4 difficulties in localizing mobile games on the example of Fishing Clash - translation
Habr, hello! Translated an article by Kevin Dabrowski, creative director of Ten Square Games. Using the example of their game Fishing Clash, he told them what packs happened to them, and what to do to prevent this from happening again.
The concepts should be immediately separated: localization and translation are not the same thing. When you translate, you need to transfer the original meaning of the text as accurately as possible, and during localization this is not always required. Localization is a kind of adaptation. For example, one of the stupidest ideas that might come to mind is to translate the Thanksgiving Event as a Thanksgiving Event for Chinese gamers. Because ... "What is the Thanksgiving Day in general?" The Chinese will say.
')
Continued under the cut.
You should always follow the development dynamics of the mobile games development industry, so we suggest that you familiarize yourself with 4 obstacles that you may encounter during localization.
So many lines, so little time
For a mobile game to be interesting, you constantly need to pour new content into it. Lots of content! Fishing Clash launches an average of 8 weekly events! - and, yes, - all of them need to be localized. Effective organization of the translation process involves tactics:
a) planning ahead;
b) reduce unforeseen actions.
Adhering to this tactic is quite easy when translating into standard languages ​​- German, Spanish, Italian, French - you can get a day-to-day translation. But as for Chinese, Japanese, Turkish, Korean, Arabic, etc., etc. ... Especially when you need to localize the names of fish for which even the names are not in these languages ​​... Well, of course, depends from the regions. If you are developing a game in China, you will encounter a localization problem in German. In general, it works both ways.
Example of localization of promotional screenshots with the name of fish from Google Play
But the main thing is still time - sometimes (well, as a rule) it’s just impossible to get a translation into 20 languages ​​on the same day (well, if you need to translate one sentence and you have your own translation agency, then yes). In the case of Fishing Clash, we plan everything at least a week before the release.
What is good and what is bad?
Ordering localization for an exotic language is quite a funny thing: you pay money, but you cannot check the quality of the service received. At least on their own. Here comes the stage prĂĽfried.
It is better to do prĂĽfried for marketing materials too, so that gaps are not lost, for example
Oh, for newbies this can be a real shock! "What? We have just given away the stoptsot of South African money for the Arab localization, I will not give more than a cent, I'm sure everything is in order! ”- but pondfried is a vital stage of localization. If localization is bad, then there will be no sense of the game; and, perhaps, it will play a bad joke with the retention of players in the game.
It is better not to localize the game at all, than to localize it badly. Bad localization annoys gamers. Once we got into a mess: we added Swedish, and the players were ready to eat us alive - because earlier in the game there was no option to change the language (and, of course, the translation turned out to be so-so). But here's the good news - it’s not always necessary to spend millions of money on proutfried. If your game has a stable community, you can request a feedback from them. If they say that everything is fine - ok. If not, hire a professional editor. Well, here are a couple of examples of a bad translation in Fishing Clash:
Here is the right - the same button CAST
As you can see, the errors above are examples from European languages. Gods, we are afraid to imagine what lies in those languages ​​that we do not understand. Fortunately, these errors did not go into the game, since we are ordering proofing. We urge you to do the same!
Predict the unpredictable
The mobile application is a complex and dynamic gamble: the game can fall, devour the entire game currency of the players, destroy the game progress. And when you failed to give a bug for the feature, you need to solve the problem. And as soon as possible!
But, as we said earlier, the concept of “fast” for localization does not exist. There is no possible way to translate 20+ languages ​​in 15 minutes. Therefore, you should have a standard text blanks, in which only one word or number changes.
A standard message in the Fishing Clash, for example, is an alert for technical work. We are great. Recently, our game has never fallen!
Fish for Christmas dinner (Who eats fish for Christmas? And ... the Poles)
And here is another problem. What is well known in one culture is completely not characteristic of another. Believe me, this issue occurs regularly in Fishing Clash.
This is what the events in the game look like - a promotional screenshot from Google Play
Carp, for example, is something like a national fish in Poland; this is the main dish for Christmas and, in principle, carp = Christmas symbol for the Poles. But imagine what a non-Polish man would see. Shock content! This is a 100 percent local tradition. There is no point in translating CARP as CARP into every language - because no one will understand where it came from. “Then just replace the carp with another fish!” You will say. HA! Who eats fish for Christmas? In England, there is turkey, the USA is fried potatoes, Germany is the most incredibly tasty Weihnachtsbraten. No place for carps. No place for fish. Ideally, this should be taken into account before localization begins - at the stage of creating content. There are things that cannot be localized.
