The ATA Chronicle - March/April 2020 - 28

BRING YOUR "A" GAME TO VIDEO GAME LOCALIZATION continued
could be used in this translation, such
as "es juego de niños" (it's a kids' game),
"es una papa" ("it's a potato"-for the
enjoyment of Argentine readers!), or "es
como tirarles a patitos en la feria" (it's like
shooting rubber ducks at the funfair),
etc. Of course, you can choose the
one that fits the context and the target
audience better.
Many years ago, I encountered a
phrase that had me puzzled: "to the
choppaaaa." What is "choppa?" I
couldn't find the word in the dictionary
and my research attempts were not
getting me anywhere. (Keep in mind
that this was over 12 years ago, and
it wasn't as easy to Google and get
hundreds of visual references.) I
finally asked my husband, who is a
native English speaker, if he knew
what this phrase could refer to, and
he laughed (really hard). It turns out
that "to the choppa" is a reference
from the movie Predator, in which
Arnold Schwarzenegger shouted "to
the chopper" (the helicopter), but
because he has an accent, it sounded
like "choppa." My husband told me that
if you were not born in the U.S. in the
1980s, you might not understand this
cultural reference.
Video games are packed with pop
culture references, so buckle up and
enjoy that ride, or as I like to call it now,
to the chopper!

TO LOCALIZE OR NOT TO LOCALIZE...
THAT IS THE QUESTION.
One of the common debates is if
proper names should be localized
in video games. For example, do we
want "Hannah" to be called "María" in
Spanish? This, of course, depends on
what route the game developers want
to follow.
However, a good rule of thumb
should be: when a name carries
meaning, we don't want the gamer
to miss that in their language. For
example, if a character's name is "Berry
Cute" because it's a strawberry, we might
want to think about an equivalent in
the target language that carries the same
meaning-something about the fruit
and the cuteness.
28

The ATA Chronicle | March/April 2020

If a segment doesn't translate effectively into the target language,
or the translation could confuse the gamer or disrupt the player's
experience, we might need to consider sacrificing the accuracy of the
localization that we render.

This same criterion should be applied
to all proper names within the game,
including the in-game art, geographical
places, entities, battles, etc. Otherwise,
you risk the gamer missing out on the
immersive experience of the game.
Remember that localization is your ally
for creating an immersive experience for
gamers in any language.
Unleashing your creative self
will serve you well in this field, but
remember you should never forget
that video game localization is an
audiovisual entertainment form. This
means that you cannot separate the
text from what players are seeing and
hearing on-screen. So, have fun being
creative with your translations, but don't
forget the visual and audio aspects.
Don't exceed the character limitation,
don't place the tags and variables
incorrectly, and basically, don't have fun
(just joking!). Video game localization

can be lots of fun, but at the same time
very technical.
This article does not intend to
be comprehensive, since there are
numerous other aspects that are
important to video game localization.
Rather, I hope I've provided a small
window into what it could be like to
localize video games.
Marina Ilari, CT is an ATAcertified English>Spanish
translator with over 15 years
of experience in the translation
industry. She is an expert in
translation tools and managing
projects in English and Spanish. She has worked
as a translator, editor, and quality assurance
specialist for many companies around the world
with a special focus on creative translations and
video game localization. She is the chief executive
officer of Terra Translations and co-host of the
podcast about translation, En Pantuflas.
Contact: marina@terratranslations.com.
www.atanet.org
http://www.atanet.org
The ATA Chronicle - March/April 2020

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of The ATA Chronicle - March/April 2020
