Localization and money
After reading the post from mikeSP , I finally killed my laziness in myself, and, nevertheless, decided to write here.
Epigraph
Back in 1995, money simply fell from the sky to someone who knew how to pick it up. It touched games.
As soon as the most enthusiastic, localized version of Warcraft II came out, the peasant (guy, as an option) looked at how hungry Russian-speaking people snapped up hot cakes with the inscription “Russian version” and realized “This is good ! And rushed ...
')
Story
I got acquainted then with an excellent organizer Yuri (many already know the surname, and she will not say anything to the ignorant) he came to visit us with the idea “Let’s translate ...” we watched Warcraft II together and laughed at the replicas of the fighter for the nth time they poked a mouse: “Eh ... I had to go to the fleet ...” - he shouted with almost real bitterness in his voice. Here the idea began to take shape in thought.
- “Do you want to have a look?”
- "Want!"
After viewing the screensaver, knowledgeable people will agree that it was impossible to look at it without a smile. The unique voice of the famous person at that time, whom everyone really wanted to wear a clothespin, confidently spoke from the screen about how the Orcs decided to sail across the great sea to visit the Humans.
Then the thought took shape completely. We need to put something in our concept of localization, the Russian version should be close to our realities (I prepared a basin for tomatoes in advance, which will fly to me, I will cook adjika, also good)
I will sound here two points that, in my opinion, require attention.
Point one
Half of the information on which the game is often based, a Russian person does not know and will never know. This can be illustrated by remembering how Alf was translated into Russian (sic!) And into Ukrainian. In the English version, the character mentions either the news leader, or something else in America, and the joke is clear there, to us, to ordinary CIS people, this guy is unknown and the meaning is lost, therefore, in the Ukrainian version, “I, too, Ruslana Pysanka.” And in my opinion it is right. Because Entertainment is a massive thing, and there are much more ignorant people than those in the subject.
Second point
I always want to do everything well and perfectly, however, the rigid rules of business do not allow us to turn around to the fullest. Those who work on large projects know how difficult it is sometimes to “sell” functionality to a customer, without which he simply cannot use the program, it will simply be inconvenient and disgusting to him. And he will understand it ... later. And he wants to do it for free.
It’s the same thing, you can reduce the translation to “I launched the Stylus / Promt, stuffed the text into it, translated it with an automaton and a general dictionary, saved it”. Along the way, breaking the names of variables and identifiers. To play such a translation to a normal person, the first five minutes are ridiculous, then disgusting ... Particularly evil, then go to beat the seller ...
Our usual translation cycle lasted 4-8 days, along with Sundays and Saturdays. And on the eighth day we were just starting to minus, i.e. deduct from revenue. And the delay in three days threatened to give the result in the form “Worked for free”. You can understand a person, he counts the money and still only one circulation will be printed, because then they will either buy the official game or forget it. And it needs to be done faster than the competitors, who have already translated with a stylus and put it in print, will do it. We, who do not sleep at night (I do not consider a full sleep at 3 o'clock), want the translation to be good, we just like games and play, and playing a poorly translated game is nasty and almost impossible. And at the same time we want to earn something. And in this we can also be understood.
Great article was in Hacker once ... Maybe someone remembers? If yes, give the link.
And so it turns out. 1-2 days to look at, sort into pieces, 2-3 days to translate / draw / voice, 1 day to assemble, install / translate the original and send to the customer.
We made 26 (!) Fully pirated localizations. Some turned out better (about Tuborg and the company), some worse (Phantasmagoria, Magic the Gathering).
One thing is for sure, the first lessons of business and business management, we then got excellent. As well as the knowledge that even the most excellent guy, when it comes to dividing money, immediately becomes his complete opposite. And that happens a lot.
Let this never happen in your projects.
Good business plan to all of us. :)
Thanks for attention.
And the continuation of the article happened here .
PS: I didn’t have time to translate the wall, I confess ... 21 out of 64 KB (the amount of extracted text in DOS encoding from the wall) in 5 hours is a poor result, I agree. But the game is not particularly affected by this.
