joe freelancer vs the mammoth game translation

JOE FREELANCE VS THE MAMMOTH GAME TRANSLATION

Contents

Intro - Teams are unavoidable

Management

Style

Terminology

Speed and quality

Outro – Why you should care

Current problems

Possible solutions

Thank you!

One last foreword

One last foreword

Project manager

Translator 1

Translator 2

Translator 3

Translator 4

Today’s high demands

Cinematics

Tutorials

Backstory

Online

Parallel import

Downloadable

Streaming

Simship

More text Less time

Translators can’t cover more than 3000 words/day

Team translation is unavoidable

Teams are problematic

Selection

Availability

Micro-management

Bickering

No flexibility

New partners

New methods

Responsibility without authority

Agency/Publisher Translator

What can happen

No control

No vision

No motivation

Soulless translations

Two goals, one target

Improve efficiency Improve management Better quality

Internal managementPart 1

Internal management

Arrange relocation

(house, visa...)

Provide office space

Micromanage

Find good freelancer

Prepare a plan B

Micromanage

In house Outsource

Improving internal management

1 Mail + 1 Skype

Answers 24/7

Always on the same page

Dropbox

Instant availabilty

Secure storage

Communications File sharing

qdPM

Self-service task input

Automated invoicing

Tracking

StylePart 2

Style

Play the game

Super-detailed

Focus on the text

Very slow

Style by genre

Very generic

Focus on the audience

Fast

In house Outsource

Improving style

Marketing

press release

website/trailer

Press

previews/reviews

interviews

Platform

console

PC / social

Pegi

3, 7, 12, 16, 18

Product Audience

Format

ingame

subs / dubs

Adaptation

terms/dialogues

limits

Style

Improving style

Improving style

Medieval Venice but with a fantastic twist

Sexy lead character but it's not an amazon

Linear action rpg

Console centric

Pegi 16

Product Audience

Timed subtitles

Use Venice terms

Do not adapt dialogues

Style

TerminologyPart 3

Terminology

Detail-oriented

Each term is discussed

No triage

Slow process

Ongoing

A few key terms

Populated and unified as you go

Many rewrites

In house Outsource

Improving terminology

Find frequent terms

Check context, style guide, client

Brainstorm and define terms

Added as you go

Internal queries to solve issues

Core terms Less frequent terms

City Council You have now unlocked

back streets

darkstreets

Maggior consiglio (Venice flavour) Hai sbloccato (consistency)

Callefosca

Callefosca (source inconsistency)

Examples

The glossary is not final!But it builds a common and consistent vision of the project

Speed and qualityPart 4

Speed and quality

No CAT

Slower

Consistency and QA more cumbersome

Standardized

Steep learning curve for managers and freelancers

Expensive and limiting

In house Outsource

Improving speed and quality

Convert XLS files into TMX

Allows to leverage and reuse any previous text

300 KB in size: you can’t break what isn’t there

Free and no learning curve

Lookup terms and sentences

Works from any application

QA: Inconsistencies

Mismatches

Check against key terms (glossaries, TRC)

2,03 MB in size

Free and no learning curve

TM Builder Xbench

Conclusions

Tools are not special

Syncplicity, Wuala (commercial SAAS)

Subversion (free and open source)

Dropbox alternatives

qdPM alternatives

Pbworks , Teamdoer (commercial SAAS)

Redmine, Collabtive (free and open source)

Xbench alternatives

Lexicool Lingo, LogiTerm (commercial concordancers)

Errorspy (commercial QA)

It‘s free for a reason

So why should you care?

No staff, no time and no money

Don’t reinvent the wheel! Build on this and push game localization forward.

Speed and quality to next-gen standards

Less time, less cost

Motivation = fidelization and availability

It‘s inspiring It‘s good for the industry

Thank you