作者：Natalie Gladkaya

在游戏开发领域，本土化操作还没有引起人们的重视——但在今天的全球市场中，即使是最棒的社交游戏如果没有自然而本地的本土化操作，也永远无法发挥自己的潜能。如果玩家接触一款文本翻译很糟糕的游戏，就算游戏再好他们也有可能一去不返。所以，问题就在于游戏是否需要本土化，而是如何进行妥当的本土化操作。

我的本土化职业生涯始于在乌克兰哈尔科夫国立教育大学攻读经济理论硕士并为一家小公司担任翻译之时。在教授两年的高中经济学之后，我决定在一个压力不那么大的领域就业，但却误打误撞进入了游戏制作领域！我认为自己颇具“语言天赋”并且精通俄语=乌克兰语、德语和英语。我自2011年以来就一直在Plarium的本土化团队工作。我最初是担任主翻译人员和游戏内容编辑，之后就开始监管12款游戏的本土化操作。我们多数游戏翻译成7种语言，但随着我们拓展新市场，这些翻译语言的数量还会进一步增长。

我想根据自己的个人经验，概括一些普遍的本土化挑战，尤其是针对社交游戏开发者的挑战，并提供一些如何解决这些问题的建议。

挑战1：组建团队

“你说克林贡语吗？”

找一名自由职业翻译或一家提供本土化服务的公司并不是什么难事——你可以上网找到大量此类供应商和自由职业人士，他们的服务范围包括翻译和文化/语言咨询，甚至还有校对和QA。真正的挑战在于找到你完全信任并且可持续提供出色翻译的人。

我们的经验：

三年前，我们开始组建了自己的本土化梦之队，在这个过程中发生了一些兴趣方面的冲突。多数校对人员同时拥有丰富的创意写作和翻译经验，有时候甚至会挑战翻译人员的语言选择而不是实实在在地完成校对工作。他们最终也是想获得一份翻译工作，因为后者通常薪水更高，地位也更高。

因此，早期的西班牙语本土化过程就一直不乏翻译人员和校对人员之间的冲突。人人都坚持自己的版本才是最好的，但实际上两者都还行并且可以互换。他们不断修改对方的版本，导致一个文件被驳回五六次。在尝试调解两方的争论之后，我们最终不得不制定一项关于这两者如何互动的政策，要求让团队的一名成员进行最终拍板。我们发现明确定义角色和实施一些固定的规则是组建能够顺利合作的翻译-校对团队的最重要元素。

建议：

找到一名独立校对人员/审核人员。他们必须精通目标语言，并且具有校对翻译文本的资质，能够保证进行无误的本土化操作。无论你的翻译人员有多棒，都必须再多个人和脑袋来检查一番。

挑战2：不仅仅是翻译

真正优秀的本土化操作有哪些要求？任何翻译人员都会告诉你，情境是关键。在游戏本土化操作中，除非翻译人员深谙游戏世界，知道它的现状和机制，并且能够找到所有的参照，攻略等内容，否则就不可能了解其中的情境。你可以在没有这些细节的帮助下获得优秀的翻译——但却有可能因此而得到枯燥，缺乏生气和风格的翻译内容。有时候甚至你自己都说不上来到底缺了什么，但你的粉丝却能够发现这一点。

我们的经验：

我们开始本土化Facebook游戏《Total Domination》时，使用了标准的工具——翻译人员得到了游戏描述、词汇、截图和一切可确保妥善翻译的内容。翻译人员和校对人员都不觉得有必要事先玩游戏，大家在这一点上似乎都达成了一致意见。之后，离游戏发布还有几个月时，翻译人员开始给我们发信息：“我玩了一下游戏，想重新修正其中一些翻译内容。”我们意识到自己可能低估了翻译人员和校对人员的潜能，而他们实际上远比我们所想的更愿意深入参与到这一过程。我们许多长期服务供应商后来都成了铁杆玩家，并且也真心喜欢我们的游戏——这实现了我们的互惠互利。他们还经常帮助我们测试游戏的beta版本。与翻译人员和校对人员建立这种关系还算是比较罕见的。

