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开发者谈关于游戏本地化的13条建议

发布时间:2019-04-24 08:33:26 Tags:,

开发者谈关于游戏本地化的13条建议

原作者:Benjamin Glover 译者:Vivian Xue

嗨!我叫Benjamin Glover,负责管理游戏《战团》(Brigador)的本地化工作。过去十年间,我先后在印刷、影视、科技及如今的游戏行业担任翻译和编辑,我发现人们在本地化工作中经常犯相同的错误。我想提供一些关于本地化工作流程、技术方面的建议,同时说明本地化为你的游戏带来的好处。

开始工作之前你应该:

-统计工作量

首先统计游戏最终版本的文字数量,这将帮助你大致了解翻译所需的时间。一名译者翻译250个词(或1800个字符含空格)大概需要一个小时。如果文本总字数超过5万个词——即需要200个小时以上——你也许应该考虑增加一名译者分摊工作量。一旦你计算出所需的翻译时间,将它乘以两倍以便进行后期编辑和校对(QA)。

-确定翻译的可行性

在开发之前,首先确定你的游戏是否能被翻译成另一种语言。如果你想在游戏发行后进行本地化,那些艺术素材上的文本(比如墙上的涂鸦)将成为一大障碍,因为你要么需要创造替换它们的素材——这将耗费很长时间,要么得想办法让玩家能够阅读这些文本,比如通过覆盖的方式。

-选择你要翻译的语言

将10万词的RPG翻译成冰岛语也许是个不错的营销策略,但这不太可能使你获得很多玩家(而且成本很高)。翻译语言的选择主要根据发行平台和游戏类型。然而,如果你只能进行一种语言的本地化,选择简体中文,因为中国玩家的数量摆在那儿。除此之外,我会推荐你翻译成德语、俄语、法语、日语和韩语,排名不分先后。

寻找译者时应注意:

-少即是多

无论你想如何翻译你的游戏文本——通过翻译机构、自由翻译者还是你的社区玩家——请注意,同时使用多名译者翻译一种语言并不总是个好主意。如果工作量合理,尽量让一名译者(再加一名编辑)完成一种语言的翻译。翻译机构往往能在很短的时间内交稿,这倒不是因为他们的员工都是工作狂,而是因为他们会将游戏文本分成几个部分,分给多个译者翻译。如果你的游戏文本量不大,这种方式也许很适合你。但如果你的游戏叙事内容繁多,那么采用多个译者翻译很容易引发翻译风格及术语不一致的问题。

No Second Chance(from tuicool)

No Second Chance(from tuicool)

-关注来自其它领域的译者

翻译们通常有一个自己特别擅长的领域,但这并不意味着你的游戏翻译必须拥有软件翻译经验。任何翻译过外国影视剧字幕的译者都具备一定的游戏文本翻译能力。一名文学翻译也许刚好翻译过与你的游戏文本类似的作品。如果你的游戏已经拥有了一批忠实粉丝,你可能会惊讶地发现你的玩家中有一些能力很强的翻译。

-确保他们有空

翻译不是一项能即时完成的工作,需要一定时间。当你第一次联系某个译者或翻译机构时,他们很可能手头已经有了一些长达数周甚至数月的工作。假如你提早确定你什么时候需要他们开始翻译,你将更容易得到你想要的译者,因此提早确认并告知他们时间,而不是期望人们立刻开始为你工作。

在开发过程中注意:

-你的游戏能显示该语言吗?

假设你选择了一种非拉丁字母的语言,如中文。那么——你的游戏程序能显示这种语言吗?你的游戏引擎是否拥有所需字体,能使文字正常显示而不是变成一堆空格和乱码——可以是吗?很好,但你仍需要检查文字是否清晰,要知道字体太小会导致某些文字难以辨认,亚洲语言中具有笔画的文字都有这个问题,因此在添加语言后要一定要检查。

-字符的限制和缩短

本地化过程中的一大麻烦是文本与界面不匹配(同时你发现无法修改用户界面,因为一个微小改动将改变一切)。比如,英文“Start”(开始)有五个字母,但这并不意味着在别的语言中它也由五个字母组成。为了协助翻译过程,你应该指明存在字符限制的地方,让你的译者解决这些问题。

-重复使用的文本

在创建用户界面时,我们习惯在多处使用相同的文本(比如“YES”这个词),这意味着你只需要创建一个实例(游戏邦注Instance)。尽管对于英文我们可以这样处理,在别的语言中这样可能会出问题。尽量避免在动作按钮这样的地方重复使用文本,因为某些问题的回答取决于具体的语言(有时你的回答不应翻译成“是”而是“确认”),因此为这些文本创建单独的实例。