Translated to Inlingo :)
The concepts should be immediately separated: localization and translation are not the same thing. When you translate, you need to transfer the original meaning of the text as accurately as possible, and during localization this is not always required. Localization is a kind of adaptation. For example, one of the stupidest ideas that might come to mind is to translate the Thanksgiving Event as a Thanksgiving Event for Chinese gamers. Because ... "What is the Thanksgiving Day in general?" The Chinese will say.
')
Continued under the cut.
You should always follow the development dynamics of the mobile games development industry, so we suggest that you familiarize yourself with 4 obstacles that you may encounter during localization.
1. WATCHING TO-TICKING!
So many lines, so little time
For a mobile game to be interesting, you constantly need to pour new content into it. Lots of content! Fishing Clash launches an average of 8 weekly events! - and, yes, - all of them need to be localized. Effective organization of the translation process involves tactics:
a) planning ahead;
b) reduce unforeseen actions.
Adhering to this tactic is quite easy when translating into standard languages ​​- German, Spanish, Italian, French - you can get a day-to-day translation. But as for Chinese, Japanese, Turkish, Korean, Arabic, etc., etc. ... Especially when you need to localize the names of fish for which even the names are not in these languages ​​... Well, of course, depends from the regions. If you are developing a game in China, you will encounter a localization problem in German. In general, it works both ways.
Example of localization of promotional screenshots with the name of fish from Google Play
But the main thing is still time - sometimes (well, as a rule) it’s just impossible to get a translation into 20 languages ​​on the same day (well, if you need to translate one sentence and you have your own translation agency, then yes). In the case of Fishing Clash, we plan everything at least a week before the release.
2. QUALITY
What is good and what is bad?
Ordering localization for an exotic language is quite a funny thing: you pay money, but you cannot check the quality of the service received. At least on their own. Here comes the stage prĂĽfried.
It is better to do prĂĽfried for marketing materials too, so that gaps are not lost, for example
Oh, for newbies this can be a real shock! "What? We have just given away the stoptsot of South African money for the Arab localization, I will not give more than a cent, I'm sure everything is in order! ”- but pondfried is a vital stage of localization. If localization is bad, then there will be no sense of the game; and, perhaps, it will play a bad joke with the retention of players in the game.
It is better not to localize the game at all, than to localize it badly. Bad localization annoys gamers. Once we got into a mess: we added Swedish, and the players were ready to eat us alive - because earlier in the game there was no option to change the language (and, of course, the translation turned out to be so-so). But here's the good news - it’s not always necessary to spend millions of money on proutfried. If your game has a stable community, you can request a feedback from them. If they say that everything is fine - ok. If not, hire a professional editor. Well, here are a couple of examples of a bad translation in Fishing Clash:
- in German, the CAST button, which meant “forging a rod”, turned into a Besetzung. This is really the same thing as CAST, but only that CAST, which is in the meaning of the cast of cinema (note INLINGO: the cast)
- in Spanish MISS - an indicator of your fiasco, turned into ... senorita. U-la-la!
- there was a typo in English - CARP was written as CRAP ... the mistake is ridiculous, and the situation is terrible (approx .: CARP is a fish, CRAP is a curse word).
Here is the right - the same button CAST
As you can see, the errors above are examples from European languages. Gods, we are afraid to imagine what lies in those languages ​​that we do not understand. Fortunately, these errors did not go into the game, since we are ordering proofing. We urge you to do the same!
3. BAGI
Predict the unpredictable
The mobile application is a complex and dynamic gamble: the game can fall, devour the entire game currency of the players, destroy the game progress. And when you failed to give a bug for the feature, you need to solve the problem. And as soon as possible!
But, as we said earlier, the concept of “fast” for localization does not exist. There is no possible way to translate 20+ languages ​​in 15 minutes. Therefore, you should have a standard text blanks, in which only one word or number changes.
A standard message in the Fishing Clash, for example, is an alert for technical work. We are great. Recently, our game has never fallen!
4. CULTURAL FEATURES
Fish for Christmas dinner (Who eats fish for Christmas? And ... the Poles)
And here is another problem. What is well known in one culture is completely not characteristic of another. Believe me, this issue occurs regularly in Fishing Clash.
This is what the events in the game look like - a promotional screenshot from Google Play
Carp, for example, is something like a national fish in Poland; this is the main dish for Christmas and, in principle, carp = Christmas symbol for the Poles. But imagine what a non-Polish man would see. Shock content! This is a 100 percent local tradition. There is no point in translating CARP as CARP into every language - because no one will understand where it came from. “Then just replace the carp with another fish!” You will say. HA! Who eats fish for Christmas? In England, there is turkey, the USA is fried potatoes, Germany is the most incredibly tasty Weihnachtsbraten. No place for carps. No place for fish. Ideally, this should be taken into account before localization begins - at the stage of creating content. There are things that cannot be localized.
Translated to Inlingo :)
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/456768/
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