作者：Jan Werkmeister

我敢肯定，一些经常玩英语语言的游戏的玩家，即使自己并不讲英语，也能理解其中90%以上的内容（游戏邦注：当然，还要看这些内容的来源国家）。

在过去，本土化做得很糟的游戏非常多，所以你经常可以听到有玩家如此抱怨，“我宁可玩英语版游戏，因为我觉得更真实。”原因之一当然是外国语言本身的魅力。

举个例子：我看到许多说意大利语的玩家对游戏的意大利语版表示不满，而说英语的玩家却认为这个版本比英语版好多了。这大概就是我们经常说的：外国的月亮总比自己国家的圆。

但因此而认为本土化游戏是无意义的，是完全错误的。游戏的成熟度越高，其剧情就越复杂、越严谨、越生动。为了深入研究游戏剧情和它的角色之间的微妙互动，了解90%的内容是不够的，你必须掌握100%。

在一个并不讲你的语言的虚拟世界中活动，并不会让你对这款游戏产生非常强烈的情感联系——要体验开发者为玩家创造的体验，产生共鸣是必须的：

当我奔跑在《天际》广阔的世界里，发现那些用我的母语写下的神秘地点的名称，我永远不会忘记那些奇妙的时刻。

website-translation(from reginaranslation.com)

本土化不简单

本土化工作通常被视作一件规范化、结构化的过程，与创意没有多大关系。

人们认为，本土化后的游戏只是对原版作品的无聊模仿。因为成本问题，如果只要按下某种软件某个按键，就可以自动把英语转换成法语、德语、意大利语、西班牙语、汉语、俄罗斯语等，我想发行商会非常乐意那么办的。

但本土化没有这么简单。假设，某游戏开发者的国家具有自己的一套复杂的语言、流行文化和特殊的历史。这位开发者制作了游戏，难道不希望其他国家的玩家体验到的东西和自己国家的玩家是一样的吗？我想不会吧。这就是本土化的本质——不仅仅是模仿，更重要的是转化和适应。

把游戏的语言从一种语音转化成另一种语音，似乎是一件相当复杂的工作，甚至有些骇人，仿佛与外星人交流。可能你会问自己，到底要怎么做才能让这帮火星人理解我的游戏？幸运的是，游戏本土化的许多沟通标准已经“全球化”了，特别是在欧美国家。例如，美国开发者不必担心欧洲的玩家在玩了个把小时后还不理解带中东口音的角色是恐怖份子，是敌人。

但是，让我感到吃惊的事实是，德国通常把不使用任何口音作为本土化标准，但与此同时，对严肃的角色使用东欧或东部口音又是非常有效的手段。

但不对骄傲的维京人角色使用任何北欧日耳曼口音，效果却很糟，只会让玩家联想到德国的宜家电视广告或者在美国的《大青蛙木偶秀》里出现的厨师。

我猜测：也许使用俄语口音的传统可以追溯到体现善良的欧美人对抗邪恶的俄国人的冷战电影。但我不确定。我们从中能学习到什么？你必须考虑一下研究电影和电视配音的历史。你会发现许多关于如何给不同国家的角色配音的特殊的、默认的规范。

因为人们看电影和电视已有数十年的历史了，已经把那些规范作为媒体的基本标准；并且，你在本土化中能做的许多选择也已经被确定了。你必须意识到这一点，必须按照人们认为什么是可信的什么是荒唐的，来转化你的游戏。

说得容易做得难

尽管口音是一件非常难解决的问题，但在本土化中，我们每天都会遇到它。

为了塑造生动的角色，美国开发者特别擅长频繁地利用地域上的特性和模式。语言和我们使用语言的方式，通常能反映我们的生活方式和与世界的互动方式。因为在欧洲和亚洲国家，大多数人并不能确切地知道角色的什么属性与特定地区有关，而且要找到对等的地区口音更是困难，显然你不能只是单纯地模仿，而必须在本土化的过程中创造一个全新的角色。