建议：

让你的翻译人员成为一名玩家！不要只是丢给他们一堆空洞的文本，要先让他们研究一下游戏。即使是最简单的游戏也会自己的故事。要向翻译人员解释每个细节——为何猪会戴着头盔，甜瓜如何攻击僵尸，以及谁是Morgana。不要害怕为解释游戏故事情或/时间线、概念艺术、角色参照、背景、音乐样本和音效而扩展本土化工具。让他们在开工之前自己去探索游戏的每个环节。如果你足够幸运的话，你的翻译人员也可能成为游戏粉丝，而这对你的项目来说再好不过了。

挑战3：更努力，更好，更快，更强

本土化是一个缓慢而彻底的过程，但却需要嵌入一个紧凑的时间轴。没有开发者希望为了本土化而延迟发布日期。有时候，开发者分配给本土化工作的时间仅够翻译内容，校对和测试——甚至只有一次而已。这对于常规的游戏更新和社交游戏制作周期来说更是家常便饭。你通常在仅有7天的制作周期无法承受长达4天的本土化和QA工作。在理想情况下，你会为最近开发的功能而接受来自源语言的“最终版”文本，并将其锁定以便编辑、翻译和最终发布。你会接收所有权，这样就不会再有什么更改和功能的调整。实际上，社交游戏内容多数时候一直在发生变化，并且会持续更新。

我们的经验：

我们直到最近才保持逐步操作的制作周期，这意味着本土化要先于最终的QA进行，并且要位于源语言的文本获得批准和测试之后。但时当你是在发布前数小时才收到最终的源文本时，这种方法就失效了。

尽早将本土化人员引进这一过程，为他们提供足够的信息来创建原型文本，得以令我们同时制作至少两种语言的副本——英语和俄语，并且可以让我们腾出更多校对和QA的时间。

建议：

要加快进度就要尽早引进本土化操作。你可能会认为如果你还没有拿到实际的文本，光靠一些概念艺术和一而功能描述并不足以完成最终的本土化版本，但这却可以在实际的翻译过程中为你节省大量时间，因为翻译人员可以据此大概了解功能或更新内容的情况，并为你省下不少问答时间。

挑战4：语言翻译错误

我们总是嘲笑他人的本土化和营销错误——甚至还有一些专门挖掘这类消息的网站。在一种语言中听起来很时髦的东西可能在另一种语言中却有完全不同，甚至令人尴尬或具有攻击性的意思。其中有些问题很明显，另一些则很“隐蔽”，只有在它们无法与目标语言兼容时你才能发现。

我们的经验：

我们在开发一个新项目时，总会牢记我们的产品要面向全球发布，并且令其保持全球化的标准，同时也允许进行一些本土化调整。在我们翻译人员的帮助下，我们对每个国家的文化特性具有较高的警觉性，并且尽最大努力避开一些敏感禁区。只要我们知道瞄准的是哪个市场，在调整内容的时候就会特别灵活。例如，在《Total Domination》英语版本中的7月4日是独立日主题，而俄语版本则是Gen.Winter的生日。

建议：

进行市场调查。要了解目标国家、文化、历史和生活方式的基本信息，这有利于你避开一些较为普遍的本土化错误。将翻译人员视为可靠的语言和文化顾问来源——让他们知道自己可以自由评价本土化过程任何环节。尤其是在涉及幽默元素时，你必须准备做好更改大量笑话、双关语和参照的准备，并且完全信赖你的翻译人员，用一种能够最大化地让观众理解的方式调整和重制有关内容，但同时也要遵从原来的风格。要尽管最小化拥有文本的图像内容——图片的本土化操作一直是个大麻烦。

