Game Localization: 2018 Link Roundup

Howdy, partners! Here's our selection of articles, videos and interviews on our favorite topic published in 2018. We update this link roundup whenever we find some great content, so keep an eye on it ;) Happy reading!

GAMASUTRA

Translating the humor & tone of Yakuza games for the West

Atlus's Scott Strichart discusses the ins and outs of adapting games from the Yakuza series for Western audiences; from near impossible-to-translate Japanese puns to how the team works together and overcomes the various challenges posed by localization.

Pseudo-localization –A must in video gaming

IGDA Localization SIG member Adolfo Gómez-Urda provides great advice on pseudo-localization, which aims at testing UI and font compatibility in various languages.

KOTAKU

The words for gaming in different languages

Kez MacDonald analyses gaming jargon in different languages and reveals how the outlook on gaming or being a gamer can vary from one language to another, depending on the words we use.

SDL TRADOS

The ins and outs of video game localization with Dmitry Kornyukhov Dmitry Kornyukhov from The Open Mic shares his passion for video games, how they shaped his career as a game translator, as well as the specifics of game localization. Our guide How to become a game translator and this interview given to gameindustrycareerguide.com a couple of months ago are some great additional reads on the topic.

LEGENDS OF LOCALIZATION

Fat, beauty, and A Link Between Worlds’ localization

An interesting post from Clyde Mandelin in which he analyses how references to "fat" and "beauty" were handled in A Link Between Worlds' English localization.

Common problems when translating games into Japanese Once again, Clyde Mandelin delivers expert advice on Japanese localization and details the most common problems that happen with English to Japanese game translation.

GDC TALK

Crowdsourcing the localization of Gone Home

GDC Vault recently added this talk from 2014 in which Gone Home developer Johnnemann Nordhagen analyses the pros and cons of crowdsourcing localization for a narrative-heavy game.

SILICONERA

Monster Hunter: World directors on coming up with monster names and localizing them

Monster Hunter: World directors share their recipe for coming up with great and evocative monster names and how they localize them.

SLATOR

Interview with Hi-Rez Studios' localization director Localization Director Estelle Bailly shares Hi-Rez Studios' approach to localization, including their strategy to make it count and be affordable. She also discusses machine translation for game localization.

When Fans Localize a Sci-Fi Game Czech developer Keen Software share their experience crowdsourcing Space Engineer's localization in 13 languages. They detail the pros and cons of their process, but also the challenges it poses and the technology it requires in order to be successful.

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STAFF PICK #1 - WORDBEE

Podcast with Kate Edwards, former IGDA executive director Dealing with culturalization for 30 years and in the games industry for 25 years, Kate Edwards is one of our favorite speakers on localization, here at Level Up Translation. In this podcast, she discusses costly localization disasters she helplessly witnessed or helped avert throughout her career, as well as world building and touchy topics, and also gives her expert advice for successful culturalization and making games more inclusive.

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STAFF PICK #2 - KOTAKU ​​

Illegible text in video games

This post tackles an element which is very often overlooked by developers, but which plays an important role in the quality of the user experience: text readability. Joe Humfrey (Inkle) and Brendon Chung (Quadrilateral Cowboy and Thirty Flights of Loving) analyse the most common pitfalls: subtitles, books or UI text are common stumbling blocks, and they and give some takeaways for effortless reading in video games.

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Feeling smarter already? ;)

Make sure you check our blog for more game localization best practices, market insights and interviews.