The Translation of Realia and Irrealia in Game Localization Culture Specificity Between Realism and Fictionality First Edition Silvia Pettini

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The Translation of Realia and Irrealia
in Game Localization
This book explores the impact of a video game’s degree of realism or

fictionality on its linguistic dimensions, investigating the challenges and
strategies for translating realia and irrealia, the interface of the real world
and the game world where culture-specificity manifests itself.
The volume outlines the key elements in the translation of video
games, such as textual non-linearity, multitextuality, and playability, and
introduces the theoretical framework used to determine a game’s respective
degree of realism or fictionality. Pettini applies an interdisciplinary
approach drawing on video game research and Descriptive Translation
Studies to the linguistic and translational analysis of in-game dialogs
in English-Italian and English-Spanish language pairs from a corpus of
three war video games. This approach allows for an in-depth look at
the localization challenges posed by the varying degree of realism and
fictionality across video games and the different strategies translators
employ in response to these challenges. A final chapter offers a comparative
analysis of the three games and subsequently avenues for further research
on the role of culture-specificity in game localization.
This book is key reading for students and scholars interested in game
localization, audiovisual translation studies, and video game research.
Silvia Pettini, PhD, is adjunct lecturer in Translation Studies at Roma

Tre University, Italy. Her main research interests are Game Localization,
Audiovisual Translation, and Lexicography. She has published papers
in international journals such as Translation Spaces and The Journal of
Internationalization and Localization and book chapters in volumes such
as Linguistic and Cultural Representation in Audiovisual Translation
(Routledge, 2018) and The Routledge Handbook of Translation,
Feminism and Gender (Routledge, 2020).
Routledge Advances in Translation and Interpreting Studies
Recent titles include:
62 Empirical Studies of Translation and Interpreting

The Post-Structuralist Approach
Edited by Caiwen Wang and Binghan Zheng
63 English and Translation in the European Union

Unity and Multiplicity in the Wake of Brexit
Alice Leal
64 The (Un)Translatability of Qur’anic Idiomatic Phrasal Verbs

A Contrastive Linguistic Study
Ali Yunis Aldahesh
65 The Qur’an, Translation and the Media

A Narrative Account
Ahmed S. Elimam and Alysia S. Fletcher
66 The Translation of Realia and Irrealia in Game Localization

Culture-Specificity between Realism and Fictionality
Silvia Pettini
67 Translation and the Global City

Bridges and Gateways
Edited by Judith Weisz Woodsworth
68 Gender and Translation: New Perspectives.

New Voices for Transnational Dialogues
Edited by Eleonora Federici and José Santaemilia
For more information about this series, please visit https://www.routledg

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series/RTS.
The Translation of Realia and
Irrealia in Game Localization
Culture-Specificity between Realism and
Fictionality
Silvia Pettini
First published 2022
by Routledge
605 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10158
and by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon, OX14 4RN
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa
business
© 2022 Taylor & Francis
The right of Silvia Pettini to be identified as author of this work has
been asserted by her in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the
Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or
reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical,
or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including
photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or
retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.
Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks
or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and
explanation without intent to infringe.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
A catalog record for this title has been requested
ISBN: 978-0-367-43232-4 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-1-032-07354-5 (pbk)
ISBN: 978-1-003-00193-5 (ebk)
DOI: 10.4324/9781003001935
Typeset in Sabon
by Deanta Global Publishing Services, Chennai, India
Contents
List of figures viii

List of tables ix
List of abbreviations x
Acknowledgments xi
1 Introduction 1
1.1 Translation and Globalization: The Case of Video
Games 1
1.2 Aims, Scope, and Structure of the Book 3
1.3 Summary 9
Notes 9
2 Game Localization and Translation 10

2.1 Introduction 10
2.2 Definition and Terminological Issues 12
2.3 The Theory of Game Localization and
Translation 14
2.4 The Practice of Game Localization and
Translation 19
2.5 The History of Game Localization and
Translation 29
2.6 Game Translation 35
2.7 Game Culturalization 53
2.8 Summary 57
Notes 58
vi Contents
3 Culture-Specificity in Video Games: The Interface
between Realism and Fictionality 59
3.1 Introduction 59
3.2 Realism and Fictionality in Game Translation 61
3.3 Methodological Issues in Game Translation 64
3.4 The Realism-Fictionality Corpus 67
3.5 Game Worlds between Realism and
Fictionality 73
3.6 Realia and Irrealia 88
3.7 Translating the Name of the Game Wor(l)d 97
3.8 Summary 100
Notes 100
4 Realia and Irrealia in Game Translation 102

4.1 Introduction 102
4.2 Individual References 102
4.3 Collective References 113
4.4 Intratextual Metaludic References 115
4.5 Intertextual References 118
4.6 Geographical References 124
4.7 Ethnic References 128
4.8 Sociopolitical References 135
4.9 Artifactual References 139
4.10 Summary 147
Note 147
5 Military Language between Realism and Fictionality 148

5.2 Military Language 151
5.3 Military Titles 154
5.4 Clock Code 157
5.5 Military Phonetic Alphabet 159
5.6 Radio Communication Procedures 162
5.7 Abbreviations 167
5.8 Summary 174
Notes 174
Contents vii
6 Conclusions and Further Research 176
6.2 Individual References 179
6.3 Collective References 181
6.4 Intertextual and Intratextual Metaludic
References 182
6.5 Geographical References 183
6.6 Ethnic References 184
6.7 Sociopolitical References 186
6.8 Artifactual References 187
6.9 Military Language 190
6.10 Translating Realia and Irrealia in Video Games: A
Summary 194
References 197
Gameography 225
Index 227
Figures
3.1 The Realism-Fictionalism Spectrum Axis 69

4.1 Translation Strategies for Individual References 108
4.2 Translation Strategies for Collective References 115
4.3 Translation Strategies for Geographical References 128
4.4 Translation Strategies for Ethnic References 131
4.5 Translation Strategies for Sociopolitical References 136
4.6 Translation Strategies for Artifactual Realia 141
4.7 Translation Strategies for Artifactual Irrealia 144
5.1 Translation Strategies for Military Titles 155
5.2 Translation Strategies for Military Phonetic Alphabet 160
5.3 Translation Strategies for Radio Communication
Procedures 167
5.4 Translation Strategies for Military Abbreviations 168

Tables
3.1 Characteristics of the Games Included in the Corpus 69

3.2 Playtime and Wordcount of the Corpus 70
3.3 Wordcount of the Games’ Databases 71
3.4 Taxonomy of Realia and Irrealia 93
3.5 Taxonomy of Translation Strategies for Realia and
Irrealia 94

Abbreviations
AEVI Asociación Española de Videojuegos [Spanish Video Game

Association]
AVT Audiovisual Translation
BF Battlefield
BF4 Battlefield 4
DTS Descriptive Translation Studies
ESA Entertainment Software Association
FIGS French, Italian, German, Spanish
FPS First Person Shooter
GILT Globalization, Internationalization, Localization, Translation
GL Game Localization
IDEA Italian Interactive Digital Entertainment Association
LISA Localization Industry Standards Association
ME Mass Effect
ME3 Mass Effect 3
MMOG Massively Multiplayer Online Game
MOH Medal of Honor
MOHW Medal of Honor Warfighter
QA Quality Assurance
RPG Role-Playing Game
ST Source Text
TS Translation Studies
TT Target Text
UI User Interface
VO Voice Over

Acknowledgments
My gratitude goes to all the people who have supported this project, both
consciously and unconsciously. First, I would like to thank Professor Stefania
Nuccorini and Professor Serenella Zanotti for their generous contributions
of time, ideas, and suggestions. I thank them for sharing their knowledge
and for having accompanied me during the research process in their distinc-
tive, special manner: both caring and authoritative, an extremely rare com-
bination. The joy and enthusiasm they show for their work were contagious
and motivational to me, even during tough times.
My grateful thanks go to Professor Miguel Bernal Merino and Professor
Carmen Mangiron, for their time, interest, and insightful comments on
my research, as well as for their kind support during my research stays in
London and Barcelona. Their pioneering works aroused my interest in game
localization and their great expertise contributed to the study presented in
this book.
I would also like to thank Electronic Arts, and especially Anneta
Mitsopoulou, for their open-minded and far-sighted approach and for their
constant willingness to answer my questions.
My sincere thanks go to the publisher and the editors Elysse Preposi,
Helena Parkinson, and Ruth Berry for being very supportive. I would also
like to thank both the anonymous reviewers for their insights and sugges-
tions, and my friend reviewers Anna Connealy, Joanna Fallon, and Anna
Rita Gerardi for improving the quality of my manuscript.
And last but not least, my deepest gratitude goes to all my beloved fami-
lies: my parents and sister, my partner, and my friends, for their understand-
ing, patience, and encouragement during all the stages of this project. Thank
you very much.
1 Introduction
1.1 Translation and Globalization: The Case of Video Games

The multimedia interactive entertainment software, which is commonly
referred to as video game, first became popular in the USA and Japan in the
1970s and rapidly evolved into the global mass consumption product we
all know today. The history of video games is therefore rather short when
compared with other leisure artifacts, such as plays, poetry, novels, cinema,
etc. Nevertheless, their non-stop progression has made video games into
the most lucrative entertainment industry ahead of books, music, and films
(Bernal-Merino 2011a). According to NewZoo (2020a), in 2020 the global
games market generated revenues of $159.3 billion, representing an increase
of +9.3% year on year, with more than 2.7 billion gamers across the world.
More relevantly, the “success story [of video games] was fully depend-
ent, and is inextricably linked to the success story of the game localization
profession that had to be created from scratch in order to cover the unprec-
edented demands of multimedia interactive products” (Bernal-Merino
2011a, 11). The field of game localization arose exactly from the industry’s
unique needs: allowing video games to go beyond cultural and linguistic
borders in order to reach players in different territories, each representing a
“locale”, which is “a specific combination of region, language and character
encoding” (Esselink 2000, 1).
At the global level, as NewZoo (2020a) reports, the most significant area
is the Asia Pacific region, accounting for 49% of the global total revenue,
with China confirming itself as the most important single-country mar-
ket, notwithstanding the fast growth of emerging areas such as South East
Asia and India. North America is the second-largest region by game rev-
enues ($40 billion, 25%), while Europe represents 19% of the total global
games market. However, as both producers and consumers, the leading
countries are China, the USA, and Japan, which come in at number one,
two, and three, respectively, on the Top 10 Countries/Markets by Game
Revenues ranking (NewZoo 2020b). Consequently, despite the hybrid and
multicultural nature of the game industry (Consalvo 2006), it is possible
to speculate that the main source languages of video games are Chinese,
DOI: 10.4324/9781003001935-1
2 Introduction
Japanese, and particularly English, the latter as either native and/or work-
ing language.
In order to grasp the worldwide spread of video gaming, the US
Entertainment Software Association (ESA) yearly statistics give an insight
as to how it has evolved since the early beginning and has become perva-
sive in today’s society. For the purposes of this book, since US English is
the source language of the video games in the corpus used for this research,
it seems interesting to briefly outline the impact of video games on US
society.
According to the 2020 Essential Facts about the Computer and Video
Game Industry (ESA 2020, 3), as “the leading form of entertainment” video
games are an integral part of American culture: the US players represent
a diverse cross section of the American population spanning every age,
gender, and ethnicity. In detail, as the report suggests (ibid., 4–5), 75% of
Americans have at least one video game player in their household, with a
total of 214.4 million US game players, of which 79% are aged 18 or older.
Gamers are 59% male and 41% female, with an average age range of 35–44
years. Moreover, video games are a strong engine for economic growth,
which has generated $35.4 billion in revenue in 2019.
As regards Europe, the continent has alone over 40 different countries
and languages, but the biggest game markets are Germany, the UK, and
France (NewZoo 2020b). These three European nations come in at number
five, six, and seven, respectively, on the ranking, behind China, the USA,
Japan, and the Republic of Korea on a global scale. The list then comprises
Canada at number eight and, finally, Italy and Spain coming in at number
nine and ten, respectively (ibid.).
Accordingly, it comes as no surprise to learn that the standard set of tar-
get European languages for video games is commonly referred to as “FIGS”
(French, Italian, German, and Spanish), an acronym which was coined in
the1980s and still represents “the minimum default group of languages that
most games are translated to” (Bernal-Merino 2011a, 14–15). However,
the number of target languages for major games now routinely exceeds ten,
including both European and Asian languages (Hasegawa cit. in O’Hagan
and Mangiron 2013, 60).
Although considered as secondary markets at the global level, Italy and
Spain are rapidly growing game consumption areas where full localizations
(see Chapter 2) are becoming more and more common (Maxwell-Chandler
and O’Malley-Deming 2012, 45). Publishers usually opt for either partial
or full localization on the basis of the target locale significance and the pos-
sible return on investment. The inclusion of Italian and Spanish into the
FIGS group from the beginning of the industry’s consolidation, and recent
favorable trends, testify to the importance of these target locales, as shown
by the data provided by national associations such as the Italian Interactive
Digital Entertainment Association (IDEA) and the Spanish Video Game
Association (AEVI).
Introduction 3
According to IDEA (2021a), 16.7 million Italians played video games
in 2020, accounting for 38% of the population aged between 6 and 64.
As regards gender, 56% of Italian gamers are male and 44% are female
and as concerns the most significant age groups, 24% of players are aged
between 15 and 24, 22% between 45 and 64, and 19% between 25 and
34. Moreover, in 2020, the Italian game market recorded €2.179 mil-
lion in revenue, with a 21.9% increase compared to 2019, and 82% were
generated by purchases of software, of which 43% is digital content and
includes console and PC games. As to genres, the bestselling video games
for console platforms belong to action (27%), sport games (16%), adven-
ture (12%), shooter (11%), and role-playing (10%), whereas the most
successful genres for PC are action (23%), strategy (17%), adventure
(16%), shooter (15%), and role-playing (14%). Moreover, as the IDEA
census (2021b) reports, in Italy there are also about 160 game develop-
ment companies and informal teams, with over 1,600 people employed in
the industry. The geographic dimension of these companies covers most
regions, but the areas with more concentration include Lombardy, Lazio,
Emilia Romagna and Sicily.
As regards Spain, according to AEVI (2021), the number of players
in 2020 totaled 15.9 million, representing 42% of the population aged
between 6 and 64, of which 54% are male and 46% are female. As con-
cerns the major age groups, in Spain 25% of players are aged between 25
and 34, 23% between 15 and 24, and 15% between 35 and 44. In terms of
revenues, in 2020 the Spanish game market amounted to €1,747 million, of
which 55% was generated by purchases of online software. As to genres, the
most popular video games for console and PC belong to action and adven-
ture (34%), sport games (13%), and role-playing (12%). Furthermore,
about 9,000 people are employed in the industry in Spain and although
game studios are mostly based in the areas of Madrid and Catalonia, the
number of companies is constantly increasing across the country.
These data confirm that Italy and Spain are historically more consumer
countries than producing ones, although it is clear that the video game land-
scape is evolving day by day. In the future, this might also affect localization
practice and research as far as Italian and Spanish could be both source and
target languages and this seems to paint extremely interesting scenarios for
both scholars and professionals.
1.2 Aims, Scope, and Structure of the Book

