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...

Language & Locale - Localisation Thoughts

When thinking about a game’s localisation, it's easy to think only of the script. However, there are many other important matters to consider! Today, I want to examine one of these, the linguistic elements present in the game’s environment that go unspoken by the game's characters but are seen by the player's eyes. Shop signs, posters, notice boards, letters, and books all fall under this category. How developers build the environment for foreign locales when they themselves may not speak its language? This post examines the way a number of developers (originating from both the USA and Japan) have tackled this issue, and discusses its effect on player immersion. Read to the end to see an example from a Japanese game that demonstrates the incredibly jarring effect a disparity between the language used in the game's dialogue and its environment can have.