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[Mikademus]

So, localisation. Discuss.

[Mikademus]

So, localisation. Discuss.

Mikademus, while I did appreciate the image you posted, I don't think that just saying "Discuss!" is really a good start of a discussion!

[Mikademus]

Yeah, you're right of course. I apologise.

Anyway, though it was posted as a joke on Kotaku, that image rings of truth to me. I am currently doing a multi-culti project, and the most prominent countries in it are Swedes, Germans and Britons. We have surprisingly different perspectives on things, and we're still considered geographically and culturally relatively close! Blood, gore, good MP behaviour, etc etc. Especially this last thing would be interesting to try to reify in some way in the game itself...

So I think there are two things I want to talk about. First, are there good game ideas and concepts that don't need localisation? Shmups perhaps, they're pretty universal, and fighter games. But even them tend to differ. The popular fighters in Asia use long button sequences you have to memorise, while those getting popular in West tend to have more "logical" sequences.

Also, I am afraid of localisations because I think much of it is based on stereotypes and notions rather than actual experience. Like the Japanese localisation above. Yeah, I personally would LOVE to play that shooter with a maid firing an animalistic gun on tentacle daemons, but seriously, I don't think it would be very mass-market successful over there.

[Movius]

Localisation could be as simple as ironing out problems caused by the fact that the gesture for "come here" in japan is the same as the gesture for "go away" here in Australia.

[Bree]

Pixar does great localization for its films- I remember seeing a bonus feature in Monsters, Inc. about how they altered newspaper headlines and street signs for different countries. One particular gag was the Stalk/Don't Stalk sign Sully and Mike see to cross a street. IN the international versions, the text is replaced with a little man similar to the real sign, but with two heads.

Atlus has done great localization, too- Metal Saga had a ton of American pop culture references that I'm almost certain weren't in the original Japanese game.

[The Monster King]

i think the hardest thing to localize is humor, jokes can have a really hard time going overseas, i think you'd need a funny writer to localize anything that has to be humorous!
but you still have to talk it through with the original author

everything else can just be subtitled and explained

[Mikademus]

Jokes, yeah. I worked at uni with helping exchange students and one thing I tried to do was teach them a little about the peculiarities of our sense of humour. Not an easy thing, that. So I guess humour-based games might be among the most difficult ones to localise.

[PaleFox]

I don't feel that all jokes are hard to translation in localization, but definitely any that include puns are impossible to get across. You just have to come up with a totally different joke and just stick it in there so that the conversation still makes some sort of sense (or leave it literal and watch as the characters laugh for no reason whatsoever...). In my opinion it's cultural references that are hardest because they're often a key part of something rather than tangential as jokes are. Nintendo of America used to get around that by making everything suddenly be about Vietnam, but that seems to have stopped (alas).

[Shambrook]

So I guess humour-based games might be among the most difficult ones to localise.

Makes you appreciate just how brilliant the localization work that's gone into the phoenix wright games is.

[I_smell]

When I make small games with small bits of text I try to eradicate all the text out of the whole game just cos I know it's more likely to drift over to French and German sites n the like.
I used to not think about that, but one day I made a game with no text in and it got like 5 times more hits than all my others.

Atlus has done great localization, too- Metal Saga had a ton of American pop culture references that I'm almost certain weren't in the original Japanese game.

I don't play many JRPGs, but I remember Persona 4 was very much kept in Japan in the game. Stuff like watermelon parties and Today is Rain Day so everone is off school! popped up all the time even though the basic language translation was really Americanised.
I think that really made sense for that game to do a weird split like that.
Bah it was probably a tech issue that all that stuff stayed in anyway; I still liked it.

[droqen]

Not very nice that they cut the link to the website off of the top of that image :/
LINK TO ORIGINAL

[Melly]

If your game describes a specific culture, like the Persona games describe the culture of japanese cities and the high-school kids there, those things should remain intact, only explained if they seem to obscure. I find that 'americanizing' your game too much washes down the messages and theme the game's trying to convey, and perpetuates the ignorance of most people over the culture of foreign countries.

It was a little sad, for example, that they removed stuff like the hostess clubs in Yakuza 3, but it's probably a wonder they still released it around the west with japanese voice-acting intact.

So, really, you should localize only the language. The content should remain the same, as it helps teach people about how people act, think and socialize in places that aren't their backyard. If necessary give small, non-intrusive explanations at most.

[Dacke]

Changing (instead of explaining/translating) jokes is usually a very bad idea.

For example, when adding subtitles:
Most people over here understand spoken English almost perfectly. Yet, some subtitlers insist on exchanging some jokes/puns, instead of translating them literally. Which makes for an extremely confusing experience. Your ears listen to the actual dialogue and cross-checks it what your eyes read. The more stuff that gets swapped around, the more incomprehensible the experience gets.

[Melly]

Has anyone tried doing that purposefully?

[Kramlack]

Yakuza 3 comes to mind.

[Seth]

Changing (instead of explaining/translating) jokes is usually a very bad idea.

For example, when adding subtitles:
Most people over here understand spoken English almost perfectly. Yet, some subtitlers insist on exchanging some jokes/puns, instead of translating them literally. Which makes for an extremely confusing experience. Your ears listen to the actual dialogue and cross-checks it what your eyes read. The more stuff that gets swapped around, the more incomprehensible the experience gets.

But that's only a problem when the reader also knows the original language, right?  In which case, why would they be reading the subtitles?  And as for translations I would rather have a good replacement joke rather than have someone stop for a moment to explain a joke or to have something that makes no sense whatsoever.

[Mikademus]

Has anyone tried doing that purposefully?

Translation Party comes to mind!

Also, it is done all the time on YouTube. Turn on the automatic CC for any English video for great rejoicing.

[Dacke]

But that's only a problem when the reader also knows the original language, right?  In which case, why would they be reading the subtitles?  And as for translations I would rather have a good replacement joke rather than have someone stop for a moment to explain a joke or to have something that makes no sense whatsoever.

I use it as an aid. When people speak in weird dialects, mumble or something like that, it's remarkably helpful to get the same thing in text.

Also, it's not yet possible to turn of the subtitles on TV.

[Μarkham]

I hate watching most dubbed movies.  Animation can have decent dubbing, but live action dubbing usually kills it.  Nothing like seeing a dramatic scene where the actor is visibly sad/angry and you hear a peppy, nasally high-pitched voice read the lines.

[Dacke]

Animation can have decent dubbing

No.