotional baggage and thus can serve it better (for example through an MDA analysis)
Another point raised is that translation is very time consuming, and thus amateur translators can have only a limited “career”, both in the short (hours spent in a day, week, month) and in the long term (less and less free time due to professional and family life). This, in turn, limits their experience and thus the quality of their output.
Obviously, the topic is far from closed and it would be interesting hearing counterpoints from amateur translators.
Finding clients as a game translator
One attendee raised the question of how getting started in game localization, as even positive tests and interviews don’t seem to lead to much work.
One point raised was the existence of a “circle of trust”, where most companies tend to rely on a common pool of tested translators, rarely taking the plunge on new offers.
One reason for using a recommended resource is that it saves the time, risk and cost of vetting new translators.
Another reason is that, while there are no standard training courses for game localization, there are some general standards and customs to be followed – a professional training most clients simply do not have time for.
One suggestion for escaping this Catch 22 situation was for aspiring localizers to offer a fan translation as a sample with their CV (possibly in a form easily accessible online, like a youtube video). The growing “indie” scene could be a practical starting point for such a project.
“Do’s and Don’ts” on localization projects
What are the main recommendations from translators to project managers in order to ease the localization process? Three main ideas were raised during the event
The first and strongest request is for context. A simple note explaining who is talking to whom and about what in a specific string can save countless headaches.
The second is using a simple formatting in documents to be translated. Interestingly, many Japanese game writers work directly into Word and Excel, and thus enjoy a rich layout with multiple tabs, colored columns and so on.
However, this may become a hindrance during translation, slowing down even simple tasks (like replacing a term) and leading to inconsistencies and mistakes. A simple Excel file with one tab and three columns (string id, source and notes) is usually the most practical and common format for translators.
For developers, the best solution is probably building a central database to import and export the strings as needed, allowing both writers and translators to use the Excel layout they prefer (and building a single storage point for reference and reuse in the process)
The third recommendation for a smoother translation is to avoid stitching. Given a series of strings like “Program failed to save” “Program failed to load” “Program failed to update” and so on, developers often choose to store string as “Program failed to %s” and then task the software with slotting in the necessary word.
This sort of system is fine and elegant when dealing with only one language, especially a very “modular” one like English, but becomes a real headache when you try to shoehorn other languages -with wildly different grammar rules- into it.
In practice, this often leads to dozens of extra testing hours spent to “hack” in the new language, with results that are often unsatisfying. As inelegant it may seem, just storing all the possible messages in a long and repetitive list is probably the most effective solution in terms of time, budget and final quality of the translation.
There have been cases where code has been developed to deal effectively with stitching in accordance with the grammar rules of all the target languages. However, this is a big commitment, one that should be weighted against simpler alternatives (like using shorter modular sentences or icons and symbols).
Movies use shortened subtitles to ease reading. Why games don’t? Should they?
The general feedback was that this is an accessibility issue, not a localization one.
In other words, if subtitles are too long to be read, it’s the product itself that should be amended, either by making the subtitles shorter or by other means – for example Star Ocean let players choose between having subtitles disappear automatically or only after the press of a button.
Unfortunately, accessibility is a low priority aspect for many developers and such solutions are bound to be rare, like closed captioning for deaf gamers or special UI for color-blind ones.
Also, it was highlighted how movie subtitles often sacrifice too much content for sake of brevity, and that games should develop their own codes -more fitting for an interactive media- instead of always looking up at what other fields have done.
memoQ giveaway
Midway through the event, one free “Translator Pro” license for the memoQ translation environment was drawn and awarded to one of the participants. Again, a huge “thank you” to Kilgray and Béatrice Compagnon for the giveaway!
Feedback
One week after the event, we shared an anonymous feedback form with the participants, 40% of which responded.
In their opinion:
The base of the event is good, it just needs to be developed further (50%) or may even stay as it is (50%)
It would be nice having more people, but it’s not essential (75%)
Feedback on the location is predominantly negative, with most attendees suggesting to find a new one (50%)
The idea of giving out promotional licenses for localization tools is enjoyed unanimously
Most people enjoy the idea of recording the next event and posting it as a podcast (75%) but this might also discourage some from attending (25%)
The next event should be either three hours (50%) or two hours long (50%)
According to all interviewees, the next event should held in June
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