Translated by professional programmers, or the difficulties of gaming localization

Roses are red
Violets are blue
All of my base
Are belong to you

Localization of games is an extremely fertile topic for IT humor, one of the textbook examples of which is presented in the epigraph. This usually happens when unscrupulous translators, illiterate amateurs, or pirates get involved. And sometimes the developers themselves, in order to save, take on unusual functions, as a result of which memes appear, such as those in the title.
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In Alconost, localization is done not by programmers, but by professional translators, native speakers. However, over 8 years of work, we have been convinced that a quality translator is only one of the components of successful localization. If the product is not prepared for localization, the work of the translator becomes complicated, which can lead to a misunderstanding of meaning, mistakes, loss of time for additional questions, rechecking and correcting texts.

Today we want to talk about localization problems that can and should be solved at the product development stage, and also give some simple recommendations to reduce the number of iterations on the path to successful localization.

"Exotic" languages ​​and cultural features

If you plan to translate your game into “exotic” languages ​​(interestingly, for an English-speaking product, adaptation to Cyrillic languages ​​can also be considered “exotic”), the probability of seriously “flying” with localization is extremely high. Even before the start of negotiations with the translation agency should think:

• What is the direction of writing in the target language? Everything is simple - from left to right, as in Latin or Cyrillic, or from right to left, as in Arabic script.
• Does the new language support the encoding you are using? If not supported, you need to add.
• Does the font in your interface contain all the necessary characters? The translator will be glad to know in advance that “” and German umlauts are also letters with two dots on top - you do not support.
• Do I need to change the size of the character? Small hieroglyphs may not be readable.

If you couldn’t figure out at least one of these questions, you will probably have several exciting weeks of revisions and code alterations waiting for the localization to begin, but the translation can be done at least theoretically.

Localization is not limited to working with the text - it also includes the coordination of cultural characteristics and moral and ethical aspects. Many gamers remember the scandal with the scene of the shooting of passengers at the Russian airport cut out of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2. Perhaps in Infinity Ward just got a little excited, and maybe deliberately took the risk to increase the popularity of their product. But if you did not save money for serious lawyers, before you enter into the plot of a super bloodthirsty "terrorist", be prepared for the fact that public morality can overtake him in the most unexpected place.

Here is a list of topics that inadvertently touched on, you can easily get a multi-million dollar lawsuit or just notoriety:

• Religion. Including all sorts of strange things like occult and satanism.
• Sex, frankly dressed characters and vulgar expressions. Especially true if your market will be the country of the "eastern" civilization.
• Prejudice about alien culture. If your director likes the Petrosyan jokes about stupid Americans, this does not at all mean that the Americans themselves like them. Similarly, not all Ukrainians eat fat, Russians drink vodka, and Belarusians grow bulbs.
• Wars and conflicts, terrorism. To sell a game in China in which the Chinese army is the main global aggressor and the CCP’s evil stronghold can be problematic.
• Politics. In particular, the specific view of different countries on history.

Even large companies are not insured against “cultural” blunders. For example, Blizzard at one time was forced in an emergency order to remove all the images of skeletons from the Chinese version of World of Warcraft. If localization is done by professionals, then with almost 100% probability the translation will be handled by a person who was born or lived most of his life in the country, of which he is a native speaker. This means that he is familiar with the details of culture and mentality, therefore one can listen to his advice.

It would not be superfluous to check the proper names for their meaning in other languages ​​- a beautiful word can be offensive or ridiculous in a foreign language. Example: GM, for obvious reasons, did not dare to promote its Chevrolet Kalos brand in the CIS, renaming it Aveo.

Variables in the text and their features

The word "variable" can cause tooth gnashing in any localizer of games. One of the most common mistakes made by developers is the division of sentences containing variables into parts. Suppose you use a variable to generate combat messages of the form “You take X hit points”. If you put parts of the sentence (“You take” and “X hit points”) in different places of the code, without warning about their interconnectedness, you can get the following text at the output: “You take 2 units of damage”.

I do not want to frighten anyone with expressions like the “grammatical structure of the target language”, but it exists and is almost the main cornerstone of localization. Indeed, when adding variables, developers often do not take into account that in a number of languages ​​their meaning can change the construction of a phrase. We are talking not only about the endings in Russian (1 unit, 3 units, 10 units), but also, say, about articles in German.

When there are several variables, it is often not possible to swap them (usually this is a sign of a not very well-written product, but nonetheless). And translators need this opportunity, because in different languages ​​there are different rules for constructing sentences: if in the original the variable X is first, and after Y, then the foreign order may be different - Y and after X. Take the example with the same combat messages: “You take 10 hit points, 3 points blocked ”. A beautiful translation will look like “You have blocked 3 points of damage, receiving 10 points”. But if the ability to change variables in places is absent, the meaning of the phrase changes radically. This nuance needs to be taken into account if you want to have a “live” language at the output, and not a straining attempt of the translator to write at least correctly, since it doesn’t look nice at all.

