Enjoy Games in Summer and Read Hao Hsu's A Beginner's Guide to Game Translation
Let's play video games, talk about translation, and enter a lottery for games!
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In view of the approaching summer vacation (though none for those who are no longer in school), this time we will talk about some light and interesting topics: video games and game translation, as introduced by Hao Hsu’s A Beginner’s Guide to Game Translation, and there is a lottery for games at the end! Feel free to share it with your friends and family.
Lastly, our next online meeting of the reading club will be held at 10:00 am (Taipei Time) on July 2. Let’s read Pai Hsien-Yung’s Taipei People together. If you are interested, feel free to leave a comment, reply to this e-mail message or write to me at transcreation@substack.com to register.
《翻譯寫作的文字風景》是中英文雙語電子報。如果只想收到中文版，請到網站右上角的「My Account」內進行操作，也可以直接回覆這封E-mail或寫信到transcreation@substack.com，由我幫忙更改設定。再次感謝你的訂閱支持！
這篇文章的中文版在這裡。
When it comes to video games, what would you think of? Probably some well-known masterpieces in recent years, such as Elden Ring and The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild (neither of which did I play), the Civilization series known to be a “hyperbolic time chamber”1 (in which I spent hundreds of hours), the nostalgic Famicom games (what I anticipated most as a child in winter and summer vacations), great time killer mobile games like Candy Crush, or the once-extremely-popular online games like Lineage and Ragnarok Online (which almost all my family members were devoted to playing — a family business). The list may go on and on when it comes to video games, and we all have our own memories for them. Even those who are not serious players or who have not played games at all may have watched other people play or have watched some related videos or movies.
But when it comes to game translation, we may feel less familiar. Thus when I learned that Hao Hsu, my college classmate, wrote A Beginner’s Guide to Game Translation (電玩翻譯：新手譯者的生存攻略) on this topic, I couldn’t wait to get a copy. Yet I have been caught in endless work since its publication months ago and could not finish reading until only days ago. As the summer (vacation) is approaching, it is probably a good timing to share about this book.
We are familiar with or love video games usually as players, and may not know much about the development and production of games. As for game translation, even if I am a translator myself, since I mainly work on books and technical documents, I still find different fields of the translation industry curious. Hsu’s A Beginner’s Guide to Game Translation tackles the issue from the development process of video games, offering a general picture of the industry, pointing out the position of game translation in the entire industry chain. The challenges and fun unique to game translation are particularly fascinating. The book is both for players and for translators, and those who aspire to be game translators definitely should not miss it.
The development process for video games can be very long, and it may take years for a blockbuster game. But compared with books, for example, a book can be written over many years (although the author or group of authors is usually not as large as a video game development team), so this may not be particularly special. The most special thing is that video games are often released in multiple languages simultaneously; as a result, translation must start during the process of game development. Throughout the translation industry, this phenomenon of translation at the same time as development and production is almost unique to game translation.
Many games are released in multiple languages (for example, Elden Ring supports a total of 14 languages), and it is conceivable that the translation work is outsourced layer by layer: from game developers and game publishers to multiple language providers (MLPs), who in turn outsource the work to single language providers (SLPs). Freelance translators are usually at the most downstream position, but of course one may try to contact upstream language providers or publishers/developers directly. This phenomenon of layer-by-layer outsourcing is common in the translation industry. The closer to the upstream, the higher the translation rate in theory. Then, the translation completed by outsourcing has to go through stages of review: the translation submitted by the translators are reviewed by the SLPs and the MLPs, and there are linguistic testers in the end for the final quality check. The translation will not be put in the game until passing all the stages of review, so as to ensure the overall quality.
The entire translation process seems complex, and what is the biggest challenge for translators? In a word, the challenge lies in a lack of context: as the title of Chapter 7 suggests, it is like “translating movie subtitles without seeing the pictures.” Not only are the translators unable to see the pictures, they may also be deprived of the knowledge of the dialogue sequence and the identity of speakers and listeners. For example, for the sentence that “I got you,” there are many possible meanings including “I saved you, I’ll cover you, I caught you, I hit you, and I killed you” (p. 160), which should be translated into different sentences in Chinese depending on the identity of the speaker and the context of the conversation. Yet the translators may not be able to know the contexts when translating, which is, as the Chinese saying goes, like a blind man feeling an elephant.
(It reminds me of a translation mistake I saw in This War of Mine. In the simplified Chinese version, the tool “filter” is translated as a “screening program” (篩檢程式). The tool “filter” in the game, however, is a device used to filter water, and should probably be translated as a “water filter” (過濾器, 濾水器) or the like. But it is understandable that the translator probably saw only a long list of strings without any clear context about what this “filter” is or where it is used.)
That said, where the challenge is, it is also where the fun and creativity are. When the translators finally track down all the clues and “solve the case,” that is, figure out the most appropriate translation, they must feel a great sense of achievement. (In fact, even when translating a technical document, translators sometimes have to make inferences [or rather, be a medium].) As game contents are as imaginative as can be, translators have to be creative too. It is probably the most gratifying moment for game translators to see the names coined by themselves catch on with the players, and to see the players having great fun.
Last but not least, the following passage from the “Afterword” resonates with me deeply:
A good translation can eliminate the sense of “foreigness” and allow players to experience the game smoothly, but players often only notice that the game is well developed, without realizing that the role played by localization is also very important; therefore, translators become invisible in the translation process. On the contrary, when a careless mistake annoys the players and interrupts the game experience, translators are often blamed, and the mistake is often disproportionately emphasized, offseting all the translators’ hard work for the game. (p. 197)
I am afraid this is true not only in game translation, but also in the translation industry as a whole. I often joke with my friends that people turn to the flap of a book to see who the translator is only when they spot a mistake. As a translator, I often think “no news is good news.” I am not justifying mistranslations, but I hope through A Beginner’s Guide to Game Translation, we will have a better understanding of translation as well as the considerations and difficulties of translators.
The above is just a brief introduction, and there are many exciting and interesting parts in the book waiting for your exploration. The humorous writing style, in association with the theme of “video games” (just like the fun style of the cover), brings a smile on readers’ face from time to time, but those who are unfamiliar with video games should feel at ease as there are no intimidating jargons or inside jokes. It is a book recommended to all, regardless of whether one likes video games or whether one is familiar with translation. Let’s spend a splendid summer by enjoying video games and learning more about game translation from A Beginner’s Guide to Game Translation.
Lottery for Games
Have no idea what to play? Come here to enter the lottery!
Video games are always full of surprises — not just the contents of games; I found a while ago that games can also be a way to actively show concern for the world. When the Ukrainian-Russian War first broke out, several games and game platforms offered charity bundles, for which game vendors donated serial numbers, and players bought games to donate to charities.
I bought two charity bundles, which gave me too many games to play. So as I am talking about game translation at this time, it seems appropriate to hold a lottery for games. My account is not eligible to use the steamgift lottery platform, so I will use the simple and stupid way of Google form.
There are 20 games for the lottery this time. Please check the Google form for more details. The form will be closed on June 30, and the serial numbers will be directly sent to the winners to redeem on the game platform STEAM.
Enter the lottery here: https://forms.gle/soCBTHmLisz77t2o9
Good luck to you all!
The term “hyperbolic time chamber,” originally from the famous manga Dragon Ball, has come to be used by Taiwanese players to mean “a game in which time flies without notice when one plays it.”