不要模仿，要创新

想象一下，有一个游戏角色是德克萨斯州人，他有典型的当地口音和作风。尽管一个逼真的角色绝对不会仅限于“像一个德州人”，但正如之前强调的，开发者可能使用模式化的声音和行为来定义这个角色，使玩家能很快就辨认出他的出身。

现在想像一下你的任务是为法国市场本土化这个角色，你很可能找不到能代表典型的德州人特点的口音，而模仿德州人讲话也没用，因为法国人听起来只会觉得相当可笑。所以，你应该怎么办？

你不能模仿，你要更进一步，创造一个新的角色，使他的表现与在美式英语、法语、西班牙语或汉语等语境下的一致。

让你的法国牛仔生动起来

你创造了你的法国牛仔，但还没圆满。如果你问声音总监在找到匹配的配音演员后，为什么不简单地照搬牛仔在原版游戏中的台词，他们总会给你相同的回答：在本土化中，你创造的新角色必须100%与角色的国籍一致，必须达到以假乱真的程度。如果玩家发现角色只是模仿出来的，而不是“真实的”，他们与角色的感情就会马上烟消云散。

沟通细节

为了创造更加可信的本土化角色，你必须提供尽可能多的信息，然后放手让本土化人员去创造和录音。

通常来说，AAA游戏的英语录音非常费功夫，需要负责游戏剧情和角色的开发组共同参与。本土化团队要得到可信的成果，必须首先了解故事的细节，然后决定本土化后的角色在某种场合下可以做什么，最后让配音演员给角色配音。

请记住语境的问题。所有本土化工作人员习惯于使用简单的电子表格，但这些表格通常不太能启发灵感。尽管处理“没有感情的”数据正是他们的日常工作的一部分，作为开发者或发行商，你不应该忘记提供基本的信息，如语境、场景氛围或对话的情绪。评论、图片、视频——把所有有助于找到本土化游戏的正确基调的东西提供给本土化人员。

信任专业人士

如果你与有经验的专业人士共事，那么你应该信任这些负责本土化工作的人。

从非专业人员的角度出发，你的工作难免存在缺陷。故事越是复杂，本土化工作就越要明智。以本土化诙谐语为例，当笑话与区域性（美国、英国、亚洲等）流行文化有关时，单纯的翻译只会导致灾难性的结果：玩家不能体会到任何幽默感，只会觉得荒唐。作为开发者，你很可能会在游戏中加入聪明巧妙的玩笑，然而在本土化过程中，那些笑话全都被破坏了，最后倒是你自己被玩家当成“傻瓜”来笑话。

这个问题的唯一解决办法是，让本土化工作人员自由发挥，不必照字面翻译你的笑话，而是通过目标语言保留笑话的风格。虽然本土化后的结果与原来的笑话完全没有关系，但能让说目标语言的玩家体会到相同的幽默感。

与聪明的本土化工作者合作，不要把本土化当成“翻译”一样，字字句句都要兼顾。你的玩家会感谢你的英明决定。

为了达到理想的本土化效果，我们要怎么做？在我们的工作室Synthesis里，我们的观点是，优秀的翻译是理想的本土化的开头。本土化不只是字面上的翻译，更多地是完整地传达我在上文中提到的游戏的语境。没有理想的翻译过程（最高的质量标准和一致性），你不可能应付得了上百万个单词。

你必须考虑到所有可能遇到的特殊技术要求。比如，为了使同步过场动画中的角色口型与目标语言一致，我们让脚本专家检查脚本。

你希望这个场面由说德语的Bruce Willis来表述？没问题，我们有非常合适的配音演员，足以让玩家以为亲爱的老Bruce会讲一口流利的德语。我们的工作室的目标是，保证玩家，无论其背景或语言，都能经历按开发者意图设计出来的体验。（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）

AUDIO SPECIAL: The sound of localisation

by Jan Werkmeister

I allege that some of the non-English native gamers playing on a regular basis are fully able to play games in English and understand above 90 per cent of its content (depending on their country of origin).

