Video game localization (or computer game localisation) is the process of preparing a video game for a market outside of where it was originally published. The game's name, art assets, packaging, manuals, and cultural and legal differences are typically altered.
Before localization, producers consider economic factors such as potential foreign profit.Bernal-Merino 2008 Most official localizations are done by the game's developers or a third-party translation company. Nevertheless, fan localizations are also popular.
Localization is largely inconsistent between platforms, engines and companies due to its recency. Localizers intend to create an experience like the original game, with discretion to the localization audience. Localizations are considered to have failed if they are confusing or difficult to understand and this may break the player's immersion.Kohler 2005, p. 226
History Since the beginning of video game history, video games have been localized. One of the first widely popular video games, Pac-Man was localized from Japanese. The original transliteration of the Japanese title would be "Puck-Man", but the decision was made to change the name when the game was imported to the United States out of fear that the word 'Puck' would be vandalized into an obscenity. In addition, the names of the ghosts were originally based on colors – roughly translating to "Reddie", "Pinky", "Bluey", and "Slowly". Rather than translate these names exactly, they were renamed to Blinky, Pinky, Inky, and Clyde. This choice maintained the odd-man-out style of the original names without adhering to their exact meaning. This is an early example of a change in cultural context.
Early localization had one main concern. Due to the small memory size of the NES and SNES cartridges many translated text strings were too long. Ted Woolsey, translator of Final Fantasy VI, recounts having to continually cut down the English text due to limited capacity.
Early video game translation was not often a priority for companies, leading to budgets being low and localization time being cut short. Early translations were sometimes "literally done by a 'programmer with a phrase book'".O'Hagan and Mangiron, p. 327 For example, the original translation for the Sega Genesis game Beyond Oasis was discarded as the editor considered it nonsensical and an entirely new story was rewritten without any input from the translator. Occasionally the poor translation of video games has made the game notable. An example of this is with the game Zero Wing whose Engrish text "All Your Base Are Belong to Us" became an early Internet meme.
As technology in the early 2000s improved, localization was made both easier and harder. These improvements made in technology allowed text to be stored in ASCII strings instead of in picture format. Audio processing capability also improved allowing voice acting to be included in video games. The addition of dubbing into video games made the localization process harder and localization producers had to choose if they wanted to record entirely new voice lines or keep the original voice over.Chandler and Deming 2012, p. 317 Graphical capability also improved making games more cinematic, so making sure the newly recorded voice lines matched the lip movements of the characters was important. Also, ensuring that visual gestures of animated characters made sense to a different audience was important.
Modern video games are becoming increasingly complex in scope. As opposed to their older counterparts, video games can have a large amount of dialogue and voice over, making localization efforts significantly harder. The team in charge of localizing Fable II into five languages consisted of 270 actors and 130 personnel. Likewise, the dialogue scripts for Star Wars: The Old Republic contained over 200,000 lines. Director of audio and localization Shauna Perry said that the game had as much audio as ten Knights of the Old Republic recorded back-to-back.Fahey 2008
Styles of localization There are many styles of localizing a video game. "No localization" is when a game is released in an overseas territory with little to no effort to localize the game. "Box and documentation localization" is when only the manuals and box are translated into the target language, but the game itself is not. This style is mostly chosen if the game is an arcade game or if the target country is expected to decently know the original language. In partial localization, the game's text is translated, but voice-over files are not re-recorded. This style is popular with many new Japanese role-playing games and visual novels. Full localization is when all assets of a game are translated and all voice-over is recorded in the target language. This option is usually undertaken by AAA game companies.O'Hagan and Mangiron, p. 117
Academics in translation studies describe four primary methods for translating video games: foreignization (keeping a "foreign taste"), domestication (translating as game to suit characteristics and cultural standards of the destination), no translation (leaving parts of the game in the source language), and transcreation (creating a new text in the destination language).