挑战5：配音

如果你的游戏拥有需要大量对话的角色，你可能会想为游戏配音。优秀的配音会让游戏在铁杆玩家中赢得更好的印象，而完整的本土化配音则是一个可靠保障。但是，如果你选择给游戏完整的配音，那就要做好准备了。这是一个极耗时间和资源的过程，其中涉及大量规划和人脉。你的创意总监和音频工程师会跟你讲述一切内容，但从本土化人员的角度来看——如果一款社交/手机游戏要进行彻底的配音，那你就必须为它所提供的每一种语言版本配音，仅有字幕是不够的。

我们的经验：

我们根据自己的本土化准则，为所有游戏的所有支持语言提供了配音。有时候会有点紧张，因为游戏更新量和频率都比较大，并且平衡多个录音流程所需的要求也更高。

幸运的是，我们并不需要担心脚本的问题，因为我们的翻译人员也可以处理一点脚本文案，他们帮助我们修改脚本，挑选配音人员，甚至是指导他们的配音工作。他们似乎很喜欢在这个过程中发挥不同作用。

有时候时间安排极为紧凑，并且我们也并不总能同时在一间屋子里容纳所有的国际配音人员。我们大部分工作就采用远程操作，让我们的翻译人员/总监和配音制作人坐着用Skype聊天指导一个或多个工作室的配音人员和音频工程师。我们一个工作室的录制工作甚至有4个不同时区的参与者。

建议：

保持专业性。不要在快速而粗心的业余配音人员身上浪费精力。如果你准备花数周（甚至是数个月）时间编写脚本、配音和录音，要记住：一种语言的配音工作与多种语言配音并没有什么不同，只是后者需要更多脚本，角色描述、演员阵容表单、配音演员和工作室会话等。记住要同时安排好不同语言的配音过程，这样才能避免你的配音人员一直徘徊在“等待过程”中。

挑战6：QA，QA再QA

你已经创建了一个超级的翻译和校对团队。你的文本校对和编辑最多时候是有3名不同的人员完成。你引进了一些本土语言beta测试人员以及QA工程师，你可以算是万事俱备了。

但是，要再想想。

错误仍然时有发生。无论你多努力地消除错误，还是有不同情况的本土化错误出现。多数漏洞和错误并不显著——它们可能沉寂数周和数月，直到游戏上线一些游戏玩家再次看到游戏指南时才会发现。本土化错误也可能非常严重和搞笑。

我们的经验：

在此我们想强调QA的重要性。我们曾在《Total Domination》推出一个没有经过任何本土化处理的功能，当时其支持语言只有俄语。不幸的是，当时将再游戏切换回更早的版本并不是个理想的选择，而补上缺失的语言和更新服务器又需要大量时间。

所以我们的用户就遇到了极为困惑的情况，这也让我们的本土化人员极为尴尬。玩家社区就在论坛中讨论此事，甚至有玩家首先发布了他们自己的翻译版本。

虽然这很好地证明了一个铁杆玩家社区能够快速适应任何游戏情况，但这却令我们被动地置于另一层“审查”之下。你的团队至少也犯过一次这类错误，这会让他们关注为何注意到细节如此重要。如果发生了错误情况，玩家社区会揪住错误的翻译内容，并在博客中发布相关文章，让你知道这一情况。但从那之后，我们再也没有发生过类似的情况。

建议：

永远不要低估人类QA和交叉审查的作用。自动测试是一个很棒的方法，但它无法取代人类QA，无法找到本土化操作的错误。

不要惧怕多次QA所遗漏的漏洞和错误，而要想出消除它们的最快和最有效方法，并且要有一些随时待命找出问题的本土化人员。当游戏上线时社区管理和用户支持就会成为你的耳目，他们将有助于你最小化错误带来的损害。