And because there have been a lot of badly localised games in the past you hear these gamers often say ‘I prefer playing games as English original versions, because they have a more convincing appeal to me,’. One of the reasons for this is of course the appeal of a foreign language.

As an example: I saw plenty of Italians complaining about a recent game that some Italian localised voices were ‘crap’ and then English people coming by and saying ‘they are so much better than the English ones’. That’s like with many things in life: your neighbour’s grass will always be greener.

But stating that localising games might not be worth it is totally wrong. The more games are ‘growing up’ the more they are developing towards being based on more complex, more serious and more emotional storytelling (we all remember Quantic Dream’s recent ‘Kara’ Dev trailer). In order to fully delve into the game and its subtle play between its characters it won’t be sufficient to get 90 per cent of the story, you have to get all of it.

And acting within a virtual world that doesn’t speak your language won’t ever let you create a very strong emotional connection with the game – which is needed to experience what a developer has originally created for the player:

I won’t forget all the magic moments I had when running through the huge landscape of Skyrim and discovering all those mysterious sites with imaginative names written in my mother tongue.

LOCALISATION IS NOT BORING

It’s quite common to think about localisation as a very formal and structured process without much creativity involved.

People assume localisation to be a boring imitation of an already existing product. Due to its costs I believe publishers would be more than glad to have some kind of automated localisation software to convert the English original to French, German, Italian, Spanish, Chinese, Russian and so on at a click of a button.?

But that’s not what localisation is about. Imagine there’s a developer coming from one cultural sphere with its unique and complex repertoire of communication standards, history and pop culture. And this developer creates a piece of audio/visual communication – the game – in order to let the players of the same cultural sphere experience exactly what he intended them to experience. Wouldn’t this developer want the players with other cultural backgrounds experience the very same game in the very same way players of his origin do? I believe so. And that’s what localisation is about. It’s not about just imitating but transforming and adapting.

Transferring a game’s language from one cultural sphere to another sounds like a pretty complex task, maybe even intimidating, like communicating with an alien culture. Maybe you ask yourself ‘whoo, how on earth will my game be received by those little martians ?’ ?Luckily there are already a lot of communication standards that have been ‘globalised’ especially within the Western world. Due to these global communication standards of media and cultural similarities, a US developer doesn’t need to worry that an European player won’t understand that the guy with a strange undefined Middle Eastern accent is the terrorist and his enemy for the next hours of play (just to mention one of the typical clichés).

But I’m also quite astonished by the fact that it’s generally a localisation standard in Germany to not make use of any accents but at the same time it’s been shown to be very effective in making use of Eastern Europe or Oriental accents for serious characters.

But stay away from trying to make use of any Scandinavian accents for proud Viking-like characters; it’ll suck and will only make people think of the funny voice used in German IKEA ads on TV or the Chef from the Muppet Show.

Sometimes I wonder: Maybe the established use of a Russian accent goes back to a long history of Cold War movies presenting the good Western guys fighting against the evil Russians – of course with a strong accent! I don’t know.??What can we learn from this? You have to take the history of voice dubbing for movies and TV into account. You will find a lot of unspoken and very unique rules of how to dub a character’s voice in each and every country that has a strong dubbing culture.

Since people have been watching movies and TV for decades those practices have formed the reception of media in a fundamental way and due to these many choices you would like to make in localisation are already predefined. You have to know about this and have to adapt to what people think is convincing or just absurd.

NOT SO EASY TO HANDLE

Although accents are a pretty hard issue to cope with we have to face this in localisation every day.

US American developers especially make intensive use of their regional peculiarities and stereotypes in order to get vivid characters. Language and how we use it is often a mirror of how we live our lives and how we interact with the world around us. Since it’s not common sense in European or Asian countries to know exactly what attributes of character are associated with a particular region and it’s an even greater challenge to find an equivalent for a regional accent, it’s quite clear that you can’t just imitate but have to create completely new characters during localisation.

