Bartłomiej Piątkiewicz
The number of different localization-related issues and challenges can be a real pain in the neck at times, but as you gain experience and learn the basics, the chaotic struggle against language transforms into an organized set of conscious actions aimed at reaching a specific goal. The first step towards reaching this goal is to learn about the challenges you may encounter. What I will try to do here is present three of the most common types of localization challenges so that you can better address them when they stand in your way.
Understanding localization
Let’s begin by discussing how we actually understand localization. While most authors agree on the general definition, we may notice different tendencies and ways of describing the whole process and its details. Although such minimalistic and general definitions as “the process of modifying a product for a specific locale” are correct and allow readers to grasp the general idea, they are rather goal-oriented, and provide no information on the process itself. What we can observe, however, is that they tend to contain the word locale, which turns out to be essential to the discussion surrounding localization. Put simply, a locale is a particular audience, typically distinct in terms of language and culture; e.g. Polish gamers would be a certain locale.
The second group of authors pays more attention to detailed and specific descriptions of localization as a process, and its associated activities. Although some ideas and approaches differ within the field, there is one common and particularly important feature that these works share. Such authors describe localization as a process of tackling three kinds of issues: linguistic, cultural, and technical. Such an approach may result from the influence of the Industry Primer by the Localization Industry Standards Association (LISA). According to this document,
localization can be defined as a set of processes, the aim of which is to prepare a product to be sold to a specific locale, and these processes are related to three main aspects: content and cultural issues, linguistic issues, and technical issues.
Some authors even refer to it as a standard definition of localization, so it would be an act of ignorance not to take it into consideration. To fully understand these respective issues, though, we need to discuss each of them in more detail.
Language at the core
The first type of issue is often regarded as linguistic, i.e. the issues that directly concern language-related challenges and thus require excellent linguistic knowledge. For translators, this is the most crucial aspect, and the core of the whole process of localization; some authors even used to refer to the whole process as language localization instead of just localization.
One example of a linguistic challenge may be found in Dark Souls 3, wherein one of the bosses is called Yhorm the Giant. The localization team responsible for the Polish version of the game decided to translate only the descriptive part of the name, and as a result Yhorm Gigant was created. The whole game is mostly domesticated in terms of language, so it was undoubtedly a good idea to translate the Giant part (especially since the race of this boss is relevant to the game’s story), yet Yhorm has not been changed. Because the game has not been dubbed, the produced text may confuse Polish players. The translation seems inconsistent and unnatural, as the combination of letters makes it difficult to pronounce while trying to apply the rules of the Polish language. To solve this problem, a more “user-friendly” version of this name could be provided. Yhorm, in fact, is an Old Norse word spelled Jorm (/jɔrm), the pronunciation of which would be much easier to decipher for the Polish audience. Additionally, Polish speakers typically provide the descriptive part of such names first, so an additional structure change could be used to adjust the word order to the target language. As a result, the localized name of this boss would be Gigant Jorm, easier to pronounce and understand for Polish players, as well as sounding more natural to them.
This does not mean, however, that texts always need to undergo domestication in the localization process. One such example is to be found in Gothic, an RPG that won the hearts of Polish players in the early ‘00s, and many say that it was due to the excellent work of the localization team and voice actors. At some point in the game, the nameless protagonist obtains a powerful sword named Uriziel, after its former owner. The name remains the same in the Polish version for several reasons. Firstly, it does not have any particular meaning or equivalent, so there would be no natural basis to create a localization like in the previous example with the Old Norse Jorm. Secondly, deciphering the correct pronunciation by looking at the spelling should not be too problematic for most Polish players. Thirdly, the game is dubbed, so the pronunciation of the weapon’s name is established. Therefore, translators decided to retain the original version, or, to be precise, the original spelling, as the pronunciation is actually localized – the German pronunciation is /urɪ’t͡θjel/, in English it is /jurɪ’t͡θjel/, and in the Polish version, it is pronounced /urɪ’zjel/.