这是一个持续的过程

显然，游戏本土化所面临的远不止6个挑战，并且也没有哪一种适用于任何游戏和开发者的万全之策。即使同一时间处理多个开发项目，有时候你还是得修正和调整自己的流程和时间安排，以便令其生效。行业中有一些既定的规则和标准——我们所要做的就是将其拿来试用，并设计出我们自己的风格以及每个产品的本土化方式。关键在于不要将本土化视为制作末期才赶工的任务，而要让它成为制作过程的一个环节。让它与游戏本身一起进化和成长，本土化过程不会在游戏发布后结束——它是一个全新生命的开始。（本文为游戏邦/gamerboom.com编译，拒绝任何不保留版权的转载，如需转载请联系：游戏邦）

How Game Developers Can Overcome Localization Challenges

By Natalie Gladkaya

A guest post by Natalie Gladkaya, Head of Localization at Plarium

In the world of game development, localization doesn’t often take the spotlight – but in today’s global market, even the best social games will never fully realize their potential without natural, native localization. A player who spends half their time deciphering lines of poorly translated text is a player who will leave before they get into what might otherwise be a great game. So, the question is not if games need to be localized, but how to do it properly.

I began my localization career while translating for a small firm while completing my Master’s in Economic Theory at Kharkiv National Pedagogical University in Ukraine. After two years of teaching high school economics, I decided to work in a less stressful field, but somehow ended up in game production! I like to think I have “linguistic instincts” and am fluent in Russian, Ukrainian, German, and English. I’ve been working on the localization team at Plarium since 2011. I started as a lead translator and game content editor, and have since then overseen the localization efforts for twelve titles. Most of our games are translated into seven different languages, although that number may easily grow as we expand into new markets around the world.

Based on my experience, I wanted to outline some common localization challenges, specifically for social game developers, and provide a behind-the-scenes look into how we solved these issues.

Challenge 1 – Building a Team

“Do you speak Klingon?”

Finding a freelance translator or a company that provides localization services isn’t rocket science – plenty of vendors and freelance professionals can be found online, offering services from translation and cultural/linguistic consulting to proofreading and quality assurance. The real challenge is finding someone you can completely trust with your product and consistently deliver a top notch translation.

How it works for us:

Three years ago, we began assembling our very own localization dream team, and in the process bumped into a conflict of interest. Most proofreaders also have extensive experience in creative writing and translation, and sometimes tend to challenge the translator’s linguistic choices rather than actually proofread the work.  Ultimately, they might be trying to get a translation job instead, which is oftentimes better paid and more prestigious.

As a result, the early Spanish localization process was nothing short of a constant confrontation between the translator and the proofreader. Each one insisted their version was the best, but in reality both were absolutely fine and interchangeable. They kept editing each other’s versions so that one document bounced back and forth five or six times. After trying to settle the disputes between the two professionals, we ultimately had to set a standing policy on how the two roles interact, with one member of the team having final say. We found that clearly defining roles and laying these kinds of firm ground rules are the most important elements in forming translator-proofreader teams that can work together smoothly.

Tip:

Get an independent proofreader/reviewer. They must be fluent in the target language and qualified enough to proofread the translations and ensure error-free localization. No matter how great your translator is, a second pair of eyes and a fresh head is a must.

Challenge 2 – More Than Just a Translation

What does it take for a really good localization? Any translator will tell you that context is the key. In game localization, context can’t be provided unless the translator is well versed with the game universe, knows its realities and mechanics, and is able to spot all the references, hat tips and Easter eggs. You can always get a good translation without these nuances – but then you risk getting a translation that is too dry, lacking in pace and style, or just a bit off. You might not even be able to tell it – but your fanbase will.

How it works for us:

We started localizing our Facebook game, “Total Domination,” using standard kits, which seemed to be working well – the translators had game descriptions, glossaries, screenshots and everything it took to ensure a good translation. Neither translators nor proofreaders felt it necessary to play the game prior to translating it, and everyone seemed to be in agreement. Then, a few months into the release, the translators started messaging us: “I’ve played the game for a while and I have some suggestions to revise some of the translations.” We realized we had possibly been underusing the potential of our translators and proofreaders, who were willing to be integrated into the process deeper than we thought. Many of our long-term service suppliers have become hardcore players and really enjoy our games – to our mutual benefit. They also help us test the beta builds regularly. Building this kind of a relationship with the translators and proofreaders is a rare thing.

