Nobody had ever expected the video game industry to stand at billions of dollars in net worth. It has reshaped the entertainment arena around the world. With the gaming industry expanding to the global market, video gaming translation service have become evident to strive in the global market. Video games can barely stay within a single region or country and all the good games of the past have made their way to their potential players in different countries even during those days when globalization was not a trend at all. Pong, Tennis for Two, Battlezone, and Pacaman from Japan, all these games are proudly part of history and are adored by game enthusiasts even today for gracing their leisure time. Translating a video game is not an easy task and is a challenging practice. Translating a whole game demands the experts and experienced individuals who have a heart for the video games and are gamers themselves. Maintaining the style, tone, and intent of every game while translating its text can be tricky and difficult to execute.
Here is how considering specific factors can help maintain game style and tone to provide the player with an immersive experience.
Understanding the Source Material
Make sure that you understand the source material as a game translator to an extent that contributes to maintaining the game style well.
Genre and setting
To maintain the game's tone during its translation, the primary factor is to understand its genre and setting. Grasping the overall genre such as if it is fantasy RPG, sci-fi, or shooter, and the setting tone such as if it is based in a dark setting or has a humorous touch is evident for proper understanding of the game. This could be light-hearted as well with certain implications. Understanding all these points as a player and gamer can help you to connect well and become familiar with the game's tone and style. All these factors help to provide the foundation for the translation of the languages appropriately.
Character voice and personality
Understanding the character's voice and personality is also imperative to deal with the game’s style and tone. Different characters in the game have their unique way of speaking and interacting across all languages. The translators hence need to analyze dialogue and descriptions to capture the true intent and essence of each character, their voice, and how they deliver their dialogues. The translation should sound natural in the target language and should reflect the game's original intent.
Humor and cultural references
The humor and cultural references are inevitable parts of game translation services. Therefore, working with native speakers not only helps them excel in translation in terms of language and linguistics but they can also cater to the cultural implications and humor references accordingly. The humor, puns, and cultural references are often the core elements of most of the games and the gaming scripts. The identification of these plots, and knitting going into contextual detail can significantly help you to work on the game’s tone during translation.
Slang and idioms
The slang and idioms are mostly derived from the culture of the intended region. Understating the slang and working on finding the best suitable alternatives also play a vital part in maintaining the consistency, and cultural and regional tone while adhering to the game’s original style.
Maintaining Consistency and Flow
The next step that can help with a smooth and quality translation is maintaining the consistency and flow of the gaming content. Opting for a professional gaming translation company such as CCJK can also be a game changer in this regard.
Style guide development
You as a gaming company or individual game developer should ensure that you sit with your translation agency and work on style guide development that can help the translators understand the gaming content well and produce more coherent gaming translations. Developing a style guide that defines the overall tone and voice along with specific terminology can pave the way to a game translation that does not sound like a translation but rather sounds original. This further assists with the consistency of the translated text.
Collaboration
The gaming translation can get challenging and complex. You should not try to attempt the translation on your own or assign it to your internal team. This not only can disturb their work momentum but you might end up with a below-average translation product. Therefore, you must work closely with the game writers and translators. It is also imperative to engage the developers with the game translators to make them understand their vision and intent of developing the game in that particular genre. This further helps with maintaining the intended style all across the in-game text such as menus, descriptions, and dialogues.
Playtesting
You should ensure that your translated gaming content goes for the playtesting. This can help you spot the inconsistencies, inaccuracies, and awkward phrasing in the games disrupting the flow and overall experience of the gamer. Arranging the playtesting sessions before the launch with relevant authorities such as translators, linguists, gamers and developers can provide you with a pool of different opinions also providing the space to fix the glitches and rectify the errors.
Conclusion
Gaming translation is the need of the hour. The game developers are targeting the global gaming market and hence the translation must be carried out in a way that the game’s original style and tone do not get affected. Understanding the source material, considering cultural factors, and maintaining consistency and flow can be of great help in this regard.
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