Academia & Game Localisation - Locali Thoughts

I think it's fair to say that videogame localisation is a fairly new part of the Japanese to English translation industry. However, it has long been an essential part of the videogame industry. This is because it allows the English-speaking world to enjoy Japanese games, especially those that feature a lot of text. This makes it surprising that in the early nineties when these games were coming to the forefront in the form of JRPGs, this part of a game's development was generally not given the attention it deserved. In an interview on the Player One Podcast, Ted Woolsey (the main translator of Square's JRPGs during the nineties) commented that for Chrono Trigger, 'I was given thirty days to do it, which is not a lot of time. I think there were about 1,300 pages of text and it wasn't contiguous.' Thirty days!!! That's unbelievable! Thankfully, things have changed since the nineties...

The relatively recent emergence of dedicated game localisation companies such as 8-4, Ltd. indicates that the field of game localisation has started to get the attention it deserves. However, there is still a lack of reading material related to the practice. There are a handful of sites dedicated to the matter (such as LocaliReview :D) scattered throughout the internet, but there is a notable scarcity of academics engaged with the subject. During my time studying for my Japanese Studies degree at the University of Sheffield, I had the pleasure of taking weekly translation classes taught by Hugo Dobson, Thomas McAuley, Nicolas Tranter and Graham Healey. These classes represented my favourite part of university, and solidified my desire to work as a translator. Each week we (the students) came to class clutching our own translation of a text we had been set for homework. These texts were incredibly varied. One week it was about an Iranian ballistic missile test launch, another week it was a Taisho era novel, another week it was a collection of political cartoons, and another week it was an extract from a grammar book about the tendency of Japanese to drop the 'ra' mora when saying the potential form of ichidan verbs! However, not once did I see anything game-related! I wasn't surprised by this, but I do think it would be both beneficial and interesting for students to try translating this kind of text.

I owe Grahan Healy (second to the right) many thanks for always making time to talk to me about translation outside of class, and for proofreading my first ever volunteer translation, the Japanese Wikipedia page of Ino Hidefumi.

I am no longer in education, and sadly no longer have professors who will teach me translation. However, I still want to learn!!! For a long time, I considered going back to school and studying for a Applied Translation Studies Master's degree. If I was to cough up the cash for this, then I would want to be sure that the classes would directly benefit my career as a translator. In other words, I wanted to take at least one module directly related to game localisation. I dug into the module outlines of all the UK universities offering a Master's in Japanese translation, but my search was in vain. Nothing. I resigned myself to the fact that although the UK has dedicated gaming development schools, the growth of gaming's academic standing hadn't extended as far as the localisation field.

A while later, it suddenly occurred to me that I should also investigate universities in the Republic of Ireland, an English-speaking country in the EU (which is significant because it entitles me to cheaper tuition fees). I did a quick Google search and soon landed on a Master's degree in Japanese translation at Dublin City University. I peaked at the profiles of the resident professors, and found Dr Minako O'Hagan's profile. Let me paste it here:

Minako O'Hagan, BA, MA, PhD, is a Senior Lecturer in the School of Applied Language and Intercultural Studies (SALIS). She teaches Translation Technology, Multimedia Translation, Terminology and Japanese Translation. Since joining SALIS in 2002, she has expanded her main field of research Translation Technology into Video Game Localisation which combines translation and new media. She has secured internal and external funding, including Proof of Concept funding from Enterprise Ireland and served as an external expert assessor on European projects such as eCoLoMedia. Her PhD supervision covers a range of technology-oriented emerging research areas, including an eye-tracking study of abusive subtitling of Japanese anime and Facebook translation crowdsourcing. She served as the Chair of the MA in Translation Studies and the MSc in Translation Technology from September 2009 to January 2013. Having lived in a number of countries, she has a wide range of international academic and commercial networks in translation and in the video game industry.

That above image is a good depiction of my facial expression after I read that above paragraph for the first time. Given my interests, I would love to take classes from Dr O'Hagan! I dug deeper into the details of the degree, and it does indeed look like a great program of study. Ironically, the time I found about this degree programme was the time that I started to feel reluctant towards the idea of leaving Japan and became more determined to build my career while staying in Japan. However, for those who may have stumbled on this post because they were Googling about a Master's in Japanese translation, I would encourage them to check out the course details. Even though I may not attend this university, my time spent finding it wasn't at all fruitless. Dr O'Hagan's profile page features a list of her publications:

• O'Hagan, Minako and Zhang, Qi (eds) (in print). Conflict and Communication: A Changing Asia in a Globalising World, EHV Academic Publisher, 2015.
• Mangiron, C., Orero, P. and O'Hagan, M (eds). Fun for all:Translation and Accessibility Practices in Video Games, Peter Lang, 2014.
• O'Hagan, Minako and Mangiron, Carmen. Game Localization: Translating for the Global Digital Entertainment Industry, John Benjamins, 2013.
• O'Hagan, Minako (ed). Linguistica Antverpiensia New Series - Themes in Translation Studies: Translation as a Social Activity - community translation 2.0, Artesis University College, 2011.
• O'Hagan, Minako & Ashworth, David. Translation Mediated Communication in a Digital World: Facing the challenges of globalization and localization, Multilingual Matters, 2002.
• Tsuchida, Mitsuyoshi and O'Hagan, Minako. Yume-no-shinrigaku(translation of) Crisis Dreaming: Using Your Dream to Solve Your Problems (Cartwright, R & Lamberg, L 1992/1997), Hakuyo-sha, 1997.
• O'Hagan, Minako. The Coming Industry of Teletranslation, Multilingual Matters, 1996.

That third one, Game Localization: Translating for the Global Digital Entertainment Industry, caught my eye. A book about game localisation! And written by an academic too! In the past I had scoured both the internet and the Sheffield University library for such a kind of book, but had always come up empty-handed. Somehow I had never come across O'Hagan's work. Although my desire to study for a Master's hit the back burner, the opposite was true of my desire to study and learn. And so, I ordered the book! It cost me a pretty penny, but it finally arrived in my mailbox today! I'm so excited to get stuck into it! There is almost nothing written about the book online, so in the coming weeks I plan to write about it and share some of the interesting passages.

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Thanks for reading! If you have any thoughts or questions about this topic, please leave them in the comments. In addition, if you know of any other sites or books related to game localisation, then please share them with me! :)