As O’Hagan and Mangiron (2013, 26) point out “game localization intro-
duces dimensions that challenge some of the current assumptions about
translation, thus raising epistemic issues for the discipline” and it also
“involves dealing with a new medium whose characteristics may not be fully
accounted for in the current theoretical framework available in Translation
Studies” (ibid., 40). The professional practice of game localization “could
4 Introduction
conceivably result in a change in the perception of translation in the 21st
century with regards to traditional views on equivalence, creativity, author-
ship” (Bernal-Merino 2015, 2–3) and “in certain aspects, may challenge to
traditional theoretical models in translation because of the implications of
their [video games’] interactivity and the international simultaneous ship-
ment model the game industry employs” (ibid., 11).
In this light, the main objective of this book is to contribute to the ongo-
ing scholarly debate on game localization and translation by outlining cor-
pus-assisted theoretical guidelines for researchers and professionals in the
field. The focal point is therefore that of conceptualizing this new domain
from the perspective of Descriptive Translation Studies, as originally devel-
oped in 1995 and later revised by Toury (2012). Indeed, this study aims
to describe the strategies adopted by game translators in the linguistic and
cultural localization of video games, from English into Italian, and to a
lesser extent, into Spanish. More specifically, this research aims to detect
the tendencies or regularities, if any, in game translators’ decision-making
process from a descriptive viewpoint.
The aim to sustain a descriptive work theoretically should not be inter-
preted as the intent to explain everything that occurs in game translation.
This study value, then, should be considered in its own measure and with
precautions. Since a more detailed overview of the debate surrounding the
descriptive approach in Translation Studies (TS) is peripheral for the pur-
poses of this book, it seems more beneficial to discuss the ideas and premises
which have influenced this research, and which show how the emergent field
of game localization can be interpreted in the light of TS theoretical ground.
For this reason, an explanation about these methodological aspects, which
clarifies the reach of the analysis contained in this book, will be provided in
Chapter 3.
In order to achieve the aims of this work, my examination has been
conducted on a purposefully selected corpus of three video games, namely
Medal of Honor Warfighter (Electronic Arts 2012), Battlefield 4 (Electronic
Arts 2013), and Mass Effect 3 (Electronic Arts 2012). The purposeful selec-
tion of the corpus means that, since it was compiled to be sufficiently large
and also homogeneous in terms of genre, main theme, target audience, and
audience reception, it was possible to isolate the degree of realism or fic-
tionality of the game worlds, i.e. the relationship between the real world
and the virtual game world, as the potential single most important variable
which may influence translators’ approach to the translation of game texts,
which is the major research hypothesis of this book. While the notion of
“real world” as the world we all know, the actual world, the way things are,
without going into philosophical details, is quite self-evident, it seems worth
briefly pointing out that here “game world” is “an imaginary world”, “an
artificial universe, an imaginary place where the events of the game occur.
When the player enters the magic circle and pretends to be somewhere else,
the game world is the place where” s/he pretends to be (Adams 2014, 137).
Introduction 5
The magic circle here refers to a much-cited notion developed by Johan
Huizinga, a Dutch scholar who pioneeringly published a homage to the
importance of play in culture titled Homo Ludens ([1938] 2000), Latin for
Man the Player, and observed that games construct a magic circle which
separates the game from the outside real world. Accordingly, in Huizinga’s
view, playing a game implies setting oneself apart from the outside world,
and submitting to a formally defined system or experience that has no effect
on anything which lies beyond the circle, with rules which make sense in
themselves and are only important within their particular game context.
Thus, video game players enter into the magic circle of another imaginary
world, interpreted as “all the surroundings and places experienced by a fic-
tional character […] that together constitute a unified sense of place which is
ontologically different from the actual, material, and so-called ‘real’ world”
(Wolf 2014, 461). So, in this sense, “game world” means an interactive and
experiential realm.
However, the idea of games as a completely separate sphere of human
existence must be challenged. Although the experience within a game, or
specifically a video game, does not usually extend directly into other parts
of real life, games do have real-world consequences, games interact con-
tinuously and manifoldly with the real world and, since the ways in which
the worlds inside games and the world outside are connected are crucial
in this book, this interrelationship deserves more in-depth discussion in
Chapter 3.
The focus of my analysis is on the translation of realia and irrealia, as
defined in Chapter 3, because they represent the main borders between the
two worlds, and they pose interesting culture-related translational phenom-
ena from an academic perspective. To my knowledge, this subject is still
unexplored in game localization, although, with reference to slightly dif-
ferent concepts with different terminology, due to its culture-specificity, it
has widely been recognized by TS scholars as one of the most challenging
translation issues, not only in the cognate area of Audiovisual Translation
(see Pedersen 2011 and Ranzato 2015, among others) but also, for example,
in literary translation (see Leppihalme 1997, 2001, 2011).
The transfer of realia and irrealia into other languages and cultures seems
to be particularly interesting in the case of video games as this kind of soft-
ware and audiovisual products usually contain a great number of culture-
related elements, be they non-fictional or fictional. Their role in the text
can be varied and the specific function they fulfill in the games included in
the corpus is analyzed in the following chapters. Generally speaking, such
elements are used by game developers and writers to give substance to the
scripts of the imaginary worlds they create, to provide the text with features
which are often intimately embedded in the culture(s) represented, be they
real or fictional, and to which the audience, or parts of the audience, can
relate. Realia and irrealia in video games may stimulate mnemonic asso-
ciations and, at the same time, appeal directly to people’s knowledge and
6 Introduction
emotions as they can evoke images and feelings that are familiar to the
audience.
As O’Hagan and Mangiron (2013, 103) point out, in video games “cul-
tural issues both at micro and macro levels loom large, especially for major
titles, as the industry seeks finely tuned cultural adaptation to appeal to tar-
get users”. This delicate negotiation can in turn call for translators’ creativ-
ity and their agency may be so highlighted and celebrated that they are often
allowed a freedom almost unseen with other types of translation (ibid.).
And it’s not by chance that the “founding father” of the publications about
game localization, probably the most cited one in the scholarly literature at
the international level, focuses exactly on the unprecedented freedom game
translators can enjoy for the sake of fun, the skopos of video games globally
(Mangiron and O’Hagan 2006).
More specifically, video games offer interactive fun and interactivity is
arguably the most accurate defining characteristic of gaming. The “reader”
of the videoludic text, namely the player, is not a passive user but rather a
co-author. “Players co-author games by playing them, since if the player
doesn’t interact with the game and make choices about what will happen,
nothing will happen” (Gee 2007, 8). In this sense, it is easy to understand
how detrimental a translation that misdirects the player and interferes in
his/her gameplay and, thus, with his/her fun can be. For example, a ren-
dition which is unclear, or which does not replicate the original function
can have severe consequences in video games and these consequences, e.g.
denied access to further content, or abrupt and frustrating end of players’
engagement, seem bigger and more dangerous in games than in other media.
Culture-specificity between realism and fictionality may be especially
challenging in game translation, and inappropriate renditions may be dis-
ruptive in players’ immersion into the game experience. After all, “modern
video games are technically complex cultural artefacts designed to engross
the end user, where the nature of engagement is more than merely functional
and encroaches into the affective dimensions” (O’Hagan and Mangiron
2013, 103).
As already mentioned, the main hypothesis of this book is that the
relationship between the fictional game world and the real word, i.e. the
degree of realism or fictionality of game contents, may influence transla-
tors’ approach to the linguistic and cultural localization of video games.
Accordingly, this study aims to map out the strategies activated by transla-
tors in response to cultural constraints within a realism-fictionalism1 spec-
trum of video games (Dietz 2006), and to detect the tendencies and patterns,
if any, that are prevalent in the case of game translation from English into
Italian and Spanish.
The specific lens through which the translational analysis is carried out
is that of realia and irrealia: realia refer to real entities existing in the real
world in contrast to “irrealia” (Loponen 2009, 167) which are “non-exist-
ing realia tied to a fictional setting, whose effect is to define and determine
Introduction 7
the fictional cultural, geographical and historical settings” (original empha-
sis). Therefore, since realia is a problematic term when applied to fictional
texts which describe fictional worlds (Leppihalme 2011, 126), in this study
it is reinterpreted in opposition to irrealia to indicate all references to the
actual world.
In Translation Studies, realia represent items which have been referred
to with a vast array of terms by scholars,2 but all of them agree upon their
cultural specificity. As Palumbo (2009, 33) suggests, they are “expres-
sions referring to elements or concepts that are closely associated with a
certain language and culture” and, one might add, with a certain reality.
Consequently, in this study, realia represent references to real cultures while
irrealia represent references to fictional cultures, although the very concept
of culture related to video games is extremely complex, as will be discussed
in Chapters 2 and 3, from the perspectives of game localization and of game
translation research, respectively.
In conclusion, the theoretical foundation of this book is primarily
Game Localization (O’Hagan and Mangiron 2013, Bernal-Merino 2015),
which has been referred to as “the periphery” of Audiovisual Translation
Studies (Bogucki 2013, 30), while subscribing to the broader descriptive
framework. The primacy given to Game Localization (GL hereafter) as
theoretical background is based on the belief that, by adapting Romero-
Fresco’s claim (2012, 183) concerning Audiovisual Translation (AVT),
“the most fruitful studies on” GL should “include or assume to some
extent two basic notions: the independence of” GL “as an autonomous
discipline and its dependence on other related disciplines”. “Although
apparently contradictory, these notions are perfectly compatible. The
first one may be regarded as a starting point. As an autonomous dis-
cipline within Translation Studies”, GL “is an entity in its own right,
rather than a subgroup or a lesser manifestation of” AVT and software
localization (ibid.). In my opinion, scholars should not only “resort to
extended versions of” TS models, but create, if and whenever possible,
GL “own models focusing on the specificity of this area. And here is
where the second notion comes in, given that an important part of this
specificity lies in its interdisciplinary nature. In this sense, if the auton-
omy of” GL “is the starting point for research, its interdisciplinarity is
the way forward […] as it is drawing on other disciplines that” GL “finds
new and fruitful avenues of research” (ibid.).
Going into the overall structure of this book, Chapters 2 and 3 describe
the theoretical and methodological framework of the research, respectively,
while Chapters 4 and 5 are devoted to the linguistic and translational analy-
sis. The three games representing the realism-fictionalism spectrum of video
games that the corpus of this study aims to simulate are examined on the
basis of the degree of realism and fictionality of their game worlds, which
has been assessed according to the set of criteria described in Chapter 3. The
analysis of the translation of realia and irrealia found in game dialogs – the
8 Introduction
latter is the text type this research focuses on – is supported by the discus-
sion of the games’ most relevant features as representational and narrative
media from a cultural perspective. Given these preliminary clarifications,
this book will be structured as follows:
Chapter 2 details the theoretical context in which the study is situated.
It illustrates and provides an overview of the contemporary debates around
fundamental background notions like translation, localization, internation-
alization, and culturalization. Moreover, the chapter is intended to equip
readers with a basic grounding in the issues and key aspects which distinc-
tively characterize the translation of video games, i.e. textual non-linearity,
multitextuality, and playability, since they inform the subsequent linguistic
analysis.
Chapter 3 deals with the methodological stand of the study. It outlines the
research questions, the theoretical model of the realism-fictionalism spec-
trum which serves as the background to the research hypothesis, it describes
the corpus which has been purposefully created, the analytical procedure
followed, the objects under examination, namely realia and irrealia, and the
working taxonomies used to perform the analysis reported in the following
chapters.
Chapter 4 presents the linguistic and translation analysis of the research.
The realia and irrealia found in the three games are explored in light of the
classifications described in the previous chapter. Data are quantitatively and
qualitatively examined in order to illustrate the nature and role of realia and
irrealia in the corpus and to discuss the strategies translators used in the two
localizations.
Chapter 5 focuses on a special phenomenon within realia, namely mili-
tary language in war-themed videogames. After an introductory discussion
concerning the nature of this complex language for specific purposes, the
wide range of phenomena it includes are defined, i.e. military titles, clock
code, phonetic alphabet, etc., and investigated in the corpus.
Lastly, Chapter 6 illustrates the most relevant conclusions of the study
and suggests future directions for research. The main findings of the analysis
are summarized and critically discussed, the variety of realia and irrealia is
examined and the consequent diversity of translational approaches is the-
matically interpreted, on the basis of the areas of interface between reality
and fictionality of the game worlds’ dimensions. This chapter also includes
comparative evaluations of the three games in respect of the different cat-
egories realia and irrealia fall into, in order to highlight similarities and
differences and finally evince regularities. Despite the limitations of this
work, which are also outlined in this chapter, the reading of quantitative
and qualitative data presents the theoretical and practical implications of
the research and puts forward several possible avenues for more in-depth
studies which might better describe the role of culture-specificity in game
localization.
Introduction 9
1.3 Summary
This chapter has presented the rationale behind this book research. First,
it has offered an overview of the commercial and cultural status of video
games to foreground the role localization and translation play in the inter-
national success of the multimedia interactive entertainment industry. The
global games market has been briefly outlined in order to show the impact
of gaming in today’s society, with special attention to the leading US mar-
ket and to the Italian and Spanish target locales. Moreover, this chapter
explains the aims and scope of this book research, which descriptively
investigates the translation of culture-specificity and, particularly, of realia
and irrealia in a corpus of three war video games, namely Medal of Honor
Warfighter (Electronic Arts 2012), Battlefield 4 (Electronic Arts 2013), and
Mass Effect 3 (Electronic Arts 2012), purposefully selected to represent a
realism-fictionalism spectrum and to explore whether and to what extent
the relationship between the real world and the game world may influence
the linguistic and cultural dimension of video games, and consequently their
localization and translation.
Notes
1 Fictionalism is meant only as a high degree of fictionality and represents a work-
ing term which relates to realism, the other end of a continuum, with no refer-
ence to philosophical notions of the same name, and together with realism it
represents one of the two sides of the same coin, namely the game world, as will
be discussed in Chapter 3.
2 See, for example, Ranzato’s literature review (2015, 53–59).
2 Game Localization
and Translation
2.1 Introduction
The study of video games has seen a surge of interdisciplinary academic
interest since the late 1990s and the areas involved are many and diverse.
Nowadays, the “new medium” and the related cultural, social, and eco-
nomic phenomenon identified as gaming are self-sustained research
topics in Game Studies, “an interdisciplinary domain, with scholars ana-
lyzing games from diverse perspectives, such as anthropology, sociology,
psychology, narratology, semiotics, cultural studies, genre studies, media
studies, and computer studies, to name but a few” (Mangiron 2017,
76). Fundamental readings in this sense are, for example, the works by
Aarseth (1997, 2001), Egenfeldt-Nielsen et al. (2016), Jenkins (2006a,
2006b), Juul (2005), Kerr (2006), Newman (2008, 2013), Rutter and
Bryce (2006), Wolf (2001, 2008, 2012), and Wolf and Perron (2009a,
2014). Video games and gaming are also explored with a focus on lan-
guage in disciplines like Education and Language Learning in particu-
lar (see Gee 2003, 2004, 2007, Gee and Hayes 2011, Lombardi 2013,
Peterson 2013, Prensky 2001, 2006, Reinders 2012, Thomas 2011),
and Linguistics (see Ensslin 2012, 2014, Ensslin and Balteiro 2019, Iaia
2016a), among others.
As regards Translation Studies, the game localization practice went
mainly unobserved until the late 1990s and early 2000s, when the first
papers on this new phenomenon were published by professionals working
in the field. In the last decade, as Mangiron (2017) demonstrates, research
on game localization has gained impetus and the number of books, journal
articles, book chapters, undergraduate, masters, and doctoral dissertations
aiming to shed light on this relatively young area of study has increased
considerably.
The following paragraphs mention only some of the many authors
who have published their works on game localization and contributed
to consolidating it as an established research domain. However, it seems
important to underline that the following list may hardly be considered as
truly representative of the existing and/or potentially available literature
DOI: 10.4324/9781003001935-2
Game Localization and Translation 11
on game translation and localization, due to a number of reasons: first,
the difficulty in accessing unpublished works, like conference presenta-
tions, undergraduate, masters, and even doctoral theses (see, for example,
O’Hagan and Mangiron 2013, 26–39); secondly, the limitations in read-
ing works written in languages other than English, Spanish, and Italian,
i.e. this book author’s working languages; the awareness that research
might be, but possibly will never be, published due to the obstacles in
accessing materials and information on localization practice in general.
As pointed out by Bernal-Merino (2008b, 2015), Muñoz-Sánchez (2011),
Mangiron (2017), and O’Hagan and Mangiron (2013), most localization
vendors and most mainstream game developers and publishers are unwill-
ing or unable to provide scholars with access to authentic game texts
or localization-related data, which are necessary in Translation Studies.
This means that researchers must resort to other very time-consuming,
and somehow limited activities to study video games. In this sense, as
Mangiron advocates (2017, 86), “academia-industry partnerships would
be beneficial to overcome this hurdle” and, more importantly, would be
advantageous to both.
Going back into the existing literature on the topic, first, special atten-
tion must be paid to three comprehensive and ground-breaking books,
which have paved the way to systematic research within what might be
labeled as Game Localization Studies: Maxwell-Chandler and O’Malley-
Deming’s The Game Localization Handbook (2012), written by two
professionals who adopt an industry-oriented perspective; O’Hagan
and Mangiron’s Game Localization: Translating for the Global Digital
Entertainment Industry (2013) and Bernal-Merino’s Translation and
Localization in Video Games: Making Entertainment Software Global
(2015), which conceptualize the subject as a translational phenomenon.
Moreover, there are other recent monographs which contribute to enrich
the landscape, since they offer a more language-specific approach to the
subject, as happens with publications in Spanish like Localización de
videojuegos: Fundamentos traductológicos innovadores para nuevas
prácticas profesionales by Méndez-González (2015a), Localización de
videojuegos by Muñoz-Sánchez (2017), and La traducción de videojue-
gos by Granell, Mangiron, and Vidal (2017), or because they explore the
phenomenon from or in connection with another scientific perspective,
as in the case of Video Game Translation and Cognitive Semantics by
Sajna (2016).
However, before discussing the literature in detail, it is worth highlight-
ing that many sources can be found online, because game localization is a
young and dynamic field that is driven by technology, led by market forces,
and influenced by popular discourses on video games and the Internet con-
tinuously offers fresh evidence of the lively interest surrounding games as
translatable content for global entertainment. On the contrary, academia
has been slow in giving due attention to translational issues concerning
12 Game Localization and Translation
game localization. Indeed, according to O’Hagan and Mangiron (2013,
102):
While there has been a lack of interest in theoretical arguments about