As we can see, resolving linguistic issues is, to no surprise, mostly about using the knowledge of rules and structures that underpin both the source and target languages. What we should bear in mind, though, is that just because this aspect is the most important, does not mean that the other aspects can be disregarded.
Perceiving linguistic, cultural, and technical issues as co-existing and mutually-dependent rather than separate parts, we are more likely to make good use of our skillset and thus succeed in producing an accurate and optimal translation.
It’s a matter of culture
The second type of localization issues is the most characteristic of the whole process, in terms of differentiating localization and translation. Content and cultural issues concern detecting and handling all the culture-specific elements which could cause any feeling of foreignness, confusion, or misunderstanding among the target audience (unless evoking such feelings or associating a game with a specific culture is intentional on the part of the developer). Such a process is called culturalization by numerous authors who tend to underline the importance of culture-related issues in games, and often mention that the same message could be understood differently in different contexts, which in this case are different locales.
Numerous instances of culturalization can be observed in Warcraft 3: Reign of Chaos. In the game, characters frequently refer to pop-culture elements widely known among English speakers, but not necessarily understandable to a Polish audience. One such reference may be heard when Orc Shaman, a character able to control the weather, starts singing Raindrops Keep Fallin’ on My Head, a famous song by B. J. Thomas and an obvious allusion to the character’s shamanic powers. If this quote had been translated literally, it’s likely almost no one would understand the reference, while leaving it in the original English would be inconsistent with the rest of the game, and would still not retain the twofold meaning. Fortunately, the most appropriate and satisfactory outcome was the use of cultural adaptation in the final product: instead of B. J. Thomas’s song, Orc Shaman chooses a reference more familiar to Polish speakers and starts singing Deszcze niespokojne (Pol. Heavy rain) – the initial lyrics of the Polish song Ballada o pancernych (Pol. Ballad of troopers) that’s well-known thanks to a war-themed television series broadcast in the 1960s. Using this solution, translators were able to achieve the same goal as the original unit in the source text and introduce a reference to the Polish culture, giving additional value to the game and making it sound more native to the Polish audience.
Yet, such changes are not always necessary, as culture is constantly being globalized and numerous texts are known internationally. The Orc Farseer, another shamanic character from the same game, utters a famous quote from The Sixth Sense: “I see dead people”. The meaning of the sentence is twofold: it is a cultural reference to the movie on one hand, and a mention of the character’s supernatural, sight-related abilities on the other. In this case, the localization team decided to use the literal translation, and the target text reads “Widzę martwych ludzi.” The sentence was translated similarly in the movie and is fully understandable for the target audience so it perfectly suits both purposes without any culturalization needed.
The aforementioned cases demonstrate the great skill of the translators, but at the same time can make us realize that such issues require a thorough knowledge of both cultures, as detecting them alone may pose a great challenge, not to mention transforming them correctly.
Congratulations {name}, you made it to the technical challenges!
The last aspect is more technical in nature, as it includes all the processes required at a software level to make a game suitable for a particular group. This aspect applies to more areas of our lives, and other products as well. For example, vehicles sold in the United Kingdom are adjusted to local requirements and have the steering wheel on the right side; power requirements of various devices should remain in accordance with local electrical networks, and computer keyboard layouts should apply to given standards, which also differ between countries. In video games, these adjustments concern, for example, displaying of characters from foreign alphabets so that translation is possible at the technical level. In such cases, the role of a translator is reduced, and it is still quite a task for developers to implement new elements into a game or make changes to game code before the translation process even starts. Yet, these changes are closely related to language-specific and culture-specific elements, so constant cooperation with translators is necessary.