Production models Officially produced localizations generally fit into one of two categories: "Post-gold" or "Sim-ship". Post-gold means that the game has been released and completed. This usually means there is a gap of time between the release of a localized version and original. The post-gold model allows the producers of a localization to access and play the fully completed game, generally allowing more time to work on and complete a thorough translation. This model was commonly used by Japanese AAA producers, but these companies are now moving towards the sim-ship style.Chandler 2005, pp. 46–47
The other main model is "Sim-ship". This is when a localization is produced before the original game has been released. This method is more viable as games are prone to be pirated at release so there is a profit incentive to releasing this way. Though being crucial to maintain a good release window and leave games less prone to piracy, Sim-ship has its drawbacks. When localizing with this model, a completed game is unlikely to be ready. This results in a few risks for the continuity of the game, since a lot of the crucial context and information needed may be missing. Most western games follow this model.O'Hagan and Mangiron, p. 118
There are two means to go about making a localization that follow one of each of these models: outsourced or in-house. Most game companies in North America and Europe rely on outsourcing as a means of localization. This model is also popular in emerging video game markets such as Chile, Russia, and China. When outsourced, a company that specializes in producing localization is hired to undertake the process. An issue that arises with an outsourced localization is that the company lacks knowledge of the game, as opposed to in-house developers. A localization that arises from the lack of knowledge about the game is commonly known as a "blind localization".Dietz 2007O'Hagan and Mangiron, p. 121
If a localization is outsourced, the developers will usually provide the outsourced company with a localization kit. A localization kit may contain elements such as general information about the project (including deadlines, contact information, software details), resources about the game itself (a walk-through, plot or character descriptions, cheat codes), reference materials (glossaries of terms used in the game world or used for the specific hardware), software (such as computer-aided translation tools), code, and the assets to be translated.O'Hagan and Mangiron, p. 56
Companies may choose to localize in-house. This practice is common for Japanese developers, most notably Square Enix. When localized in-house, the process is completely controlled by the original developers. Although it is common practice to hire freelance translators to work alongside the development team, in-house producers usually have greater access to the original game and to the original artists and authors, who can be consulted about changing art assets or story concerns. Since Japanese companies prefer the post-gold method, in-house translation is favored. In-house productions usually have fewer mistakes and an overall smoother localization. The downside is that this causes a delay between the release of the international and home versions.
Another means of localization is through the unauthorized effort of fans. Fans of video games without an international release may be willing to put unpaid effort into localizing a game if the game is not released internationally. The most notable example of this is the Mother 3 (2006) localization. Fans attempted a petition to Nintendo to localize the game into English, and when this failed they undertook the process themselves. Sometimes, fan interest and fanmade localization is used as a metric of interest. For example, when The Great Ace Attorney was only released in Japan and fans localized it into other languages upon release, it was clear to Capcom that there was enough interest in their game to warrant an international release with an official localization.
When a game is released with a fan-deemed "inferior translation", or the game has been "blindly translated", it can prompt fan action to correct or completely re-do the process of localization. A fan group called DLAN has undertaken the work of localizing many games, mods, cheats, guides, and more into Castilian Spanish when the official versions were of poor quality, such as with The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion.Diaz Montón 2007
Tasks and challenges
The major types of localization are as follows: Linguistic and cultural: the translation of language and cultural references maintaining the feel of the game but making it more appealing for the receiving locale. Hardware and software: for example the change between PAL and NTSC, re-mapping of hotkeys, gameplay modifications. Legal: age ratings may differ depending on the country of release. They are controlled by national or international bodies like PEGI (for Europe), ESRB (for US and Canada), ACB (for Australia), or CERO (for Japan). Graphics and music: some games may exhibit different characters, or the same ones with a slightly different appearance in order to facilitate players identification with their avatar. Music may also vary according to national trends or the preferences of major fan communities.
Localization can be affected by the space on the screen allocated for text, which is often set based on the source language. This can include game elements such as dialogue, signage, captions, or narrative. German is an example of a destination language that presents difficulties due to length the constraints of screen space.