与译者共同工作:

-翻译是双向的

记住本地化仍然是你游戏的一部分,你对它的付出决定了它的结果。再优秀的译者也会对文本产生疑问,无论是内容上的不明确还是被原开发者忽略的情节漏洞,这时你需要为他们提供帮助。让译者和编辑能够直接联系某位团队成员,借助一些即时沟通软件解答他们的疑惑,你还可以为译者和编辑建立专门的沟通渠道,记录常见的问题。

-保持简单的工作方式

不要想当然认为你的译者拥有最新版的CAT软件或者能打开复杂的TMX文件,并行的Excel表格同样可以完成任务。尽管你能提供一个功能完备的呈现游戏的方式,但你的译者可能没有条件运行它,因此通过UI截图、必要的时候通过录制和上传视频的方式。提供视觉参考能节省不少打字时间。

-准备好进行大量复制粘贴

这条算不上建议,更多的是一个提醒:本地化不是什么有趣的工作,它经常是枯燥乏味的,并且你可能会按复制粘贴键按到手软。本地化语言越多,你就越需要频繁和翻译编辑们沟通同样的东西。记得整理好文件,标明日期和名称以避免搞混。

最后……

-销量是最好的证明

游戏(及其他软件)开发是如此浩大的工程,以至于我经常听到人们说“本地化工作根本不值得”,潜台词是它会引发不必要的麻烦,此外需求量无法确定。对此,我想用我们的游戏《战团》2015年至今的Steam年销量饼状图来说明。

第一张饼状图是在游戏支持六种语言之前的销量细分。正如预期的那样,北美的销量占了三分之二,这种情况一直延续到2017年。然而,2017年至2018年间,我们加入了更多语言但还不支持中文,我们看到北美的份额在下降,而西欧的份额在上升。从2018年至今,我们可以清楚看到其它地区,特别是亚洲和大洋洲的销量有了大幅上升。尽管北美销量仍占总销量的38%,但与前两年的58%相比有了显著的变化。与此同时,2018年6月以来中国的销量排在第5位——这个位置通常由德国等欧洲国家占据。

我想说的是——如果以上的内容不够明确的话——支持更多语言绝对是值得的。本地化带来的收益不仅抵消了它自身的成本,它还明显提高了我们玩家的数量,帮助我们挖掘了一些冷门市场的玩家。感谢阅读!

本文由游戏邦编译,转载请注明来源,或咨询微信zhengjintiao

Hi there! I’m Benjamin Glover and I oversaw the localization of Brigador. Having worked as a translator and editor in print, TV, tech and now games over the past decade, I’ve noticed the same mistakes being made over and over again when it comes to localization. I’d like to pass on a few pieces of advice concerning workflow, some technical aspects, as well as explain the merits of localizing your game.

BEFORE YOU BEGIN:

-Find out how many words you have
First finalize your game’s text and get an overall word count. This number gives you a very rough idea of how long it will take a translator to finish. Approximately 250 words (or 1800 characters including spaces) is about one hour (or “page”) of work for a translator. If your word count is over 50,000 words – which is more than 200 hours – then you might want to consider finding an additional translator to split the workload. Once you know how much time it will take for translation, double it to account for post-translation editing and QA.

-Make sure you will be able to translate it
Before diving into development, determine ahead of time that your game will have the ability to translate its text into another language. If you pursue localization after release, then text contained in art assets (for example, graffiti on a wall) will cause a stumbling block because that will entail either producing alternate art assets, which is a large time sink, or creating a way for players to read such elements like through an overlay.

-Which languages to go for
Though it may be a neat marketing tactic to localize your 100,000-word RPG into something like Icelandic, it’s unlikely to win you that many players (and will also cost an enormous sum). What languages to choose heavily depends on your selected platforms and genre. However, if you can only localize into one language, at least make it Simplified Chinese, chiefly because there are simply too many potential players to ignore. In addition, and in no particular order, I would also recommend seeking German, Russian, French, Japanese and Korean translations.

FINDING TRANSLATORS:

-Less is more
Regardless of how you go about translating your game’s text – through an agency, freelance contractor, your existing community – please note that having multiple translators per language isn’t always beneficial. If the total word count is reasonable, try to limit yourself to one translator (and one editor) per language. It’s common for agencies to boast of fast return times, though this may not be because they have workaholic translators on staff, but instead have farmed the text through multiple people who all work remotely and are each taking a portion of the game text at a time. This method might be fine if your game is very light on text, but if you have heavy focus on a story or “lore”, then it becomes increasingly difficult to keep tone and terminology consistent the more people are involved in a translation.