translation in the localization industry, it is also true that Translation
Studies as a whole has not been fully engaged with the localization phe-
nomenon to the extent of integrating it wholeheartedly into the main
conceptualization of the discipline.
Broadly speaking, this has probably been due to the lack of respectability
that video games have always suffered from, because of a number of fac-
tors such as the general perception of games as entertainment of little or
no importance, or the debate about their presumed detrimental impact. As
Newman (2013, 5) explains:
First, video games are (still) very often seen as being a children’s medium.
This means that they are easily and readily denigrated as trivial – some-
thing that will be “grown out of” – and demanding no investigation.
Second, video games have been considered as mere trifles – low art – car-
rying none of the weight, gravitas, or credibility of more traditional media.
2.2 Definition and Terminological Issues

In emergent fields of study, especially when driven by technology and sus-
ceptible to popular discourses, terminological issues arise when concepts
need definitions, thus resulting in predictable heterogeneity. In Game
Studies, there is a variety of terms and spellings referring to the object under
investigation: computer games, video games, videogames, digital games,
and others. The same happens when dealing with game genres and sub-
genres since classifications may considerably vary. Moreover, the industry
shows an increasing tendency to combine elements belonging to differ-
ent genres within the same title, thus creating the so-called “mixed genre
games” (Scholand 2002, 2) and this inevitably affects research.
As regards game translation, the very definition of this domain has been
debated with reference to its belonging to Translation Studies: game locali-
zation, game translation, linguistic and cultural game localization, among
others. The argument concerns the relationship between localization and
translation, and this goes beyond terminology, because the boundary seems
debatable and so far, unclear (see Cronin 2003, Pym 2004, 2010). Moreover,
the tension may stem from the somewhat reductionist view of translation
prevalent in the localization industry, on the one hand, and the lack of full
recognition of localization as a phenomenon of epistemic significance within
the academic community on the other (O’Hagan and Mangiron 2013, 103).
The ambiguity is manifest in many respects. For example, the game indus-
try professionals Maxwell-Chandler and O’Malley-Deming (2012, 8) define
localization as “the process of translating the game into other languages”
(emphasis added). The software localizer Esselink (2000, 1) describes locali-
zation as “the translation and adaptation of a software or web product”
(emphasis added) and explains that it “involves taking a product and mak-
ing it linguistically and culturally appropriate to the target locale (country/
region and language) where it will be used and sold” (ibid., 3). The pro-
fessional translator Gouadec (2007, 37) considers localization as a “spe-
cialized translation” (emphasis added), or more in detail, an “instrumental
translation” meaning “translation that literally produces instruments”
(ibid., 38). It is also worth mentioning the definition of the Localization
Industry Standards Association (LISA), operational from 1990 to 2011, as
“the process of modifying products or services to account for differences in
distinct markets” (cit. in O’Hagan and Mangiron 2013, 88).
Facing the challenges posed by the emergence of further new areas of local-
ization such as game localization, along with rapid developments in an
increasing range of new media facing the need for globalization, the disci-
pline of translation urgently needs to address the current gap between indus-
try and academia in the conceptualization of localization and translation.
(ibid., 102)
More importantly, the development of this conceptualization and the con-

clusion of this terminological discussion might be fundamental with a view
to framing this emergent domain into Translation Studies, especially in rela-
tion to the global digital era.
According to Munday (2016, 287–288), “in the digital age, translation has
become big business and in industry (especially the software industry) the term
is often subsumed into the acronym GILT” (Globalization, Internationalization,
Localization, Translation), where “localization (L10n) refers to the adaptation
of the product to the target locale”, the latter meaning “the combination of
a sociocultural region and a language in industrial setting” (Jiménez-Crespo
2013, 12). Although “the difference between localization and translation is
blurred”, in general nowadays localization refers to the whole process which
covers technical, cultural, and linguistic operations; localization is therefore
“a superordinate term which encompasses translation” (Munday 2016, 288),
but translation is “the core of localization” because “localization cannot stand
alone without translation” (O’Hagan 2006a, 39).
Translation is thus a narrower component of the whole operation of
localization which “actually involves more than translating text or contents”
(Gouadec 2007, 38). As argued by Dunne (2006, 1), the superordinate term
localization itself is difficult to be defined, there is “no consensus as to what
precisely constitutes localization”, maybe because it “simply does not lend
itself well to being perceived globally” (ibid., 3, original emphasis).
The boundaries between translation and localization are far from clear-
cut and there is no agreement in academia on whether the latter term is
suitable to describe the phenomenon, because localization is considered too
broad a term involving several non-linguistic activities to be used within
Translation Studies. O’Hagan and Mangiron (2013, 104), however, adhere
to the recognized industry term “game localization”, because it is well
defined by industry practice and it is already a well-established field within
Translation Studies (TS). On the contrary, in order to provide a path through
what he calls “a terminological maze” (2015, 91), Bernal-Merino analyzes
the terms used to refer to language transfer, i.e. “localization”, “game local-
ization”, “transcreation”, “rewriting”, “adaptation”, “transadaptation”,
and “audiovisual translation” (ibid., 92–107) and finally proposes his own
term for research in Translation Studies, namely “TMIES, the Translation
of Multimedia Interactive Entertainment Software” (ibid., 107).
TMIES is an accurate term with which to describe the purely linguistic

and cultural issues involved in the translation of video games. […] It
incorporates all the key concepts that set this professional practice and
research apart from other areas in TS, namely that video games are
multichannel and multitextual creations belonging to a complex enter-
tainment product that places emphasis on the type of interactivity that
forces players to influence the virtual world they are playing in.
(ibid., 108)
In this book, which deals with the translation of culture-specificity in game

localization, translation is meant as the process and the result of the interlin-
guistic and intercultural transfer of game texts from one original language/
culture into other languages/cultures, that is the process and the result of
the linguistic and cultural mediation of video games as texts. Thus, transla-
tion is interpreted as one of the fundamental phases of the whole localiza-
tion process which also affects many and diverse extralinguistic contents.
However, video games are very complex digital artifacts, whose nature is
simultaneously software and audiovisual, and these qualities profoundly
influence their design, their production, and their global distribution, and
consequently their translation. Therefore, game translation cannot but be
examined in view of localization and must necessarily interact with aspects
other than language(s), culture(s), and text(s), because of the multilayered
and multifaceted phenomenon video games represent.
2.3 The Theory of Game Localization and Translation

