Successful Presentations at LISA Suzhou
The presentation at LISA (Localization Industry Standards Association, see here) went very well. In the participant feedback forms, my presentation was ranked #1, and only one of the plenary sessions (from HP) ranked higher than mine. Pretty good!
Personally more important, this was my first trip to China in 21 years. My first localization agency — indeed, the first business I ever started — was a high-tech Chinese->English house in Taiwan in the 1980′s. I spent an extra ten days in the Shanghai/Suzhou area re-acquiring my Chinese (details here). I also had a chance to try out technical communications from behind China’s Great Firewall (see here, recommended for anyone new traveling to China).
The participants at the LISA conference included some of the largest translation houses in the world, as well as small specialty houses working only in Chinese and more than a few major clients (partial list is here).
The setting (a five star hotel in Suzhou, one hour from Shanghai) was excellent. The three of us presenting for video games were welcomed with open arms, as there is much interest in our specialty from those outside our business. I would strongly encourage more outreach by video game localizers to organizations like LISA, with their broad background in different businesses and translations tools. They have much to offer.
My presentation (available below in Chinese and English) is a general backgrounder in video game business and history, along with the current status of the world video game industry. At the end, I piece China into the puzzle.
Conclusion? There will be less translation into Chinese (due to market particulars, including legal barriers and rampant piracy), and more work for Chinese to English and other languages (given the high-quality of locally produced MMO, Free-to-Play titles — an area where Chinese developers have a 5 year lead on the West).
Victor Alonso Lion from Pink Noise, who gave a simply excellent Spanish Language presentation at GDC last year, gave an equally excellent presentation on the differences in handling video game localizations to other kinds of localization, aimed at professionals.
The differences? Size — the latest batch of MMO’s are running over a million words per title. Malleability — no other localization branch has to swap genders, objects and actions on-the-fly like interactive entertainment. Cultural issues — different countries have strong laws or customs about what can be said or shown in entertainment.
And the list goes on …
His presentation drew the second-highest ratings at the LISA conference amongst the workgroup sessions.
Rolf Klischewski not only gave a presentation, No Man’s Tool, detailing the inadequacies of the current generation of translation tools for video game work; he also ran a day-long workshop on game localization issues for professionals with little or no experience in the field.