Epigraph
Back in 1995, money simply fell from the sky to someone who knew how to pick it up. It touched games.
As soon as the most enthusiastic, localized version of Warcraft II came out, the peasant (guy, as an option) looked at how hungry Russian-speaking people snapped up hot cakes with the inscription “Russian version” and realized “This is good ! And rushed ...
')
Story
I got acquainted then with an excellent organizer Yuri (many already know the surname, and she will not say anything to the ignorant) he came to visit us with the idea “Let’s translate ...” we watched Warcraft II together and laughed at the replicas of the fighter for the nth time they poked a mouse: “Eh ... I had to go to the fleet ...” - he shouted with almost real bitterness in his voice. Here the idea began to take shape in thought.
- “Do you want to have a look?”
- "Want!"
After viewing the screensaver, knowledgeable people will agree that it was impossible to look at it without a smile. The unique voice of the famous person at that time, whom everyone really wanted to wear a clothespin, confidently spoke from the screen about how the Orcs decided to sail across the great sea to visit the Humans.
Then the thought took shape completely. We need to put something in our concept of localization, the Russian version should be close to our realities (I prepared a basin for tomatoes in advance, which will fly to me, I will cook adjika, also good)
I will sound here two points that, in my opinion, require attention.
Point one
Half of the information on which the game is often based, a Russian person does not know and will never know. This can be illustrated by remembering how Alf was translated into Russian (sic!) And into Ukrainian. In the English version, the character mentions either the news leader, or something else in America, and the joke is clear there, to us, to ordinary CIS people, this guy is unknown and the meaning is lost, therefore, in the Ukrainian version, “I, too, Ruslana Pysanka.” And in my opinion it is right. Because Entertainment is a massive thing, and there are much more ignorant people than those in the subject.
Second point
I always want to do everything well and perfectly, however, the rigid rules of business do not allow us to turn around to the fullest. Those who work on large projects know how difficult it is sometimes to “sell” functionality to a customer, without which he simply cannot use the program, it will simply be inconvenient and disgusting to him. And he will understand it ... later. And he wants to do it for free.
It’s the same thing, you can reduce the translation to “I launched the Stylus / Promt, stuffed the text into it, translated it with an automaton and a general dictionary, saved it”. Along the way, breaking the names of variables and identifiers. To play such a translation to a normal person, the first five minutes are ridiculous, then disgusting ... Particularly evil, then go to beat the seller ...
Our usual translation cycle lasted 4-8 days, along with Sundays and Saturdays. And on the eighth day we were just starting to minus, i.e. deduct from revenue. And the delay in three days threatened to give the result in the form “Worked for free”. You can understand a person, he counts the money and still only one circulation will be printed, because then they will either buy the official game or forget it. And it needs to be done faster than the competitors, who have already translated with a stylus and put it in print, will do it. We, who do not sleep at night (I do not consider a full sleep at 3 o'clock), want the translation to be good, we just like games and play, and playing a poorly translated game is nasty and almost impossible. And at the same time we want to earn something. And in this we can also be understood.
Great article was in Hacker once ... Maybe someone remembers? If yes, give the link.
And so it turns out. 1-2 days to look at, sort into pieces, 2-3 days to translate / draw / voice, 1 day to assemble, install / translate the original and send to the customer.
We made 26 (!) Fully pirated localizations. Some turned out better (about Tuborg and the company), some worse (Phantasmagoria, Magic the Gathering).
One thing is for sure, the first lessons of business and business management, we then got excellent. As well as the knowledge that even the most excellent guy, when it comes to dividing money, immediately becomes his complete opposite. And that happens a lot.
Let this never happen in your projects.
Good business plan to all of us. :)
Thanks for attention.
And the continuation of the article happened here .
PS: I didn’t have time to translate the wall, I confess ... 21 out of 64 KB (the amount of extracted text in DOS encoding from the wall) in 5 hours is a poor result, I agree. But the game is not particularly affected by this.
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/60595/
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