Nowadays game localization in translation research is gathering momen-
tum, as testified by the number of both industry and academic workshops,
seminars, and conferences devoted to it at the international level. A prime
example of these meetings is Fun for All: International Conference on Video
Game Translation and Accessibility, held by the TransMedia Catalonia
research group at the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, which has been
attended by scholars and professionals since 2010. Other important inter-
national conferences which usually include presentations about the topic
in their programs are Media for All and Languages and the Media, which
provide a platform for all stakeholders, from researchers and developers to
analysts, audiences, and business leaders to discuss findings, developments,
ideas, and experiences from the multifaceted world of audiovisual transla-
tion and media accessibility.
In academia, as O’Hagan and Mangiron (2013, 39) anticipated, doc-
toral research has been in the pipeline since the 2010s and this has shown
a growing scholarly engagement (see, for example, Bernal-Merino 2013,
Dong forthcoming, Jaén-Diego forthcoming, Lepre 2015, Mandiberg 2015,
Méndez-González 2012, Pérez-Fernández 2010, Pettini 2017a, Pujol 2015,
Strong 2018, Zhang 2015). In this light, this book intends to provide a
contribution to enhance investigation within this domain, to outline a theo-
retical framework based on empirical research, and finally to provide new
inputs into TS progress. For these purposes, in this section, it seems useful
to summarize the most important stages in the development of this subdis-
cipline with a brief literature review which follows Mangiron’s approach
(2017).
In her diachronic analysis, Mangiron identifies four research stages (ibid.,
76–82): from 1999 to 2005, the so-called “early days”; 2006 as the “year
one” in game localization research within Translation Studies; the stage
from 2007 to 2012 as the development phase; and, finally, the consolida-
tion phase from 2013 to date.
Discussing the early days of game localization and translation research
means, first and foremost, acknowledging that video games have been con-
sidered as a childish pastime deserving little or no scholarly attention for
a long time. This prejudice obviously affected academia and, as a result,
the first articles were written by industry practitioners including, for exam-
ple, the English-German game translator Dietz (1999), the Eidos-Interactive
localization professional Timiani-Grant (2001), the English-German
game translator Scholand (2002), the English/Japanese-Spanish translator
Mangiron (2004), the Square-Enix localization professional Darolle (2004),
and finally Maxwell-Chandler (2005), who published the first industry-ori-
ented monograph on game localization.
“The year 2006 is an important landmark in game localization research”
(Mangiron 2017, 77) since it indicates the beginning of academic approaches.
Out of a total of six papers issued, only one was written by profession-
als, namely two localizers from Vivendi Universal Games, and published in
one industry magazine (Kehoe and Hickey 2006), whereas five studies were
either written by scholars and/or published in academic volumes or journals
(Bernal-Merino 2006, Dietz 2006, Heimburg 2006, Mangiron 2006/2007,1
Mangiron and O’Hagan 2006). In particular, the paper published by Bernal-
Merino and the one published by Mangiron and O’Hagan, both available
on an online open-access journal like JoSTrans, have become seminal works
of reference in the field, recording hundreds of citations in the course of
time (Google Scholar). Moreover, 2006 is also a very important year for this
book, because the paper by Dietz and the one by Mangiron and O’Hagan,
together with the paper by Game Studies scholar Consalvo (2006), contrib-
uted greatly in laying the foundations of this research hypothesis, aims, and
design, as will be discussed in Chapter 3.
The third stage identified by Mangiron (2017, 78–80) is the 2007–
2012 development phase, where academic interest flourished consider-
ably. In 2007, the first special issue of a journal was devoted to the topic:
“Localització de videojocs”, Catalan for game localization, of Tradumàtica,
edited by Mangiron and Torres-Hostench (2007), containing nine papers
by both scholars and industry practitioners and covering an array of top-
ics. This special issue includes works by Bernal-Merino (2007), Di Marco
(2007), Dietz (2007), Fernández-Torné (2007), Loureiro-Pernas (2007),
Muñoz-Sánchez (2007), O’Hagan (2007b), O’Riada (2007), and Torres-
Molina (2007). Publications in the following years had a twofold impact:
first, they improved and supported academic visibility of game localization
in general but, simultaneously, they started to define the lines of future
research, narrowing down the scope of studies and focusing on single
aspects or phenomena, such as text types (Bernal-Merino 2008a), training
(Bernal-Merino 2008b), creativity (Bernal-Merino 2008c), intertextuality
(Bernal-Merino 2009), players’ game experience (O’Hagan 2009a), rom-
hacking and fan translation (Muñoz-Sánchez 2008, 2009, O’Hagan 2008,
2009b), or language and culture-specific case studies, the latter mostly con-
verging on Japanese games (Jayemanne 2009, Mangiron 2010, O’Hagan
2007a, 2009c). In this development stage, 2011 was another important
landmark in game localization research (Mangiron 2017, 79), due to the
publication of the second special issue of a journal, namely TRANS. Revista
de Traductología, edited by Bernal-Merino (2011b). Once again, TS schol-
ars and localization practitioners jointly worked on a fundamental piece
of literature, with papers investigating many and diverse topics: the his-
tory of game localization (Bernal-Merino 2011a), culturalization (Edwards
2011), whose relevance to this book is explored in Chapter 3, the localiza-
tion and translation of specific game genres or even franchises (Christou et
al. 2011, Crosignani and Ravetto 2011, Serón-Ordóñez 2011), fan transla-
tion (Díaz-Montón 2011), training (Vela-Valido 2011), game localization
management (Bartelt-Krantz 2011), and accessibility (Mangiron 2011). In
2011 and 2012, papers continued spreading knowledge, with both general
and subject-specific foci: the challenges of this practice, the role and the
specificities of translation for entertainment software remain the main con-
cern (Bernal-Merino 2012a, Fernández-Costales 2012, Mangiron 2012a,
O’Hagan 2012b, Zhou 2011), audiovisual translation modalities like sub-
titling start being descriptively analyzed (Mangiron 2012c, 2012f), and
related aspects like accessibility (Mangiron 2012d, 2012e, Mangiron and
Orero 2012), censorship (Zhang 2012), humor (Fernández-Costales 2011),
and training (Granell 2011) are further developed. Studies devoted to lan-
guage and culture-specific issues in game localization advance and, again,
mostly concern Japanese titles (Mangiron 2012b, O’Hagan 2012a, Schules
2012), although some contributions begin broadening the array of target
languages, such as Brazilian Portuguese (Da Silva 2014, De Souza 2012,
2014), Lithuanian (Šiaučiūnė and Liubinienė 2011), and Polish (Czech
2013). Furthermore, it seems important to mention that 2012 was also the
year when the second edition of a monograph on game localization came
into being (Maxwell-Chandler and O’Malley-Deming 2012), representing
an updated version which not only reflects the continuous development of
industry practices, but also introduces the perspectives of game translation
(Bernal-Merino 2012b) and culturalization (Edwards 2012) into the set of
localization guidelines it aims to provide developers with.
The “consolidation phase” of research in game localization started in
2013 (Mangiron 2017, 80–82) and is still in progress, thanks to the con-
stant work of scholars in Translation Studies. First, as already mentioned,
in this stage monographs and edited volumes are published in the follow-
ing chronological order: O’Hagan and Mangiron (2013), Mangiron, Orero,
and O’Hagan (2014), Bernal-Merino (2015), Méndez-González (2015a),
Sajna (2016), Granell, Mangiron, and Vidal (2017), and Muñoz-Sánchez
(2017). As regards research contents, numerous avenues are pursued: game
accessibility (Fernández-Costales 2014a, Grammenos 2014, Mairena 2014,
Torrente et al. 2014), training (Carreira and Arrés 2014, Odacıoğlu et al.
2016), fan translation (Müller-Galhardi 2014), culturalization (Edwards
2014), audio description (Mangiron and Zhang 2016), auteurism and inter-
textuality (Pettini 2015), reception (Fernández-Costales 2016, Mangiron
2016a, Méndez-Gonzáles 2015b, O’Hagan 2016), terminology (Pettini
2016), humor (Iaia 2014a, 2014b, Lepre 2014a), but most studies still aim
at conceptualizing the special features of game localization and transla-
tion for global entertainment, that aims at achieving a deeper insight into
this subfield, and thus, with different approaches and methods, and focus-
ing on diverse games and linguistic combinations, converge on the analy-
sis of challenges and issues (Alonso 2014, Bernal-Merino 2016a, 2016b,
Fernández-Costales 2014b, Iaia 2016b, Lepre 2014b, Mangiron 2016b,
2016c, Méndez-Gonzáles 2013, 2014a, 2014b, 2014c, 2015a, 2015c, 2016,
Muñoz-Sánchez and López-Sánchez 2016, O’Hagan 2015, O’Hagan and
Maxwell-Chandler 2016, Tarquini 2014a, 2014b, Van Oers 2014, Zhang
2014).
The year 2017 represents another milestone for research in Game
Localization Studies, since the third special issue of a journal is published.
Edited and introduced by Zhang and Strong (2017a, 2017b), this vol-
ume includes works by Fernández-Costales (2017), Mandiberg (2017),
Mangiron (2017), O’Hagan (2017), Pettini (2017b), and Ranford (2017).
Other important studies issued in the period from 2017 onward continued to
refine the research lines and develop the analysis of game localization (Altice
2020, Mangiron 2018a), with special emphasis on game translatable ele-
ments (Mejías-Climent 2017, Strong 2017), game dubbing (Mejías-Climent
2018a, 2018b, 2018c), Japanese titles (Casado-Valenzuela 2018, Mangiron
2021a), Chinese titles (Dong and Mangiron 2018), indie games (Toftedahl
2018), training (Dias-Esqueda and Nogueira de Andrade-Stupiello 2018,
Mangiron 2021b), gender issues (Pettini 2018, 2020, 2021a), the relationship
with audiovisual translation (O’Hagan 2018), reception studies (Mangiron
2018b), creativity and playability (Bernal-Merino 2018), transtextuality
(Purnama and Purnomo 2019), game localization quality (Bernal-Merino
2020), humor (Iaia 2019), and the translation of personality in real-life
simulation games (Pettini 2021b). Moreover, the publication of two special
issues of The Journal of Internationalization and Localization (O’Hagan
and McDonough-Dolmaya 2020), which includes the analysis of the locali-
zation of history-based games (Hsu 2020), Chinese games (Wu and Chen
2020), and also the publication of a special issue of Arts (Thomas 2021)
clearly suggest that research is entering a new crucial stage of development.
This brief diachronic overview on game localization research from the
late 1990s to 2020 clearly shows that multimedia interactive entertainment
has been capturing the attention of a growing number of scholars across
an increasing number of countries, who have either adopted theoretical
and methodological approaches from other disciplines and/or created new
models to study video games as texts moving cross-linguistically and cross-
culturally. To date, research has been mainly empirical and descriptive,
which means devised to account for the special segment of the “real world”
known as game localization and translation and based on quantitative and
qualitative methods aimed at observing and describing data, to finally facili-
tate a better understanding of that section of reality. Another important
quality of research in this subdomain is interdisciplinarity: to study games
as texts, the tools provided by Translation Studies, which is itself an inter-
discipline, must be complemented by other theoretical and methodological
instruments. Video games and gaming are extremely complex, and a holistic
approach is necessary.
To recapitulate the most productive research lines, as already discussed,
it can be said that especially in the first stages, the majority of scholars and
practitioners have examined the phenomenon, i.e. the main features, chal-
lenges, issues, constraints, the main agents involved in the reality observed.
Some researchers have started exploring games as texts in their relation to
other texts, where the concept of text includes a variety of materials. Texts
can be either fiction or nonfiction, either purely verbal or non-verbal in
nature, also called unimodal texts, they can involve both verbal and non-
verbal elements, also known as bimodal texts, they can combine multiple
semiotic systems, the so-called multimedia texts, such as image, sound, and
interactivity of various kinds which are possible today through technology.
With a focus on text, in game localization and translation research, some
case studies have examined game assets, text types, and paratexts. In terms
of translation directionality, it seems apparent that scholarly interest, which
originally recorded the predominance of Japanese games as source texts and
English localizations as target texts, is changing and evolving in line with
the market trends described in the Introduction. Another important feature
of research in this field, which stems from a diachronic perspective, is the
development toward specialization. Nowadays, scholars tend to investigate
single aspects or phenomena, e.g. terminology, gender representation, cul-
tural adaptation, etc., by carrying out more and more in-depth and solid
studies. The advanced stage research has reached is also demonstrated by
the fact that some scholars have begun reflecting upon the topic of research
itself (O’Hagan 2007b, Muñoz-Sánchez 2011, O’Hagan and Mangiron
2013, 277–324, O’Hagan and Maxwell-Chandler 2016), which signifi-
cantly supports its consolidation.
In conclusion, game localization and translation as research topics have
come a long way since the early days in the 1990s and are steadily gaining
ground in Translation Studies. Nevertheless, the reality to which research
refers and which it aims to describe is deeply context-dependent and fast-
paced. Consequently, any scientific effort to fully understand this reality
cannot but be made in context. For this reason, the following sections pro-
vide a background analysis of the game localization industry, that is the set
of circumstances in which game translation and localization take place.
2.4 The Practice of Game Localization and Translation

Since the development of the first video game called Spacewar! in 1961
by Professor Steve Russel at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology,2
“the video games industry has evolved dramatically to become a worldwide
phenomenon worth billions” (Bernal-Merino 2006, 22). Moreover, from
the simple mechanics and poor graphics of early popular titles like Space
Invaders (Taito 1978) and Pac-Man (Namco 1980), which are considered
to have set the subsequent course of video games as a cultural phenomenon
(Egenfeldt-Nielsen et al. 2016, 157–198), today’s products have turned into
extraordinarily complex and impressive movie-like entertaining experiences
enjoyed by a diverse audience across the globe.
Much of this growth can be attributed to game localization, which is
essential for the industry nowadays. According to Maxwell-Chandler and
O’Malley-Deming (2012, xiii), roughly 50% of the revenue of the global
market for video games depends on localization. Not surprisingly, game
companies usually rely on publishing multiple language versions of their
games in order to maximize profits. Indeed, major game publishers cite the
international market as a key strategic focus and regularly distribute local-
ized games into a variety of regions, including the United States, Europe,
Asia, and the Middle East.
Accordingly, it comes as no surprise to learn how strong the links are
between game translation and the industry. These links shape a relationship
of interdependence since translation is driven by the skopos of the indus-
try and the latter is conditional upon translation. After all, game localiza-
tion – referred to as a specialized translation area combining elements of
audiovisual translation and software localization – arose exactly from the
industry’s needs.
It seems therefore worth exploring, although briefly, some basic concepts
related to game localization as a sectorial and dynamic area of professional
practice in order to show where translation is positioned in respect to the
whole process, and to understand how the nature of its business affects the
interlinguistic and intercultural transfer. Given the influence and control
the industry exerts in the production and international distribution of mul-
timedia interactive entertainment, “academic research into games becomes
more inclusive – and more valuable – when it shows an understanding of the
market”, as Egenfeldt-Nielsen et al. (2016, 16) assert. In Bernal-Merino’s
words (2015, 155), “a study of the business environment occupied by the
translation profession is de rigueur if we are fully to understand the moti-
vations, errors, and challenges that translators face in their daily routine”
(original emphasis).
Given these premises, the key notions to bear in mind when approach-
ing the translation of video games are localization and internationalization
(2.4.1), localization levels, phases, steps, and staff (2.4.2), localization mod-
els (2.4.3), and localization assets (2.4.4). Moreover, this chapter provides
an overview of the history of game localization (2.5) in order to show how
technological progress has been affecting game design, localization, and
translation since the 1970s to date. Finally, game translation proper (2.6)
and culturalization (2.7) are explored, and their distinctive features and
issues are scrutinized in order to paint a representative picture of the reality
this book is about.
2.4.1 Localization and Internationalization

In the 21st century, any practice in the realm of interlinguistic and inter-
cultural mediation cannot but be accounted for in the light of GILT
(Globalization, Internationalization, Localization, Translation). As many
authors explain (see, for example, Dunne 2006, 4–6, Jiménez-Crespo 2013,
24–39, Munday 2016, 287–288), this acronym refers to a complex set of
interdependent processes concerning any product or service designed to
address the global market. “The acronym is used to stress how the globali-
zation of modern technological platforms needs to be considered from the
beginning with localization in mind, which in turn will be determined by
companies’ overall globalization strategies” (O’Hagan and Mangiron 2013,
89), and this has been particularly evident in videogaming.
The practice of localization emerged in response to the globalization of
the computer industry, especially the US Information and Communication
Technology industry, but rapidly incorporated other products such as
websites, since the distribution of electronic content worldwide is an essen-
tial component of the global market society (Dunne 2014). The term “local-
ization” dates back to the 1980s when software developers needed to define
“the introduction of linguistic-cultural elements considered foreign to the
initial source code, content and display in US/American English” (Folaron
2006, 198). Although video games are software, and although software
localization can be considered as the precursor of the area under investiga-
tion, an examination of its characteristics is beyond the scope of this book.
Accordingly, it seems more reasonable to refer to it only when functional to
the purposes of this monograph.
To understand the localization phenomenon, the notion of “locale” is
fundamental (Esselink 2000, 1), with reference to a geographical area with
distinguishing features such as language, units of currency, and charac-
ter encoding, among others, which, however, do not exactly correspond
to single countries or single languages. As Dunne (2014) explains, local
market requirements are referred to using the hypernym “locale”, which
is expressed as language-country pair: thus, French-Canada is one locale,
while French-France is another, Portuguese-Portugal is one locale, while
Portuguese-Brazil is another. In this regard, the locales covered in this book
are Italian-Italy and Spanish-Spain.
In order to capitalize on international markets and maximize their sales
abroad, game companies “need to develop a global mindset toward game
development” and understand the meaning of localizing games for specific
markets (Maxwell-Chandler and O’Malley-Deming 2012, 1), i.e. publish-
ing quality international versions of their games to be translated into several
languages (ibid., 3).
Internationalization is the pre-localization process and means creating a
product which “can be easily adapted for release in other countries without
having to change the design of the product”, it means designing “a project
that can be easily localized with a minimum amount of work on the devel-
oper’s part – the same game features, functionality, and game experiences”
(Maxwell-Chandler and O’Malley-Deming 2012, 4). According to Esselink
(2000, 2), “internationalization is the process of generalizing a product so
that it can handle multiple languages and cultural conventions without the
need for re-design. It takes place at the level of program design and docu-
ment development”. The definition of the Localization Industry Standards
Association is also worth mentioning, since internationalization is described
as “the process of enabling a product at a technical level for localization”,
and “primarily consists of abstracting the functionality of a product away
from any particular language so that language support can be added back in
simply, without worrying that language-specific features will pose a prob-
lem when the product is localized” (LISA cit. in Jiménez-Crespo 2013, 25).
A game can be localization-friendly if, and only if, internationaliza-
tion is planned for properly during pre-production; otherwise, retrofit-
ting a game after development involves more time, money, and resources.
If internationalized, the user interface (UI), control scheme, game content,
etc. are designed to accommodate the specificities of each target locale,
including:
•• both European text, which is read from left to right, and Arabic text,
which is read from right to left;
•• various formats of dates, numbers, times, and currencies;
•• characters and diacritics across languages; this means that the game
code should support at least the Unicode system which can display
more than 65,000 unique characters (Asian ones included);
•• international keyboard layouts;
•• different ethnicities and nationalities to customize the player’s avatar;
•• video standards, i.e. both National Television Standards Committee
(NTSC) and Phase Alternating Line (PAL), if the game is for consoles,
in order to be properly displayed on monitors;
•• cultural content, i.e. culture-specific references like the name of a popu-
lar movie star or TV shows should be limited, unless they are essential
to the story or gameplay. “If the game remains as culturally neutral as
possible, it is less noticeable to an international gamer that the game was
developed primarily for a specific demographic” (Maxwell-Chandler
and O’Malley-Deming 2012, 7).
As regards the user interface (UI) in particular, for example, since the trans-
lated text is about 20 to 30% larger than the source text (Maxwell-Chandler
and O’Malley-Deming 2012, 5), it is important that it is designed to avoid
text display problems such as overlapping and truncated text, which can
be really misleading. This is possible by using icons with universal meaning
or by designing UIs to be scaled up or down according to the size and the
length of the text.
In summary, the objective of internationalization is to make users “feel
that the game was made specifically for them, and that they are getting the
same gaming experience as the source language users” (ibid., 4).
Moreover, it seems worth underlining that internationalization does not
affect only technical issues, but also involves sociocultural and sociopoliti-
cal considerations in preparing the source game. In particular, the “cultural
content” point listed above could be read as an example of the tendency
toward generalization and cultural flattening in internationalization, which
provoked some translation scholars’ criticism based on the ideas of “global
sameness” and “death of cultural difference” (Pym 2004, 37). This question
is particularly relevant here because of three reasons. First, contrary to what
one might think, video games “are cultural products often imbued with spe-
cific cultural traits, even at the level of the conceptualization of game design
itself” (O’Hagan and Mangiron 2013, 91). Second, “cultural peculiarities
may turn out to be the very attraction of the product even in international
markets” (ibid.), as usually happens for Japanese titles. Lastly, but more
importantly, culture-specificity expressed by realia and irrealia is the focus
of this book and so the cultural dimension of video games, of their locali-
zation, and the process of culturalization proper will be explored in-depth
further in this chapter and the following.
2.4.2 Localization Levels, Phases, Steps, and Staff

