Abstract
Chapter 3 describes the localization process and the different phases and agents involved. First, the relationship between localization and audiovisual translation is discussed in order to define what is currently understood by localization and how it is related to other media adaptation practices. Then, the localization process is presented, divided into three main phases: pre-localization, translation and post-localization, emphasizing the fact that localization should be conceived as an agile and flexible process. The main localization agents, their most common activities and the materials they receive are also discussed based on the insights shared by current and anonymous localization professionals who illustrate how localization takes place nowadays. Special attention is drawn to the dubbing practices included in the localization process.
Localisation should not be perceived as a mandate to modify everything, but rather as an awareness of the sensitivities and preferences of other cultures.
—Bernal-Merino (2015. Translation and Localisation in Video Games. Making Entertainment Software Global. New York: Routledge: 174)
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Notes
- 1.
A total of 19 people were interviewed, either by telephone or by videoconference. 17 of them were interviewed at the end of 2017 and 2 in September 2020. All these semi-structured interviews were recorded and transcribed in order to extract and analyze the relevant information in detail. Their roles in the localization industry range from project production (project managers) to translation production (translators and reviewers) and translation post-production in the dubbing studio (dubbing directors, dubbing actors and sound technicians).
- 2.
The term “functional” is used here to indicate that a product is designed to be practical and used to achieve a particular goal, such as a commercial website, intended to promote the sales of a certain product, or software programs developed as audio or graphic editors. Video games, in contrast, typically pursue a ludic goal, rather than other types of purely functional activities.
- 3.
The post-gold model consists of marketing the video game, first, in the country where it was developed, and later on, in different markets, as opposed to the sim-ship model, which means the global launching of the product in all markets (locales) simultaneously.
- 4.
As O’Hagan and Mangiron (2013: 132) define them, variables or placeholders are “values that hold the space for different text or numerical strings—such as proper nouns, numerals, and objects—and they change depending on certain conditions specific to the player action.
- 5.
Their website is available at <https://meridiem-games.com/mdm> [accessed in May 2021].
- 6.
The processes outlined in Sect. 3.2.3 draw particularly on the interviews with professionals in the field, which, as indicated above, must remain confidential as sources.
- 7.
ROM-hacking refers to the process of accessing the game ROM (read-only memory) to edit some features of the video game such as graphics, settings, texts (to add translations) and so on. The ROM is a file that contains all the elements of which the video game is composed and can be executed in an emulator—a computer system that recreates a different system—not necessarily the original platform for which the game was developed. ROMs can be found on the internet, and fans and those known as “romhackers” download them to add their own modifications to the game (see Muñoz Sánchez 2007 for a review of how this process can take place).
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Mejías-Climent, L. (2021). Game Localization: Stages and Particularities. In: Enhancing Video Game Localization Through Dubbing. Palgrave Studies in Translating and Interpreting. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-88292-1_3
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