We summarize:

• Consider adding word forms to variables. Especially when it comes to numerals and gender characters.
• Do not tear the sentences apart. And sentences containing similar variables (for example, “You take% d points” and “Total points:% d”), try to be placed side by side, and not in 100,500 lines. In this case, the translator will see the full picture, and perform the translation uniformly.
• Allow the translator to swap variables. If this possibility is not provided or causes an error, it's time to make corrections to the code.
• Provide translators with a list of variable values.

The next trouble most often haunts developers from Asian countries, however, and our compatriots sometimes forget that not all languages ​​are comparable to English in terms of brevity. To be honest, we have long dreamed of "rubber" interfaces, which themselves adapt to the text, but it is obvious that this is not always realizable. Most often, the problem is expressed either in a strict limitation of the length of the text field (and translators have to invent unthinkable reductions), or in the absence of restrictions in general - then the translated text “crawls out” beyond the allotted space. Worst of all, if developers forget or find it difficult to say exactly how many “visible” characters are available in a particular field. Then we, localizers, have to spend catastrophically a lot of time and effort, selecting various versions of suitable texts for the length.

Glossary and references

The problems of the Sheriff Indians, as you know, do not care. But preparing the files with the text, it is not at all superfluous to analyze whether the localization team will be able to understand their logic or its absence. If the translator is not clear where in the multi-megabyte file are the interface elements, and where the quest names are trouble. Especially this situation, as mentioned above, affects the quality of the translation of variables. Therefore, it is best to think about organizing lines at the design stage, group them, and then provide them with comments.

For large game projects like RPG or space strategies, the de facto standard is a glossary. As a rule, gaming terminology is carried into it: the names of objects (artifacts, technologies), names (plot characters, NPC, races), terms (scientific designations), locations (cities, continents, planets).

Comments must be present next to the reference - expressions that have a certain emotional color depending on the context. This applies to cases where you make a game on any work, use a lot of slang vocabulary and do not neglect wordplay. Excess reference can make localization meaningless - for example, hardly anyone outside the CIS will appreciate the game based on the Soviet film. On the other hand, a resident of ex-USSR will find a quotation from The Graduate movie popular in Western scientific circles that seems to be schizophrenic: “I just want to say one word to you. Just one word. Plastics! ”. And this, by the way, is one of the 100 most legendary quotes from the cinema of the 20th century according to Time magazine.

In simpler situations, it is better not to wait for the translator to guess about everything himself, and immediately inform him that you named this monster after your cat, and this joke is a quote from your favorite series. We also recommend negotiating the translation of proper names, in case you think that Snowball in the English version is better to be Snowflake. References and wordplay should be placed in a separate file or explicitly highlighted in the glossary.

At your leisure: you can follow the work with the references in the recently released Metro: Last Light game. Try to compare and find differences in the same dialogs in the Russian and English versions. And you will understand how hard it would be for translators to work without commentary on game texts.

Localization of graphics, audio and video

Do you know what will be the hardest thing to fix after the translation is made? Graphics, audio and video. In order for these project elements to be properly processed by localizers, follow simple guidelines:

• Each picture is accompanied by information about its location, the role for the plot and meaning. Especially if the image consists of several elements.
• In video files, provide for the translation of a separate audio track.
• Say a decisive “no” to hard-coded subtitles. Just put them in a separate file.

A separate item - the localization of audio materials. In addition to translating replicas and dialogues, this includes casting, recording, editing and mastering. This part of localization is time consuming and significantly increases the project budget. Moreover, the creators of the game may end up being unhappy with the result, since it is almost impossible to pick up voices with the same timbre and in the localized version the characters “nurtured” by them sound completely different. Therefore, if you have doubts (for financial or ideological reasons), and the original language is more or less understandable to the target audience (for example, English), we recommend limiting the localization to high-quality subtitles, paying them more attention, for example, adding a few new languages.

Remarks in conclusion

When all the preparatory work is done, it's time to pass the information to the localizers. But it is advisable to do this without sending disparate files via Skype, but by collecting a localization kit (lockit or localization kit). In fact, it can be an archived set of files separated by directories (string resources, graphics, sounds and videos, fonts). Game texts can be arranged in the form of SQL database or Excel table. Inclusion in the accompanying information in lokit (localization instructions with wishes, utilities for compilation, if we are talking about localization, and not just translation) will be a good thing. In more detail about the structure and intricacies of making lockit, we recommend reading this link .

All that is written above, primarily relates to the localization of games. But in general, recommendations can be used to translate software and websites. In general, as practice shows, the sooner a developer thinks about the localization of his product, the better the result. Do not hesitate to contact the translator long before the release and discuss all the incomprehensible moments, so that at the nearest Electronic Entertainment Expo, your game, among others, will receive a prize for the best localization.

We wish more releases and fewer bugs!


about the author

Alconost is engaged in the localization of applications, games and websites in 60 languages. Language translators, linguistic testing, cloud platform with API, continuous localization, 24/7 project managers, any formats of string resources.

We also make advertising and training videos - for websites selling, image, advertising, training, teasers, expliners, trailers for Google Play and the App Store.

Read more: https://alconost.com