The nature of the game industry as a global highly lucrative business influ-
ences the degree of linguistic accessibility worldwide. The extent to which
game contents are localized can vary from project to project, mainly depend-
ing on cost and revenue analysis, namely a profit and loss statement for each
localization (Maxwell-Chandler and O’Malley-Deming 2012, 47), based on
two major factors: money and time. It is a trade-off between the uncertain
additional sales that localized versions can generate and the additional costs
and risks associated with a longer and more complex process. In short, as
for money, publishers compare the development, marketing, packaging, and
distribution costs for each localized version against the projected sales. As
for time, ideally aiming at simultaneously releasing the game worldwide,
publishers evaluate the timing of the localization steps. On the one hand,
game publishers’ decisions depend on the resources available to invest in the
localization process and the likely return on investment. On the other, the
time factor also has substantial relevance because video games are governed
by critical release dates (typically the beginning of each holiday season),
namely Christmas and Easter, and missing them does have repercussions on
the revenue.
In summary, localization tends to be scaled “according to the needs
and expectations of the game” (Maxwell-Chandler and O’Malley-Deming
2012, 8). The following are the four localization levels used in the industry
and they are increasingly riskier, expensive, and time-consuming, but also
progressively immersive for the player, thus they are reserved to products
ranging from small to big-budget games:
•• no localization: the original language version is shipped directly to

international markets;
•• box and docs: only the game’s packaging and manual are localized;
•• partial localization: the in-game text, the packaging, and the manual are
translated, not the voice-over, which is usually subtitled;
•• full localization: all game assets are translated, voice-over included.
For translation analysis purposes, partial and full localization are evidently
the most interesting areas since the first level (no localization) does not
provide phenomena to be investigated and the second one (box and docs)
only involves the translation of paratext such as packaging and manuals.
In contrast, partial and full localization offer TS scholars plenty of room
for investigation concerning, for example, subtitling and dubbing. On the
basis of the levels above, it comes as no surprise to learn that dubbing is
part of full localization only, since this costly and time-consuming trans-
lation modality implies setting up recording sessions, hiring professional
voice actors, often celebrities, matching facial animations with lip-syncing,
processing the sound files, etc., in order to deliver a quality target ver-
sion. Indeed, full localization is mainly reserved for flagship titles, known
as “AAA games”, like the games included in the corpus that this book
examines.
In particular, it seems worth specifying that in game localization, the
re-voicing in the form of dubbing is commonly referred to as “voice-over”
(O’Hagan and Mangiron 2013, 163). Although this represents a clear point
of contact between audiovisual translation and game localization, it must
be said that the use of dubbing and subtitling modes in this field “is gen-
erally not well informed by the body of knowledge available” thanks to
Audiovisual Translation Studies scholars, “and AVT norms are clearly not
adhered to”, as O’Hagan and Mangiron complain (ibid., 163–164). An in-
depth contrastive analysis of dubbing, subtitling, and voice-over in video
games and in other audiovisual products is beyond the scope of this work
but represents a very significant area for future research (see, for example
Mejías-Climent 2018a, 2018b, 2018c).
To conclude the discussion about localization levels, it seems worth
briefly mentioning here some details about the three games in the corpus.
As regards the scope of their international distribution, which refers to the
number of target languages each game was translated into, where European
FIGS are default (meaning French, Italian, German and Spanish), they are
nine for Medal of Honor Warfighter (FIGS plus Japanese, Korean, Polish,
Russian, and Turkish), 11 for Battlefield 4 (FIGS plus Chinese, Czech,
Japanese, Korean, Polish, Portuguese, and Russian), and seven for Mass
Effect 3 (FIGS plus Japanese, Polish, and Russian), but localization levels
vary. As far as Italian and Spanish are concerned, they all present full locali-
zations except for Mass Effect 3, which has been partially localized into
Spanish. Since Battlefield 4 is the most recent game for release, the higher
number of target languages seems to confirm US publisher Electronic Arts’
and, by extension, the game industry’s tendency to expand the borders of
their localization practice.
The whole process of localization generally includes three phases: plan-
ning, production, and post-production (Maxwell-Chandler and O’Malley-
Deming 2012, 10–12). During the planning phase, based on historical sales
data, the company determines which level of localization is appropriate
for each target locale and performs internationalization, thus making next
phases smoother. Localization usually starts in the production phase and it
means translating, integrating, and testing all contents, generally referred to
as “assets” in the industry. Once the game code has been localized, in the
post-production phase the process affects other localization items such as
manuals, packaging, and demos with the final aim of creating a localization
kit which contains relevant information about the project, as well as the files
and contents to be translated.
In more detail, the stages of the localization process are linked to four
major steps: the game assets’ organization, translation, integration, and test-
ing (ibid., 68–69) and each of them involves specific roles (ibid., 87–89).
First, all the assets are organized so that the text and context are clear
for all translations. This means creating a glossary, adding time codes to
the voice-over script, and creating a master sheet with all the in-game text,
in order to ensure linguistic consistency in the game. A proper organization
of game assets is essential for the whole process: they can be placed in a
centralized language-specific directory in the game code and each can then
contain subdirectory folders for asset types, i.e. audio, art, cinematics, and
text. Three members of the localization staff are usually in charge of organi-
zation tasks: (1) the associate or assistant producer, often called localization
manager, who is involved in all aspects of localization and represents the
main point of contact between the development team and the localization
staff since s/he provides all task, budget, and staff estimates, s/he organ-
izes all the materials to be sent to translators, s/he manages all functional-
ity testers and engineers, etc. The localization manager works with the (2)
localization coordinator, who in turn serves as liaison between translators
and linguistic testers, s/he helps to develop the localized versions, organizes
translations, and manages the linguistic testers. Finally, there is an optional
resource called (3) production coordinator who may be needed to assist the
localization manager.
The second step in localization is translation: all assets need to be trans-
lated, and also proofread and edited. The length of the translation process is
usually estimated on word count, which can range from 30,000 to 500,000,
and even more than one million in the case of some massive multiplayer
online role-playing games (Bernal-Merino 2015, 171). This step requires
at least one translator per language, be they in-house or freelance, for the
whole duration of the project, although big games actually call for the work
of a translation team per language. Additionally, other staff members may
include a casting director, voice actors, and a sound engineer to record
and process the localized voice-over files, if full localization is performed.
Sometimes, translators are also in charge of integrating the assets and assist-
ing linguistic testers.
Once translated, all assets need to be integrated into the game builds
and the third step begins. This means replacing the source assets with the
target ones. The task can be manual or automated, the former is more time-
consuming, error-conducive, and bug-provoking, and performed by either
the development team, namely an engineer, or by the external localization
vendor. As far as text assets are concerned, original strings are usually sent
to translators in Excel spreadsheets with separate columns per language and
tags assigned to each row of text. This way, a simple parser created by the
developer can integrate translated strings into the game engine files, thus
avoiding dangerous cutting and pasting (Maxwell-Chandler and O’Malley-
Deming 2012, 200). The game engine then determines the correct text to be
displayed based on what the game tag indicates. Accordingly, as regards the
overall method, a two-way process exports the source text into a multilin-
gual spreadsheet and then imports the strings in the target language back
into the game. Automated integration is preferable to manual work because
“the longer it takes to integrate assets and create localized builds, the longer
testing is delayed” and this “will negatively impact the overall localization
schedule” (ibid., 202).
Finally, localizations need to be tested and enter Quality Assurance (QA),
since the QA department is involved. This fourth step can be one of the
most time-consuming because it must be performed on two concurrent
levels: functionality and linguistic testing, each consisting of several test-
ing rounds. Moreover, testing time increases with the number of languages
involved, game size, gameplay mechanics, etc. Functionality testers notify
all design, art, or engineering bugs in the game code, while linguistic test-
ers check all the language assets in the game to make sure that there are no
incorrect translations, grammatical errors, typos, and incorrectly displayed
text, namely overlapping, misspelling, truncations, etc. “Every piece of text
in the game has to be checked, along with all the voice-over and cinematics”
(ibid., 237). Obviously enough, as regards staff, in addition to functionality
and linguistic testers, this phase requires engineers and production people
to fix both types of bugs (ibid., 87). As for linguistic testers in particular, as
also Maxwell-Chandler and O’Malley-Deming (ibid., 237) point out, they
should be native speakers of the target language who can best understand
the co-text and context of the translations and comment on whether the
target text fits with the look and feel of the game. They are often part of the
same group of translators, so that they are already familiar with the “lan-
guage” and tone of the game they are testing.
2.4.3 Localization Models
The game industry mainly shows two different procedures as regards locali-
zation agents, i.e. who performs the localization process, and when, depend-
ing on games’ international launch. First, as regards time models, the release
of the localized versions can follow either a simultaneous shipping model
or a post-gold one. Second, as to actors involved, publishers may carry out
in-house localization or they may outsource it to a professional language
service provider. Nevertheless, sometimes in-house localization and out-
sourcing co-exist in major publishing houses, which opt for either one or
the other depending on single games or franchises.
If the original game and localizations are distributed on the same date
in different territories, the process follows the so-called “sim-ship” model,
which means that localization runs in parallel to game development, thus
posing a number of issues for translators who work on an incomplete and
unstable text. Obviously enough, simultaneous shipment is the goal of most
developers and publishers and is indeed becoming more and more com-
mon. This is mainly due to marketing reasons: the short shelf-life of video
games, the possibility of avoiding gray market imports and pirate copies
from other countries, the benefit of building a sense of community among
gamers, allowing them to discuss the game on specialized forums or play
online internationally, if online playing is included, and the advantage of
exploiting a single but usually massive global marketing campaign to gener-
ate more publicity and engagement, especially for big-budget games.
In contrast, a post-gold model means that localized versions are shipped
after the original game, the time lag ranging from a few months to a year.
As regards the process, localization is performed on a finished game and this
means better working conditions for translators.
Generally, as Maxwell-Chandler and O’Malley-Deming (2012, 47)
explain, “the publisher ships the European versions with the English version
and staggers the ship dates of the Japanese, Korean, Russian, and Hebrew
versions”. This way, since English and FIGS languages cover most of the
USA, Europe, and South America, publishers make sure that these versions
are simultaneously available on the game’s international launch date. As
regards the other regions, such as Russia, Korea, and Japan, localized ver-
sions tend to appear a few months later because third-party licensors, who
are in charge of translation, integration, and testing, work on the final prod-
uct. According to O’Hagan and Mangiron (2013, 60), the ideal simultane-
ous shipment is already a standard for most Western companies. On the
contrary, although the approach is changing, Japanese publishers usually
release the original game first on the domestic market, a North American
localization some time later, and finally European versions thus using US
English as a pivot language.3
With the in-house model, localization is performed “under the super-
vision of the developer or the publisher in their premises” (O’Hagan and
Mangiron 2013, 116). It means that the developer, who has got a localiza-
tion department and a steady group of in-house or freelance translators, is
also responsible for localization into different languages and coordinates the
project from beginning to end. Translators work under the direction of the
localization coordinator, who serves as a trait d’union between them and
the developers. More importantly, since localization usually starts when the
original game is finished, translators have full access to the product: they
can play it, familiarize themselves with the storyline, characters, and game-
play. It is a longer process on the whole, as opposed to outsourced localiza-
tion, but it results in better quality because translators can rely on a solid
knowledge of the game. Thus, the QA process turns out to be smoother for
specialized game testing vendors.
On the contrary, when localization is outsourced, an external specialized
localization vendor is commissioned to perform the process. Outsourcing,
although costlier, is currently the most widely used model in the industry.
The vendor selects the translators and arranges all necessary phases accord-
ing to the game’s localization level, such as voice-over for example, if full
localization is selected, and sometimes they are also in charge of QA.
From the point of view of translators, since the outsourcing model is
often linked to simultaneous shipment, the job is much more complicated.
They work on incomplete and unstable texts, subject to last-minute changes,
because the product is still under development. They are not allowed to
play or even see the game and they generally translate a spreadsheet with a
series of unconnected text strings belonging to different parts of the game
with little or no co-textual and contextual information. Unfortunately, this
may influence the quality of translation especially if we consider that video
games are multimedia texts based on the simultaneous use of different semi-
otic channels, where the synchronization between text (written, subtitled,
voiced-over), images, and sound is paramount. For this reason, game trans-
lation is often described as “blind” (Dietz 2006, 2007): it requires language
professionals to rely on their intuitions and game literacy to provide “the
most flexible” solutions possible, so that they can be suitable for different
contexts (O’Hagan and Mangiron 2013, 119).
In terms of localization models, the international distribution of the three
games included in the corpus followed the sim-ship model: Medal of Honor
Warfighter (2012) was released on October 23 in North America and on
October 25 in Europe; Battlefield 4 (2013) was released on October 29 in
North America and on October 31 in Europe; Mass Effect 3 (2012) was
released on March 6 in North America and on March 9 in Europe.
Moreover, as regards localization agents, Medal of Honor Warfighter
was translated by a small localization vendor into Italian and by a freelancer
into Spanish, while audio localization was performed by another company
in both languages. Battlefield 4 was translated and voiced-over by a mul-
tinational localization vendor in Italian, while in Spanish it was translated
by a freelancer and audio-localized by another company. Mass Effect 3 was
translated in both Italian and Spanish by a multinational localization agency
which also performed the audio localization in Italian.
2.4.4 Localization Assets
The scope of localization, which generally depends on the game type and
size, is another important factor in publishers’ decision-making process.
This means to determine the quantity of the game assets to be localized
in the project: the number of words to be translated, the number of voice-
over lines to be recorded, the number of art and graphic assets to be modi-
fied, etc. According to Maxwell-Chandler and O’Malley-Deming (2012,
53), game assets can be classified into five groups, namely (1) text assets
in-game, which represent the bulk of translatable elements and include all
texts displayed in-game like narration, tutorials, installer strings, help files,
and error messages; (2) art assets, also including game logo and in-game
language embedded textures; (3) audio assets in-game, which basically
refer to voice‑over files; (4) cinematic assets, representing all movie-like
sequences, both pre-rendered and created in-game, and (5) printed mate-
rials, such as the packaging and the manual. This subject will be further
discussed in Section 2.6 with special attention to the consequent multitextu-
ality translators deal with in game localization.
2.5 The History of Game Localization and Translation