Tip:

Make your translator a gamer! Don’t rush them and make them plunge into bare strings of texts right away (realistic deadlines with a good “safety margin” might help here). Let them study the game first. Even the simplest games have a story. Explain every detail to the translator – why pigs wear helmets, how melons help fight off zombies, and who Morgana is. Don’t be afraid to expand the localization kit to account for game storylines/timelines, concept art, character references and background, music samples and sound effects. Let them explore every pixel of the game before they start. If you’re lucky enough to have your translator become a fan of your game, that’s the best thing that can happen to your project.

Challenge 3 – Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger

Localization is a slow and thorough process that needs to be fit into a tight timeframe. No developer ever wants to push release dates for the sake of localization (that’s a fact). Sometimes, the time allotted for localization is barely enough to translate the content, proofread and test it – even just once. This is especially true when dealing with regular game updates and social gaming production cycles. You often cannot afford a luxury of 4-day localization and quality assurance in a 7-day production cycle. In an ideal world, you would accept a “final” text from the source language for a recently developed feature and lock it for editing, translation, and final release. You would take ownership, and there would be no more changes and no more tweaking of the feature (spoiler alert: It doesn’t work like that). In reality, social game content is most often a changing and constantly updated entity.

How it works for us:

Until recently we kept to a step-by-step production cycle, meaning that localization came in right before final quality assurance, and after the texts had been approved and tested in the source language. This method stopped working when reached a production speed where final source texts were received only a few hours before release.

Bringing localizers in earlier in the process and feeding them enough information to build prototype texts allowed us to produce copies in at least two languages in parallel – English and Russian – and allowed us more time for proofreading and quality assurance.

Tip:

To speed things up, bring localization in as early as possible. You might think that a bunch of concept art and a page of feature descriptions won’t help much towards the final version if you don’t yet have the actual texts – but it can save you a fair amount of time when it comes to actual translation of the strings, as the translators will have the general picture of a feature or update by then and save you many hours of Q&A. Challenge 4 – “All Your Base Are Belong to Us”

We love making fun of others’ localization and marketing fails – there are even websites dedicated to highlighting them. What sounds cool and catchy in one language can mean something absolutely different, embarrassing or downright offensive in another one. Some of these hurdles are obvious; others are “hidden,” and only come to light when they inexplicably just don’t work with the target audience.

How it works for us:

When developing a new project, we always bear in mind that our products are released worldwide and keep them to global standards, while also allowing for possible local tweaks. With the help of our translators, we are highly aware of the cultural specifics of each country and do our best to avoid sensitive aspects. In any case, we’re quite flexible when it comes to adapting content, provided we know where to look for. For example, the 4th of July holiday special in Total Domination would be Independence Day theme in the English version and something completely fictional like Gen. Winters’s birthday in the Russian version.

Tip:

Do your research. Understanding basic information about a country, their culture, history and ways of life will help avoid most common localization mistakes. Use the translators as a reliable source of linguistic and cultural consulting – let them know they have full freedom to comment on any part of localization process. Especially when it comes to humor, you have to be ready to change a lot of jokes, punchlines and references and fully trust your translators with adapting or re-inventing them in a way that will be best perceived by the audience, but still complies with the original style. Try to minimize the amount of graphic content that has text in it – localizing graphics is always a pain.

Challenge 5 – Say it out loud!

If your game has well-written characters with a substantial amount of dialogue, you may want to add another dimension to your game and voice them. A good voiceover gives you extra karma points from grateful hardcore fans, and a fully localized voiceover is a solid combo. However, if you choose to give your game a full voiceover, be ready to give what it takes. It’s an elaborate time and resource-consuming process which involves lots of planning and networking. Your creative director and sound engineer will tell you all about it, but from a localizer’s standpoint – as shocking as it is – if a social/mobile game is to be fully voiced, you have to go all the way and have it voiced in every single language it offers – subtitles are not an option.