One kind of technical problem that requires such cooperation between translators and devs is the occurrence of so-called tags, also called variables or placeholders. These are strings within a translatable text where different values can appear depending on players’ choices, or certain conditions within a game. One of the most common situations in which tags occur is when developers decide to insert a player’s name into in-game text and create sentences like <player’s name> killed the dragon. While tags may not be so problematic in English, they tend to be much more troublesome when translating interactive texts into fusional languages which require grammatical agreement between respective parts of a sentence, such as grammatical gender. In Polish, the verb to kill takes different forms depending on the gender, so it is impossible to translate the sentence word by word; this would lead to grammatical errors, resulting in sentences like “Julia zabił smoka.” where Julia is a female name and zabił is a masculine form of to kill.
The first way to solve such a problem is to adjust the sentence in Polish so that it is correct regardless of the name a player chooses, i.e., it is gender-neutral. This solution aims at making the sentence grammatical, even at the cost of style. Using this method, the sentence could be translated as: <player’s name> zabija smoka, transforming the perfective verb into an imperfective form, which in Polish does not require any adjustments to gender and conveys the message. In English, the proposed change would be similar to a transfer from <player’s name> killed the dragon to <player’s name> kills a dragon. While this translation might be viewed as relatively safe and correct, the drawback is that it only works in cases where the sentence does not refer to historic events, but recent or immediate actions, or utterances treated as enthusiastic narration. This is exactly where such constant contact with developers is necessary: to obtain such context and ensure that this change can be made without negatively impacting the gaming experience. Solving such a problem may seem relatively easy, but as we can see, even in the example of such a simple sentence, issues may occur, and compromises are required.
This leads to the second method, which allows for more freedom, and more possibilities to solve a problem, as well as a chance to create more natural and precise sentences; however, it is more laborious, requires more technical knowledge, intervention, and cooperation — and, as a result, it is more costly, which makes it a less common choice. In this method, new tags are introduced, which makes it possible to change the form of words depending on gender or other relevant aspects. In practice, the result is that there is no need to spend a long time working out an optimal way to make sentences grammatically correct. Instead, translators can focus on making a text as natural and pleasant for the target audience as possible, which may dramatically boost the overall quality of a translation. In the case of the example mentioned above, it would be possible to create a sentence like <player’s name> zabi<ł>/<ła> smoka. to enable the game code to choose the correct inflective ending depending on the gender.
Prevention is better than cure
What is also worth mentioning in terms of the three issue types is the notion of internationalization. It is a stage that takes place at the beginning of the localization process and aims at preparing the game for translation. According to LISA,
internationalization allows to save up to half of the time and cost of localization,
which is the primary reason producers decide on such an approach. Internationalization takes place when developers, for example, use fonts that include characters from different alphabets, introduce variables that will allow the creation of correct grammatical forms in other languages, or refrain from referring to very specific cultural elements that might not be understood worldwide. This way, there is no need for the localization team to come back to developers and report multiple issues because the issues have been prevented, eventually saving time and money for both sides. So, internationalization is, as the name suggests, about optimizing the game for the international market by detecting bits that could potentially lead to localization problems, and changing or adjusting them if possible or desirable. But diving into the details of this pre-localization stage is material for a separate article.
The conclusion is that translation is indeed an essential part of localization, without which localization could not exist — but the process in its entirety is definitely more extensive.
Unlike translation, localization is not solely concerned with working with a complete text provided by a client: it begins at the game development stage. The text is processed into different languages, but also adjusted according to the culture, connotations, knowledge, and needs of given audiences to ensure the most relevant experience, which, in turn, directly influences a chance for the game becoming a financial success.
Bartłomiej Piątkiewicz, Translation & Localization Specialist at Ten Square Games. He cooperates with Hunting Clash and Rortos teams to make sure that players from all over the world can enjoy a quality experience. Bartek is a graduate of English Studies at the University of Wroclaw, with both BA and MA theses on video game localization. As an avid gamer, he claims that passion is what motivates him most. While not working or gaming, he plays guitar, cooks, and occasionally practices rock climbing.
The cover image was generated by Midjourney AI. It’s the Midjourney’s idea of „video games, translation, player experience, cartoon style.”