Although the processes used in the game localization industry are still
being improved and it is too early for a definitive retrospective account,
an all-encompassing look at its origins and evolution over the past dec-
ades may serve to elucidate the role it has played in the advent of video
games as contenders for a place within the audiovisual entertainment
industry.
(Bernal-Merino 2015, 157)
Game-enthusiast scholars and journalists have been investigating the history

of video games extensively (see Donovan 2010, Hertz 1997, Kent 2001,
Wolf 2008, among others), but the process through which multimedia inter-
active entertainment became a global phenomenon went largely ignored. As
a result, mapping out the evolution of game localization since the early days
of the industry turns out to be difficult. Yet, it seems very useful in order to
paint a comprehensive picture of the topic under investigation.
Broadly speaking, by tracing the development of game platforms, it is
easy to understand how technological capacities and limitations can shape
video games in terms of graphics and sound, consequently affecting design,
gameplay, localization, and lastly translation.
According to Bernal-Merino (2015), perceptible stages have taken place
over the last four decades in the continuous progression that has led the
game industry to become a multibillion-dollar sector. These stages are (1)
the birth of digital entertainment in the 1970s; (2) the establishment of the
game industry in the 1980s; (3) the fight for the markets in the 1990s; (4) the
professionalization of game localization in the 2000s and, one might add,
(5) the era of enhanced localization and new developments in the 2010s.
Similarly, O’Hagan and Mangiron (2013, 46–63) divide the phases of game
localization progress into the following: (1) early phase (prior to the mid-
1980s); (2) growth phase (from mid-1980s to mid-1990s); (3) development
phase (from mid-1990s to late-1990s); (4) maturing phase (from 2000 to
2005), and (5) advancing phase (2005 to date).
The video games developed in the 1970s and early 1980s, mostly arcade
titles, included a few or no elements to be translated, being the first products
“almost purely mechanical, i.e. simple and intuitive gameplay with very lit-
tle in the form of instructions, storylines, or voices” (Bernal-Merino 2015,
158). During the 1970s, most games were normally distributed in their
original version to a few foreign markets, and trade took place mainly in
English between the USA, Japan, and the United Kingdom. Consequently,
Anglicisms such as “arcade”, “joystick”, “score”, and “game over” were
introduced into most languages during this early period (ibid., 159).
Nevertheless, even if games posed little or no language barriers, their inter-
national shipping already required some sort of localization, especially for
Japanese titles, thus offering a preview of what the phenomenon would
mean for the industry in years to come. Actually, in order to make their
games immediately available to the enormous US market, it could be argued
that Japanese developers and publishers were the ones who started thinking
about localization earlier (Bernal-Merino 2011a, 12).
Pac-Man (Namco 1980) is an internationally well-known classic exam-
ple. According to Kohler (2005), the original name of this Japanese title
“Puck-Man” needed to be transliterated for sociolinguistic reasons. The
name was “inspired by the Japanese onomatopoeic ‘/paku paku taberu/’, a
phrase normally used to indicate that someone is eating greedily, in imita-
tion of a fish-like opening and closing of the mouth” (Bernal-Merino 2015,
160). With the US audience in mind, marketers thought that “Puck” would
likely sound too close to the offensive four-letter word and opted for a simi-
lar but less rude spelling: Pac-Man. This not only proved successful but,
unintentionally, it also turned out to be “the first game translation gem,
encapsulating one of the principles of good practice in the adaptation of
games, i.e. respect for the language and the culture of the players of each
importing country” (ibid.). “This led to changes in the cabinet art and the
title screen of the game in arcade machines” (O’Hagan and Mangiron 2013,
49). In addition, the original Japanese names and nicknames of the four
ghost characters, which were based mainly on their colors or behaviors, e.g.
Chaser “red guy”, Ambusher “pink guy”, Fickle “blue guy”, and Stupid
“slow guy” became Shadow “Blinky”, Speedy “Pinky”, Bashful “Inky”, and
Pokey “Clyde” in the official US English translation in order to entertain the
corresponding audience. Pac-Man’s US publisher “decided to give a certain
American touch to the game in order to make it more appealing to US play-
ers”, and “adopted a didactic and humorous approach, using euphonic and
catchy names” (Bernal-Merino 2015, 161). “This rather ‘creative’ way of
dealing with the translation of video games for foreign markets is com-
pletely in line with the essence of games as customizable entertainment, to
which changes can be made in an attempt to boost their sales” (ibid.).
Likewise, the two main characters of the arcade title Donkey Kong
(Nintendo 1981), originally named Jamp-Man and The Lady in Japanese,
turned into Mario and Polly for the US market. These two names were
supposedly inspired by those of the landlord of the Nintendo of America
building and of an employee’s wife (Kohler 2005, 212), this latter example
testifies to how arbitrary some translation decisions were.4 In this period,
some computer-based American games were also localized into Japanese,
but the process was limited to user manuals (Hasegawa cit. in O’Hagan and
Mangiron 2013, 51). On the whole, the early phase of game localization is
a trial-and-error era, in which developers had little, if any, knowledge about
localization and there was also little control over the quality of transla-
tions, usually performed by friends of developers or other non-profession-
als, meaning that there were no real game localization agencies at that time
and localization was a pretty amateurish business (O’Hagan and Mangiron
2013, 51).
Even after the 1982–1984 great game industry crash (see Wolf 2012),
partly caused by a lack of creativity and the clumsy repetition of ideas and
gameplay mechanics, by the end of the decade the game industry was mak-
ing healthy profits (Bernal-Merino 2015, 162). Yet, at the beginning of the
mid-1980s, although many Japanese console games were exported to the
US market, localization was still an afterthought (Corliss 2007). Moreover,
due to the technical limitations of early platforms, the translation from
Japanese into European languages usually required more screen space to
convey the same ideas. This was also due to the fact that Japanese text
used to be stored in picture format, also posing “the inherent problem of
using too much of the little memory available” (Bernal-Merino 2015, 161),
and therefore the original game even had to be reprogrammed to fit the
translated English text (Kohler 2005, 221). Problems regarding characters’
display were overcome only in 1991, when the first version of Unicode was
implemented.
However, in this period many of the most internationally popular games,
like Super Mario Bros. (Nintendo 1985), were shipped by means of “box
and docs” localization from English into FIGS and Dutch (Bernal-Merino
2015, 163). The translation of packaging and documentation became stand-
ard practice among those publishers who understood that this small invest-
ment could easily increase their revenues simply by making their product
slightly more accessible to foreign consumers (ibid., 164). Nevertheless,
at least in the beginning, target languages were the dominant languages in
Western Europe, that is the languages of the countries presenting a certain
maturity of their national markets in terms of computer users, availability
per capita income, demand for new forms of entertainment, and growth
potential. Thus, the “E-FIGS” approach “quickly became the de facto mini-
mum localization standard” (ibid.).
The increase of game consoles capacity produced a proportional expan-
sion of translatable assets and other factors, e.g. culture and religion, began
to be taken into account. Some developers started to use cinematic sequences
in the game storyline, with narration provided through subtitle-like running
text. There was no voice track, the only sound was computer-generated
background music and some sound effects, while the texts scrolled from
left to right in the lower half of the screen, synchronized with the graph-
ics (O’Hagan and Mangiron 2013, 52). From a TS perspective, it seems
interesting to note that subtitling conventions and typographic norms were
completely ignored. For example, in the US version of Ninja Gaiden (Tecmo
1989) the text occupies four lines not marked in italics with what seems to
be an arbitrary use of ellipsis markers with two dots (ibid.).
As regards the practice, in this phase, “translations were either done in-
house or organized directly by the developing team with the help of free-
lance translators and bilingual players. There were still no game localization
specialists as such” (Bernal-Merino 2015, 164).
In the 1990s, the game industry started to become more and more profes-
sional. As Bernal-Merino (ibid., 164–165) explains, there was a shift from
minimal “box and docs” translation to the so-called “partial localization”
for most big titles; games were becoming more and more sophisticated, and
their translation was now a conditio sine qua non. Finally, European gam-
ers outside the UK could enjoy games in their own languages. Moreover,
subtitling increased accessibility since video games started to be enjoyable
for the deaf and the hard-of-hearing gamer community too. Nevertheless,
because of technical limitations of consoles platforms to store text, trans-
lations usually needed to be reduced to make the target text fit within the
available capacity of the system.
During this decade, many poor translations were produced and publi-
cized online more recently by the so-called “retro-gaming” fan communities
(Newman 2013, 59). One of the most frequently cited examples is from the
Japanese shooter game Zero Wing (Toaplam 1991). The original Japanese
line uttered by the alien character called CATS, “CATS has taken over all
your base stations”, translated as “All your base are belong to us” first
appeared in the European English version for the Sega console (O’Hagan
and Mangiron 2013, 56). The translation became a popular Internet meme,
“All Your Base spread from office to office via e-mail like a benign virus”
(emphasis added), the syntax-mangling phrase incorporated everywhere
on earth, “cropping up everywhere from George W. Bush billboards to
Budweiser ads to the cover of TIME” (Taylor 2001, online).
Other examples of blatant translation errors during this era included
major Japanese role-playing game (RPG) titles like Final Fantasy VII (Square
1997), where one character soon after the beginning says “That man are
sick”, and also a yes/no answer option was phrased as “Off course!/No,
way!” (O’Hagan and Mangiron 2013, 56). Another instance of poor locali-
zation during this period was that of Metal Gear Solid (Konami 1998).
“The original game consisted of some 150 Japanese messages, of which just
over half were translated into English of substandard quality” (ibid.).
The quantity of poor translations produced in this phase depended on
technological and financial limitations, the emergent nature of the industry,
but also resulted in “not involving competent translators as well as from a
lack of proper localization processes” (ibid., 57). Moreover, from the gam-
ers’ point of view, the localization of audio files was still an Achilles heel.
Voice-over assets are the most expensive and time-consuming part to be
localized, only very big budget titles with healthy expected revenues could
aim for full localization at the time. In this regard, a good practice example
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“But consider their character,” said Chick. “One is the daughter of
Senator Barclay. The other——”
“I prefer to consider the circumstances, Chick,” Nick interrupted. “They
are much more to the point just now. I will consider the women after having
seen them.”
“You say Miss Barclay sat in the front seat?”
“Yes, with the chauffeur,” replied Nick. “She would have had less
opportunity than the other. Her name is Verona Warren, but I did not inquire
further concerning her. If Garland were to feel that I really suspect her, he
might inadvertently betray the fact to her, even though cautioned against it,
which would serve to put her on her guard.”
“Surely.”
“We will look up both of them a little later and see what we can learn
about them,” Nick added. “It was early evening, mind you, and such a trick
could be much more easily turned in the dark than in daylight. That is
another reason for my thinking that then is when it was done.”
“You are right, too, I reckon,” Chick allowed. “It seems almost
incredible, nevertheless.”
Nick did not reply to the last. He arose and went to the bathroom to
remove his disguise and make a change of clothing.
Chick lit a cigar and fell to pondering upon the case, the extraordinary
gravity of which gave it special interest.
Patsy Garvan took a chair near one of the windows and resumed his
perusal of a newspaper. He had been reading only a few minutes, when,
looking up, he said abruptly:
“Gee! here’s a curious case, Chick.”
“Case of what?” Chick tersely questioned. “Not a case of beer, I hope.”
“No, nothing like that,” grinned Patsy. “A case of assault. Listen. I will
read it to you.”
He reverted to the newspaper again and read aloud the following article:
“ ‘MYSTERY UNSOLVED.
“ ‘The motive for the brutal assault suffered by Captain Casper Dillon last
Friday evening is still an unsolved mystery. The circumstances, as stated by
him and in part corroborated by a witness of the assault, afford no
explanation of the outrage, which is said to have been entirely unprovoked.
“ ‘The one man who was run down and arrested by the witness
mentioned, moreover, still forcibly denies that he was one of the assailants,
and asserts that he was only trying to protect Captain Dillon, and ran away
only in pursuit of the two ruffians who had assaulted him, and who
succeeded in making their escape.
“ ‘Captain Dillon was returning to his lodgings at the time and had nearly
arrived at his door. The street then appeared to be deserted. When passing
the entrance to a narrow court, however, in which his assailants evidently
had been lying in wait for him, Captain Dillon was set upon from behind and
struck senseless with a bludgeon of some kind. The assault was so quickly
committed that he had hardly a glimpse at his assailants, insufficient to
identify them, or positively determine their number.
“ ‘Paul Makepeace, a lawyer living in the same street, turned a corner just
in time to see the three men running away and the insensible form of Captain
Dillon lying on the sidewalk. Makepeace at once gave chase, overtaking one
of the fleeing men in Indiana Avenue, where he was given in charge of a
policeman.
“ ‘The arrested man is Thomas Carney, and he is well known to the local
police. He has twice been convicted of petty larceny, and is said to be of a
depraved and desperate character.
“ ‘Carney insists, nevertheless, that he was walking some thirty yards
behind Captain Dillon, when two men sprang out of the court and felled the
captain to the ground. Carney protests that he does not know either of the
two ruffians, in pursuit of whom he claims to have started, and who
appeared to have no other designs upon their unsuspecting victim.
“ ‘This is confirmed in a measure by the fact that Captain Dillon was not
robbed of anything, though he had considerable money and jewelry on his
person. The thugs, on the other hand, may have feared to complete their
work.
“ ‘In the gutter near which Captain Dillon fell was found a false beard
and mustache, evidently a disguise worn by one of the thugs, and which
presumably was torn off and lost in the brief combat.
“ ‘Captain Dillon states that he is completely in the dark as to the motive
for the assault, as well as the identity of his assailants. He appeared in the
municipal court when Carney was arraigned on Saturday morning. He was
unable to refute the prisoner’s statements, however, and Carney has been
held pending further investigations. The case bids fair to remain,
nevertheless, an unsolved mystery.’ ”
Patsy lowered the newspaper while he read the last line of the article,
gazing over it at Chick who said indifferently:
“I see nothing very mysterious in that. The thugs had a grudge against
Dillon for some reason, and they got back at him by knocking him on the
head.”
“They did that all right, at least,” Patsy said dryly.
“It reads like a lot of smoke from a very small fire,” Chick added. “There
is nothing to it, in my opinion, if the whole truth were told. The reporter who
wrote it up must have been working on space, or——”
“One moment,” Nick interrupted, returning to the room while only partly
dressed. “I don’t quite agree with you, Chick. Read the story again, Patsy. I
heard only parts of it while dressing.”
Patsy hastened to comply, reading the article from beginning to end.
Nick stood listening while knotting his necktie. His strong, clean-cut face
became more grave. His eyes took on a more intent expression.
“There may be more fire, Chick, than is supposed,” said he, taking the
newspaper from Patsy and glancing himself at the article. “I think there
really is, in fact.”
“Why so?” questioned Chick, a bit surprised. “For what reason?”
“Several,” said Nick. “One because I have met Captain Casper Dillon and
happen to know something about him. He is not the type of man I fancy.”
“What about him, Nick?”
“He is not in active service, from which he retired several years ago
because of a slow illness, from which his physician said he could not
recover. He came out of it all right, nevertheless, and he since has
occasionally been given minor foreign missions for the government, as he
spends about half of his time abroad. He became quite conspicuous in the
diplomatic broil we had with the Russian government three years ago,
certain features of which I was called upon to investigate, resulting in an
amicable adjustment of the whole business.”
“I remember,” Chick nodded.
“It was then that I met Captain Dillon,” Nick added. “I suspected him of
having been a bit off color in that affair, but I could not find sufficient
evidence to warrant making charges against him. I venture to say,
nevertheless, though probably no one would believe me, that he has been the
indirect cause of more international correspondence by the state department
than any other man in Washington. I confidently advised the secretary of
state at that time to look out for him.”
“A soldier of fortune, eh?” Chick remarked.
“I don’t know about that,” said Nick. “I do believe, however, that Captain
Casper Dillon would not hesitate to increase his fortune by any crafty or