-Look in places you might not usually explore
Translators will often specialize in a particular field, but that doesn’t mean your game’s translator has to have experience in translating software. Anyone who has ever worked on subtitles for a foreign TV show or film will have encountered the same issues found in translating the text of a video game. A literary translator might have a wealth of experience in the same genre your game falls under. If your game already has a strong following, you might be surprised to find highly-capable translators hiding among your community.

-Make sure they’re available
Translation isn’t an instant process and will take time. When you contact a translator or agency for the first time, chances are high they’re already in the middle of a project that might be occupying them for weeks or even months. Providing you know well in advance when you need translators to begin work, you are far more likely to get the people you want, so give them plenty of heads-up rather than expect people to start working immediately.

DURING DEVELOPMENT:

-Can your game display the language?
Say you’ve chosen to support a language that doesn’t use the Latin alphabet, such as Chinese. Great – can your game display the language in the program? Does the game’s engine have the required font so that the text can appear as it should, rather than end up as a bunch of empty spaces or broken characters? You have? Great, but have you also checked to see if players can even read it? Be mindful that characters displayed at a certain font size might become blurred or illegible if the font size is changed. This is especially important with character strokes in Asian languages, so be sure to proofread after the language is added.

-Character limits and truncation
One of the bugbears for any localization is finding out your text doesn’t fit (and then you find out the UI can’t be altered either because making just one minor change would actually change everything). For example, just because the word “START” is five letters in English, it doesn’t mean it will be five in another. To help the translation process, make note of any instances where you have hard limits on the number of characters. Your translators will be able to work around this.

-Be wary of reusing text
A common trick when creating a user interface is the reuse of the same piece of text in multiple places (for example, the word “YES”) meaning you only ever need to create one instance of that text. While we can get away with this in English, it doesn’t always work in other languages. Try to avoid reusing text in places like action buttons, because answers to particular questions can vary depending on language (in the sense that translation of the word shouldn’t be “yes” but instead something like “confirm”), and instead give such elements their own separate instance.

WORKING WITH TRANSLATORS:

-Translation is a two-way street
Remember that localization is still part of your game, and the amount of effort you put into it will dictate its result. Any competent translator will have questions about the text, ranging from simple clarifications to potentially pointing out massive plot holes that have slipped past the original developers, and it’s your job to respond. Make it possible for translators and editors to directly contact someone on your team who can and will answer. Chat clients like Discord are extremely useful for this as it is free, can run in browsers, and you can set up dedicated channels for your translators and editors as well as pin messages to keep track of frequently-asked questions.

-Keep it simple, stupid
Don’t assume your translators have the latest CAT software or can open complicated TMX files when a side-by-side Excel spreadsheet can ultimately do the same thing. While it’s always great to have a functioning build of the game available to show everything in context, your translators might not even have the right platform to run it, so make screenshots of the UI or even record video playthroughs uploaded to video sites like YouTube where necessary. Providing visual reference to aspects of your game can save a lot of typing.

-Prepare to copy and paste a lot
This is less advice and more a cautionary note: localization isn’t glamorous. Parts of it are tedious and you may start to notice the Ctrl, C and V buttons on your keyboard wearing out. The more languages you pursue for localization, the more times you will find repeating yourself in correspondence with your translators and editors. Always try to keep files arranged, dated and named appropriately to avoid potential mix-ups.

…AND FINALLY:

-The proof is in the pudding
Game development (and other software) is such a massive effort that too often I hear something to the effect of “localization just isn’t worth it”, with the subtext that it’s needless extra hassle and demand for it can’t be proven up front. In response, I suggest you look at these four pie charts showing our own year-on-year Steam units for Brigador from 2015 to the present date.

The first pie chart is our sales breakdown prior to adding support for six languages. As expected, North America dominates two thirds of the chart, and continues to do so through to 2017. However, in the 2017-2018 period, before we even added Chinese to our game, we can see North America decreasing and Western Europe increasing. What’s clearly visible is that other territories from 2018 to present, specifically Asia and Oceania, have grown dramatically. Though North America still accounts for 38% of units sold, it’s a significant shift from the 58% the game was selling at in its first two years. Meanwhile, China as of writing sits in fifth position for unit sales made since June 2018 – a spot typically occupied by a European country like Germany.

The point I’m trying to make, if the above wasn’t clear, is that the language additions were and are absolutely worth it. Not only did the localizations end up covering their own costs and been a net positive, but they’ve also demonstrably increased our game’s audience and found players in countries we never originally expected to find them. Thanks for reading!(source:Gamasutra

 


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