Don’t copy, create something new.

Think of an unique Texan game character with a typical accent and behavior. Although a character that is well set up will never be only limited to ‘being a Texan’ but as highlighted before, the developer might use stereotypic sound and behavior to give this character a basic definition and a clear and immediate recognition.

Now imagine your task is to localise this character for a French market where you very likely won’t have an accent available that represents typical Texan attributes and it won’t help to imitate Texan speech melody because that probably will sound quite ridiculous in French. What can you do?

You have to go one step further and stop copying a character and start creating a new character that will work the same way a Texan does in an US English context, in a French, Spanish or Chinese or whatever context.

BRING YOUR FRENCH COWBOY TO LIFE

Once you created your French cowboy, it’s not yet done. If you’d ask our Audio Supervisors or Audio Directors why they, once they have found a matching voice / actor, just don’t copy line per line of the original audio with their new French cowboy, you’d always get the very same answer: During localization you created a new character that needs to be 100 per cent consistent within its character’s boundaries to be as convincing as the original. Players would immediately be detached from the localised character’s emotions and play if they noticed it being just a copy and not having its “own life”.

COMMUNICATE THE DETAILS

In order to get a convincing localised character, you need to provide the localisation people responsible for its creation and recording with as much information as possible.

Usually the English audio recordings of an triple-A game are done with huge effort and has the same development team involved who created the game’s story and characters in the first place. By knowing all the details of the story and deciding what their localised character would do in a certain situation and letting the voice actor fill it with life – that’s how the audio teams in each territory can achieve a convincing result.

And please bear in mind the context issue. All localisation people are used to working with plain Excel sheets that are usually not very inspiring. Although it’s part of their daily work dealing with tons of ‘unemotional’ data, as a developer or publisher you shouldn’t forget about implementing such fundamental information as the context and basic mood of a scene or a dialogue. Commentary, pictures, videos – put in everything that might help the audio director to find the right tone in audio localisation.

TRUST THE PEOPLE IN THE TERRITORIES

Provided you work with experienced industry professionals you should trust the people being responsible for localisation for their territory.

There’s a limitation to what you are able to assess from a non-native perspective. The more subtle it gets in terms of storytelling, the cleverer you have to localise. An easy example is localising humor especially when it involves any references to regional (US American, British, Asian, etcetera.) pop culture.

In this case plain translating would just end up in a disaster: Players won’t recognise any of the references and it won’t be funny at all – just ridiculous. And as a developer that’s very likely the last thing you need: including clever and subtle written jokes in your game which get literally devastated during localisation and players ultimately thinking you are a moron.

The only way to solve that issue is to give the localisation guys the freedom to not translate your jokes but to transfer its style to the destination language. You will end up with jokes that won’t have anything in common with its original (content-wise) but will be based on its own references working in the same manner within the targeted territory.

Do yourself a favour; decide to work with the clever localisation guys and don’t try to save each and every cent on localisation because it’s ‘just for translation’. Your players will be thankful for that wise decision.

What do we do in order to achieve an excellent localisation? ??In our approach at Synthesis, the translation marks the very beginning of an excellent localisation. It’s not just about transferring words but fully localizing a game’s content as I explained before. Without optimised translation processes including the highest standard of quality assurance and consistency you won’t manage to handle millions of words without going crazy.

Any possible special technical requirements must be taken into account as well and we have the specialists which are needed to ‘doctor’ a script in order to achieve a natural lip synch cut-scene in any relevant language.

You want this scene to be spoken by the German voice of Bruce Willis? No problem at all, we have voice actors so similar, you’ll have players thinking that dear old Bruce can speak fluent German. Our overall aim at Synthesis is to ensure that players, regardless of where they are or what language they speak, experience the game as the developers intended.(source:develop-online)