even treasonable means that could be safely employed. That’s what I think
of Captain Dillon.”
“He may have incurred the enmity, then, of the ruffians who assaulted
him,” said Chick. “Why do you attach special significance to the incident? I
see nothing extraordinary in it.”
CHAPTER IV.
NICK CARTER’S DEDUCTIONS.
Nick Carter glanced again at the newspaper story. No man could have
read more keenly between the lines. No logician could have deduced more
significant points from its apparently trustworthy statements.
“You may not see anything in it, Chick, but I do,” he replied, after a
moment. “Some one, either Dillon or Carney, though very probably both of
them, has been lying. These statements won’t stand washing.”
“That’s the stuff, chief,” said Patsy. “Put them through the wringer and
squeeze out the dyestuff. What do you make of it?”
“Here is one point,” Nick replied. “Carney claims to have been walking
only a short distance behind Dillon when the assault was committed. It’s a
hundred to one in that case that the thugs would have seen him, or heard
him. They were exercising caution and must have been on the lookout to
avoid arrest, as well as to attack Dillon at a time and place precluding
interference. They surely would have seen or heard Carney, therefore, if he
was only thirty yards behind Dillon, and they would have known that he
most likely would rush to his assistance.”
“Sure thing, chief,” declared Patsy. “There’s no getting around it.”
“Naturally, then, they would have postponed the assault, if revenge was
their only incentive. That would have kept until another day.”
“That’s right, too, chief.”
“It’s long odds, then, that Carney is lying,” Nick continued. “In view of
his running away, moreover, instead of waiting to see how badly Dillon was
hurt, as most men would have done under such circumstances as Carney
describes, he very probably was hiding with the thugs and was in league
with them. That’s more in line with his character, as here stated.”
“There is something in that, Nick, after all,” Chick said, more seriously.
“I begin to think you are right.”
“Assuming that I am, Carney evidently has determined not to betray his
confederates,” Nick went on. “He sees a loophole for escape in this story he
has told, and he is going to stick to it. He knows the lawyer who pursued him
cannot disprove it, having seen only the three men running away after the
assault.”
“That appears to be obvious, Nick, at least.”
“But Carney may have still another motive,” Nick added. “He is known
to be a thief. The assault may have been made with intent to rob. In spite of
Dillon’s assertion to the contrary, moreover, the thugs may have robbed him
of something.”
“But he would know it in that case, Nick,” said Chick. “What possible
object could Dillon have in concealing the fact?”
Nick smiled a bit oddly.
“Suppose he was robbed of something which he does not dare admit
having had on his person?” he said inquiringly.
“Gee whiz!” cried Patsy quickly. “You are thinking of the portfolio,
chief.”
“That calls the turn, Patsy,” Nick replied. “Let’s see what further warrants
that idea. It is a significant fact that this assault was committed last Friday
evening, that on which Garland was robbed of his portfolio.”
“That’s right, too, by gracious!” said Patsy, with increasing enthusiasm.
“Gee! I’ll bet we have struck the trail.”
“But how could the portfolio have come into Dillon’s hand?” Chick
demanded skeptically.
“As well ask, Chick, how could it have been disposed of in the touring
car, if that is where the theft was committed, as appears most probable,”
Nick replied. “We know that Verona Warren occupied the seat with Garland,
on which he had placed his portfolio. She is the one person who, in spite of
Garland’s relations with her and evident faith in her, chiefly warrants
suspicion. I got at that readily enough through the elimination process.”
“That is true, Nick, I’ll admit.”
“Let’s look a little deeper, then,” Nick continued. “We know nothing
definite about Verona Warren, and there may be something under the
surface. She may not be all that is supposed, judging from her relations with
Garland and with Senator Barclay’s daughter, who should be above
suspicion, of course, and naturally not distrustful of her intimate friend, this
Warren girl.”
“I get you,” Chick nodded.
“It would have been possible, no doubt, for Verona Warren to have had
the dummy portfolio concealed under her cloak, or some outside garment,
when she went with Miss Barclay to the railway station,” Nick went on. “It
would have been much more difficult, as well as risky, however, if she
succeeded in substituting the dummy and getting the other, for her to have
retained both portfolios in the car. They are about fourteen inches square and
an inch thick.”
“I admit that, Nick, also.”
“Naturally, then, she would have got rid of the one she had stolen. That
could have been done, perhaps, by stealthily handing it to some one who
passed near the touring car before it started, unobserved, in the stir and
confusion outside of the station. Or it might have been done by dropping it
from the moving car at some point agreed upon, where a confederate was to
be waiting to pick it up.”
“You certainly are figuring out a very clever job, all right,” remarked
Chick, laughing.
“Gee whiz! it listens good to me,” said Patsy, with an expressive shake of
his head. “I’ll bet money to marbles that it hits somewhere near the truth.”
“Let’s see what more we find in support of it,” continued Nick, glancing
again at the newspaper. “A disguise said to have been worn by one of the
thugs was found near Dillon’s body after the assault.”
“What do you deduce from that?”
“Why was it torn from the face of the thug?” Nick questioned
argumentatively. “How could that have occurred? There surely was no great
struggle, if Dillon was struck down so quickly that he could not identify, nor
even determine the number of his assailants. There was no reasonable
occasion for one of the thugs to have lost his disguise, nor to have left it
there, even if it was torn from his face. He could easily have picked it up
before he fled.”
“Sure thing, chief,” Patsy again agreed. “I see what you are coming to, all
right.”
“We can come to only one conclusion, Patsy.”
“That Dillon himself was the man who wore the disguise?”
“Exactly,” said Nick. “It is easy to see how it may have been torn from
his face, or displaced when he fell to the sidewalk. That further appears in
that it was found near his body.”
“But why was Dillon in disguise?” Chick persistently questioned.
“If he was the man who was to relieve Verona Warren of the stolen
portfolio, he very likely would have been in disguise,” Nick pointedly
answered.
“By Jove, there’s some truth in that!” Chick quickly allowed. “If you
have sized him up correctly, he might, indeed, be a traitor to his country and
in league with others to steal these government plans.”
“That’s the very point, Chick. He may be in league with the foreign spies
mentioned by Chief Welden and suspected to have come here with that very
object in view.”
“But who were his assailants? How could they have known he had the
plans?”
“They may have seen him with the portfolio,” suggested Patsy.
“But how could they have known what it contained?”
“Gee, that’s so. They might have known, Chick, all the same.”
“Furthermore,” Chick added, “Makepeace, the lawyer who pursued them,
ought to have seen them get away with the portfolio, if that was really the
case.”
“Not necessarily,” Nick objected. “They were well away before
Makepeace saw them and started after them. He probably saw only the backs
and rapidly moving legs of the two who escaped. He might not have been
able to see in the darkness of the evening what either of them was carrying.”
“By Jove, this makes a curious case of it,” said Chick. “If you are right,
then, the plans have been stolen from the original thieves, Verona Warren
and Captain Dillon, and now are in the hands of other crooks.”
“That would be about the size of it if, as you say, I am right,” Nick
replied. “But that word ‘if’ is just as big as it ever was, or ever will be. I may
be all wrong. There may be no connection whatever between the assault
upon Captain Dillon and the theft of the governmental plans. The
circumstances seem to warrant my theory, however, and it’s up to us to find
out whether it is correct.”
“Gee! I should say so!” cried Patsy. “It looks to me like the real thing.”
“It would prove of vast advantage to us, of course, if the plans are in the
hands of ruffians who cannot readily understand them, or appreciate their
vast importance,” Nick added. “It might enable us to recover them before
they can be traced and secured again by the original thieves, who are
undoubtedly able to turn them to the worst possible use.”
“We may be too late.”
“You mean?”
“They may already have begun negotiations to recover them, and
possibly have succeeded,” said Chick.
Nick gazed thoughtfully at the floor for a moment.
“I don’t think so,” he then said decidedly. “That is to say, Chick, I don’t
think they have succeeded. The thugs who have the plans, and who evidently
were out to get them at some little risk, must have some idea of their
character and value.”
“That’s true, of course.”
“Naturally, then, while they might enter into negotiations, perhaps, they
would not be likely to let go of the plans until they have craftily learned
from whom they can get the biggest price for them. In other words, they
would hold off to find the highest bidder.”
“That seems reasonable, too, assuming them to be the type of thugs this
newspaper article indicates.”
“How would it do, chief, to try to open negotiations with them through
the press, pretending to be persons interested in getting the plans?” asked
Patsy, eager to be at work on the case.
“That already may have been done, or Carney may have been approached
during his imprisonment, with a view to getting in touch with his
confederates,” Nick replied. “I must find out about that.”
“At once?”
“I have time for a call at the city prison before dinner,” Nick nodded. “In
the meantime, have a look through the newspapers for any personal, or other
advertisement that might possibly refer to this matter. I will return before six
o’clock.”
CHAPTER V.
PAVING THE WAY.
It was only five o’clock when Nick left the hotel, no longer in disguise,
and he hastened through E Street to his destination. He found a police
sergeant in the outer office, a stranger to him, as was he to the sergeant, but
who politely informed him that Captain Hardy, with whom the detective was
well acquainted, was in his private office.
Nick walked in without the ceremony of knocking.
A portly, full-featured man with close-cut gray hair turned from his desk
to see who had entered.
“Hello, Hardy,” said Nick, approaching him. “I cannot see that you have
lost an ounce since we last met.”
“Well, by thunder!” Captain Hardy sprang up and extended his hand.
“Buy herrings, Hardy, instead,” laughed Nick, while they shook hands.
“You’ll get more for your money.”
“Well, well, I’m delighted to see you,” replied Hardy, placing a chair near
his own. “You look like a four-time winner, Nick. Sit down. What brought
you to Washington?”
“The morning limited,” smiled Nick. “I have been here only a few
hours.”
“I am pleased with so early a call,” said Hardy, producing a box of cigars
from his desk drawer. “But I know you too well, Carter, to flatter myself that
it’s a purely social one. What can I do for you?”
“You become keen with age, Hardy, like a good blade,” said Nick, more
seriously. “This is between us, mind you.”
“That goes without saying.”
“There was an assault committed here last Friday evening on Captain
Casper Dillon, a retired army officer. What do you know about it?”
“Have you seen to-day’s papers?”
“That is where I got my information. I wish to know what you can add to
it.”
“Nothing,” said Captain Hardy. “They tell the whole story, so far as I
know, or any one else appears to know.”
“The man arrested, Tom Carney, is still in custody?”
“Yes. His case was continued until to-morrow. It will probably come up
in the afternoon session.”
“Has he received any mail?”
“No, not a piece.”
“Any visitor?”
“Only his lawyer.”
“I infer from the newspaper story that Carney is a bad egg,” said Nick.
“Am I right?”
“He’s a bad egg in a small way,” Hardy nodded. “He is somewhat of a
ruffian and has twice been convicted of stealing. But he is not what I
consider a dangerous crook. He has no great ability.”
“He may have been associated with some one who has,” said Nick
suggestively.
“I cannot say about that,” was the reply. “I lately have heard very little
about Carney until this affair came off.”
“Have you the disguise found on the scene of the assault?”
“Yes.”
“May I see it?”
“Certainly.”
Captain Hardy arose to bring it from the outer office.
Nick also arose and accompanied him as far as the door. When it swung
open and Hardy went out, a man was passing through the outside office on
his way to the street.
He was well built, well dressed, a man apparently about forty years of
age. He was smooth shaved, with strong features, evincing mental power,
nerve force, and bulldog tenacity. He was a man at whom one would turn for
a second glance, as if impelled by some subtle magnetic emanation from the
other.
Nick Carter saw him, and he saw Nick.
Their gaze met suddenly and lingered for a moment, but the face of
neither changed by so much as a shadow. Nick knew this man, but he
instantly suppressed any sign of recognition.
If the other knew Nick, or apprehended recognition, he had equal
command of his feelings. Even the light in his keen, cold eyes underwent no
change. His firm stride did not falter for an instant. He walked out to the
street, stepped into an automobile, and, without a backward glance, he was
rapidly driven away.
Nick resumed his seat and examined the disguise presently brought in by
Captain Hardy. It was a combination beard and mustache of dark color. The
lining was considerably soiled, so that a trade-mark on it was hardly
discernible.
“I cannot make it out,” Hardy remarked, when Nick took a convex lens
from his pocket through which to examine it. “It looks like a foreign word.”
“It is a foreign word,” said Nick. “This disguise was made in Vienna.”
“What does that signify? Anything of importance?”
“I know of nothing,” said Nick evasively, placing the disguise on the
desk. “I merely wanted to see it. By the way, Hardy, did you see the man
who just went through the outer office?”
“Yes, certainly.”
“Who is he?”
“Some one the sergeant admitted. He has charge out there. The man was a
stranger to me.”
“But not to me,” said Nick significantly.
“What do you mean? Who is he?”
“Did you ever hear of Andrew Margate, better known across the water as
Andy Margate?”
“I don’t think so, Nick,” said Hardy. “What about him?”
“He is as keen, clever, and dangerous a crook as could be found on two
continents,” Nick said impressively.
“The devil you say!”
“Devil is right!” Nick replied dryly. “Margate is a veritable genius for
crime. He is a marvel of versatility and perverted ability. He is the one crook
most feared in Europe to-day, where I supposed he was, instead of in this
country. He seldom ventures over here.”
“You appear to know him very well, nevertheless,” smiled Captain Hardy.
“I have his photograph, several of them, and his criminal record,” Nick
replied. “I knew him instantly, Hardy, though we never had met before. I
hardly think he knew me, though I am not sure of it, for he is a type of man
who would not betray it. He is said to have nerves of steel and the courage of
a tiger. Have you seen him here before?”
“No, never,” said Hardy. “Is he wanted by the European police?”
“Quite likely, I think, but I have received no notice to that effect.”
“Why didn’t you arrest him on suspicion?”
“I have nothing on him, Hardy, nor any wish to get myself in wrong,”
Nick evasively replied, not inclined to state his true reason for not having
interfered with Margate. “Ask your sergeant what he wanted. One moment.
Make no explanations. This must go no farther.”
“I understand, Nick,” nodded Captain Hardy. “Trust me to be dumb. I’ll
call Foley in here.”
He turned to his desk and touched an electric bell. The summons was
answered almost immediately, and the sergeant seen by Nick in the outer
office entered the room.
“You rang, chief?” said he respectfully.
“Yes, sergeant,” Captain Hardy replied, turning toward him. “Who is the
man who left here a few minutes ago?”
“Well, I don’t know his name, chief,” said Foley. “He brought a note from
Mr. Brigham, the lawyer who is looking after Carney’s case.”
“What did the man want?”
“He only wanted to deliver a message to the prisoner from the lawyer,”
Foley explained. “The lawyer could not come himself, so he sent the man
with a note.”
“You allowed him to see Carney?”
“I did, sir.”
“Did you think you were taking no chances, Foley, in doing so?” Captain
Hardy inquired.
“Well, sir, I thought I made sure it was all right,” said Foley, coloring.
“How so?”
“I telephoned to Brigham’s office, sir, and asked him whether he had sent
the man.”
“What did Brigham say?”
“He said that he had, sir, and that it was all right,” said Foley. “So I let
him go in and take the message. I would have admitted the lawyer, sir, so I
supposed it was all right to admit the man he had sent.”
“Very good,” nodded Captain Hardy. “That’s all, Foley.”
The sergeant touched his cap and withdrew.
“Well, Nick, what do you say to it?”
“Who is Lawyer Brigham?” Nick inquired. “What standing has he as a
lawyer?”
“Well, not the best,” smiled Hardy. “He is somewhat of a shyster, Nick, if
the truth were told.”
“It may be all right, then, or it may be all wrong,” said Nick.
“What do you mean?”
“Andy Margate is, as I have said, a very keen and crafty fellow,” Nick
explained. “It is probable that he is a friend of Carney and that he engaged
the lawyer in his behalf. He may have paid Brigham for the letter to insure
him a brief interview with Carney, or he may have fooled him into giving it
with no felonious intent. It really is not material. One fact is obvious,
however.”
“Namely?”
“That Margate had some communication of his own for Carney.”
“What do you advise doing, in that case?”
“Nothing, Hardy, on your part,” said Nick. “I think I see my way clear to
doing all that should be done, in so far as this incident is concerned. Who is
the judge before whom Carney will appear to-morrow?”
“Judge Greeley.”
“Where does he reside?”
“I will find you his address,” said Captain Hardy. “I haven’t got it in my
head.”
Nick accompanied him to the outer office, where they consulted a city
directory.
Twenty minutes later Nick alighted from a taxicab in front of the jurist’s
residence. He found Judge Greeley at home, to whom he introduced himself,
confiding the occasion for his visit and his reasons for the request he was
about to make in regard to the case of Carney.
It seems needless to say that the request was readily granted, the nature of
which will presently appear.
CHAPTER VI.
NICK SHOWS HIS HAND.
It was after eleven o’clock when Nick Carter, in immaculate evening