How it works for us:

Following our own testaments of localization, we provide voiceover for all supported languages in every game. Sometimes it’s a bit of a strain, given the amount and frequency of game updates, and balancing multiple recording sessions is more demanding than it seems.

Luckily we don’t have to worry about the scripts since we’ve got our translators acting as scriptwriters a bit, and they help us with script adaptation, picking voice talents and even directing them during the sessions. They seem to enjoy wearing different hats throughout the process.

Sometimes the schedule is incredibly tight, and with an international cast of actors we cannot always afford the luxury of having all voiceover recording participants in one room. We get around this by doing much of our work remotely, with the voice actor and sound engineer in one or more studios, and our translator/director and voiceover producer sitting in on Skype chat. Our record so far is one studio session with participants in four time zones.

Tip:

Make it professional. A quick and sloppy voiceover done by amateur actors is not worth the effort. If you’re ready to embark on a several-week (sometimes months) scripting, casting and recording journey, remember: the process of a single-language voiceover hardly differs from multi-lingual voiceover, except that it requires more script copies, character descriptions, casting sheets, casting processes, voice actors and studio sessions. Remember that all of these processes should all be setup to work in parallel across languages if you don’t want your voiceover status to linger perpetually at “in progress”.

Challenge 6 – QA, QA, QA and then, QA

You have built a superb team of translators and proofreaders. You have the texts proofread and edited by 3 different people maximum. You brought in a couple of native-speaking beta-testers as well as quality assurance (QA) engineers. You have it all covered.

Well, think again.

Mistakes will happen. Regardless of how hard you’ve been working on eliminating them, there are all sorts of ways localization can go wrong. Most of these bugs and errors will be insignificant – they can be ‘sleeping’ for weeks and months in the live build until some player decides to read that game guide again. Localization errors can also be serious, epic and hilarious.

How it works for us:

There’s a story we like to tell to highlight the importance of QA – the infamous Research Lab update of 2012. We launched a feature in “Total Domination” that went live on Facebook without any localization whatsoever – the only language available was Russian. Unfortunately, rolling back the game to an earlier version was not an option at that time, and patching the missing languages and updating the server required a couple of hours.

We ended up with a very confusing situation for users and a very embarrassing one for our localizers. The community ended up running with it in the forums, with players even competing to deliver their own translations first.

While this was a great demonstration of how an engaged player community can adapt to practically any game situation, it was mortifying, and made us implement another layer of “eyeball checking”. Your team will have at least one mistake like this, and when it does it focuses them on why attention to detail is so vital.  When something goes wrong, make no mistake — the community will rip the poor translation apart, write about it in a “blog of shame”, and let you know about it. Something like this hasn’t happened again since.

Tip:

Never underestimate human quality assurance and cross-checking. Automated testing is a great help, but it can hardly replace human quality assurance to tell if a localization effort “works” or not.

Don’t be afraid of bugs and errors that slip through multiple levels of quality assurance. Instead, think of the fastest and most efficient ways they can be swept up and eliminated – and have a couple localizers ready and standing by to pick up the problem once detected. Community management and user support will be your eyes and ears once the game is live and they will help you minimize the damage in case the situation went alarmingly south. —

It’s an Ongoing Process

Obviously, there are more than six main challenges in game localization, and there is no ‘magic formula’ that suits every game and works for every developer. Even when working with a string of projects developed at the same time, sometimes you have to revise and adjust your processes and timeframes to make it work. There are certain rules and standards set in the industry – all we do is take them, try them out, and devise our own style and way of localizing every product. The key is not to make localization an “unnecessary evil” that is usually done toward the end of production. Make it part of the process. Let it evolve and grow along with the game itself and the experience is actually enjoyable. Your localization process doesn’t end when the game is released – it starts a completely new life.（source：gamesbrief）