dress, sauntered alone into the fashionable restaurant. He had found certain
persons whom he had been seeking, more of them than he had been
expecting to find. He had discovered them in a box at the opera, and had
followed them in a taxicab after the curtain had fallen upon Leonora’s tragic
death.
The scene over which Nick cast a seemingly indifferent eye was a
brilliant one. The glare of light, the throng of well-dressed men, of beautiful
women in gorgeous attire and radiant with jewels, the clink of fragile
glasses, the rippling laughter of pretty girls, the murmur of cultivated voices,
all mingled with the fascinating strains of orchestral music—Nick Carter
took it all in with a few swift glances while the head waiter approached to
conduct him to a seat.
“There is a vacant table near that at which Senator Barclay and his friends
are seated,” Nick quietly remarked, deftly slipping a generous tip into the
waiter’s hand.
The crisp bank note was felt and properly appreciated.
“Certainly, sir. This way, sir.”
“Forget that I suggested it,” Nick added.
“My mind is a blank, sir.”
“A waiter who knows his business,” thought Nick.
He followed him to a small table near one of the lace-draped windows.
At a large one in an alcove scarce ten feet away seven persons were
seated. They included Senator Barclay and his daughter Estella, a handsome
brunette in the twenties, who with her father appeared to be entertaining the
others.
A well-built, distinguished-looking man, attractive aside from a habitual
sinister squint, was seated next to Miss Barclay. He was close upon fifty and
his hair was streaked with gray. There was a bruise on his brow, partly
hidden by a treatment of paint and powder. He was the victim of the recent
assault by unknown thugs—Captain Casper Dillon.
Next to him sat a massive, powerful man, with a large head and a profuse
growth of tawny hair and beard, giving him a leonine aspect. Obviously, he
was a foreigner, as was a corpulent, showily dressed woman seated opposite.
Another was the government engineer, Garland, looking drawn and
white, in spite of his efforts to appear congenial; while next to him was
seated a slender, graceful woman of almost dazzling beauty and brilliancy,
her sinuous figure ravishingly clad and her abundance of auburn hair fairly
ablaze with costly gems.
“H’m, just so,” thought Nick, furtively gazing. “Verona Warren, eh?
Wonderful eyes, an irresistible smile, a mouth like a rosebud, and a
matchless complexion—but not all her own. She is a skillful woman who, at
thirty-five, can strip off enough years to appear like a debutante. Lost his
head to Madame Irma Valaska, eh? I thought I might be right—and now I
know it.”
Ten minutes passed.
None of the group in the alcove had an eye for the solitary man seated
near one of the windows, apparently absorbed in his wine and lunch. Only
one among them would have recognized him. Not Garland, however, for
Garland had seen him only in disguise that afternoon.
Nick could occasionally catch a few words uttered more vivaciously than
others, but none were of special significance. He saw Stella Barclay
frowning at times upon Garland, however, and finally heard her inquire:
“What on earth, Harry, has come over you? You’re as dumb as an oyster,
and dreadfully white.”
“Pardon!” Garland exclaimed, brightening quickly. “I did not realize it,
Miss Barclay.”
“I have noticed it all evening. You are not ill, are you?”
“No, indeed.”
“Miss Barclay is right,” said Captain Dillon, with a squint from one to the
other. “I have noticed it. One would think, Garland, that you have lost your
best friend.”
“My best friend is here,” smiled Garland, glancing at the woman beside
him. “I have not lost her, I hope”.
She laid her hand on his and bent nearer to him.
The others laughed and Captain Dillon gazed, turning slightly from his
companions, for the first time on face of the detective. He started perceptibly
and lost color for a moment.
Nick pretended to see him at the same moment. He bowed and smiled,
touching his lips with one finger at the same time, and glancing significantly
at the chair opposite his own.
Captain Dillon nodded slightly, and a few moments later he excused
himself, remarking to his companions:
“There is an old friend of mine. I want just a word with him.”
They glanced at Nick, but none knew him by sight, and the incident was
entirely conventional.
Captain Dillon took the opposite chair and extended his hand, which Nick
pressed cordially while remarking:
“I thought I remembered you, Captain Dillon, and I made haste to put you
on your guard when I saw that you recognized me. I am here incognito. I
don’t wish to be known. Pray don’t expose me to your friends.”
“Certainly not!” Dillon quietly exclaimed, squinting at Nick over the
table. “I’m very glad you warned me, or I certainly would have done so.”
“I foresaw it, captain,” smiled Nick. “You have not changed much in the
several years since we met. You hold your own like an old war horse. I am
pleased to meet you again.”
“That feeling is reciprocated, Mr. Carter, I assure you,” Captain Dillon
said quietly. “How long have you been in Washington?”
“Not long,” said Nick. “I am here on important business. I cannot tell
when I may leave. That depends.”
“Upon the business mentioned, of course,” said Dillon, with an
expression between a smirk and a smile.
“Exactly,” bowed the detective.
“Government business, I suppose.”
“Yes.”
“Secret business, or——”
“Well, in a way,” said Nick, when the other paused with an inquiring
squint. “It relates to the theft of some important documents.”
“I see,” Captain Dillon nodded, with steadfast scrutiny. “Diplomatic
correspondence, perhaps, or——”
“No, not exactly,” smiled Nick. “They are, in fact, of a very different
character. I am not at liberty to inform you precisely, however, as you may
infer.”
“Yes, certainly,” Dillon readily allowed. “But did you expect to find them
here, or——”
“Well, no, not quite that,” Nick again replied agreeably, as if oblivious to
the other’s insinuating manner. “That would be too much to have expected. I
am inclined to distrust a certain person who now is at supper, here, however,
and I’m keeping an eye on him.”
“Ah, I see.”
“But do not imagine, Captain Dillon, because I am seated so near your
table, that he is in your party,” Nick added, in jesting fashion.
Captain Dillon laughed softly and shrugged his shoulders.
“I should hope not,” he replied, with a deprecatory gesture. “All of my
party are above suspicion. You know Senator Barclay by sight, of course,
and the dark-haired girl is his daughter. That tall, fine-looking chap is
Captain Garland, a government engineer in the war department. I really must
rejoin them now. Here is my card. If you remain long in town and find it
convenient, call and see me. I would be delighted.”
“I will try to do so,” said Nick, a bit dryly. “I am at the Willard. Drop in
and inquire for Mr. Arthur Greenleaf.”
Captain Dillon laughed and promised to do so, then bowed and rejoined
his friends.
“A rat, if there ever was one,” thought Nick. “No need to tell him more
definitely what business brought me here. He will infer that I suspect
Garland of having stolen the plans, however, and that will throw him off his
guard. He will feel dead sure, too, that I do not suspect him, or I would not
have confided in him. No sane man could reason otherwise.”
Nick left the restaurant before Senator Barclay and his party, but he did
not go far. He waited outside in disguise, one easily and quickly adjusted,
until the suspects emerged. He saw the hairy foreigner, in company with the
corpulent woman and the said Verona Warren, part from the others and ride
away in a limousine.
Senator Barclay and his daughter left in another, after shaking hands with
Garland and Captain Dillon, who then hailed a taxicab and rode away
together.
Nick had one waiting near by, to which he hastened and gave the driver
his instructions.
“To the Grayling, Vermont Avenue. Drop me there as quickly as
possible.”
Ten minutes served to turn the trick.
Nick waited in the doorway of an opposite dwelling. His watch said one
o’clock when Garland put in an appearance. He came on foot, walking
slowly, staggering at times as if drunk. Nick had noticed, however, that the
young man drank nothing in the restaurant. He crossed over and intercepted
him at his door.
“You return late, Garland,” said he. “I have been waiting for you.”
Garland stared at him with feverish eyes, as white as a sheet, with that
terrible expression of anguish and anxiety on his drawn features that Nick
had noticed in the afternoon.
“Beg pardon!” he muttered, pulling himself together. “I don’t think I
know you.”
“Yes, you do,” said Nick. “We met this afternoon in Welden’s office. I am
Nick Carter.”
“Oh, good heavens!” Garland seized the detective’s arm. “Welden said I
would not have known you. Tell me—do you bring me good news? You
have been waiting for me. You must, then, have learned something.”
“Invite me in,” Nick replied. “There will be time enough for me to tell
you.”
“Pardon! Certainly,” Garland said, fishing out his keys. “I’m so
frightfully upset that I scarce know what I’m doing. I started for home in a
taxi, but couldn’t remain in it. I was so infernally nervous. I wanted to walk
—walk—walk. I shall go stark mad, Carter, unless those plans are recovered.
Come up to my room.”
Nick followed him to a handsomely furnished double room on the second
floor.
Garland switched on the lights, throwing off his hat and inverness, and
then placing cigars and cigarettes on the table.

The Translation of Realia and Irrealia in Game Localization Culture Specificity Between Realism and Fictionality First Edition Silvia Pettini

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The Translation of Realia and Irrealia in Game Localization Culture Specificity Between Realism and Fictionality First Edition Silvia Pettini

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The Translation of Realia and Irrealia in

Game Localization Culture Specificity

Language and Law The Role of Language and Translation

Realism Value and Transcendental Arguments between

Scientific and Technical Translation Routledge

Patients and Healers in the Context of Culture An

Essays in Narrative and Fictionality Reassessing Nine

German Philosophy in English Translation Postwar

Culture In Conflict Irregular Warfare Culture Policy

Scorn The Art of the Game First Edition Matthew Pellet

This book explores the impact of a video game’s degree of realism or

Silvia Pettini, PhD, is adjunct lecturer in Translation Studies at Roma

Recent titles include:

62 Empirical Studies of Translation and Interpreting

63 English and Translation in the European Union

64 The (Un)Translatability of Qur’anic Idiomatic Phrasal Verbs

65 The Qur’an, Translation and the Media

66 The Translation of Realia and Irrealia in Game Localization

67 Translation and the Global City

68 Gender and Translation: New Perspectives.

For more information about this series, please visit https​:/​/ww​​w​.rou​​tledg​​

List of figures viii

2 Game Localization and Translation 10

4 Realia and Irrealia in Game Translation 102

5 Military Language between Realism and Fictionality 148

3.1 The Realism-Fictionalism Spectrum Axis 69

3.1 Characteristics of the Games Included in the Corpus 69

AEVI Asociación Española de Videojuegos [Spanish Video Game

1.1 Translation and Globalization: The Case of Video Games

1.2 Aims, Scope, and Structure of the Book

While there has been a lack of interest in theoretical arguments about

2.2 Definition and Terminological Issues

More importantly, the development of this conceptualization and the con-

TMIES is an accurate term with which to describe the purely linguistic

In this book, which deals with the translation of culture-specificity in game

2.3 The Theory of Game Localization and Translation

2.4 The Practice of Game Localization and Translation

2.4.1 Localization and Internationalization

2.4.2 Localization Levels, Phases, Steps, and Staff

•• no localization: the original language version is shipped directly to

2.5 The History of Game Localization and Translation

Game-enthusiast scholars and journalists have been investigating the history

NICK CARTER’S DEDUCTIONS.

PAVING THE WAY.

NICK SHOWS HIS HAND.

It was after eleven o’clock when Nick Carter, in immaculate evening

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For more information about this series, please visit https://www.routledg

1.1 Translation and Globalization: The Case of Video Games

1.2 Aims, Scope, and Structure of the Book

2.2 Definition and Terminological Issues

2.3 The Theory of Game Localization and Translation

2.4 The Practice of Game Localization and Translation

2.4.1 Localization and Internationalization

2.4.2 Localization Levels, Phases, Steps, and Staff

2.5 The History of Game Localization and Translation