Lecture
GDC Localization 2010: Bioware Presentation
Ryan Warden and Chris Christou from Bioware gave a solid and stunning look at what takes place at their very large projects for localization. The summary of their presentation has already been well documented for the non-localization reader here. Read it now, if you haven't already. Some bits of data that weren't included, or came out in the question-and-answer period: Mass Effect... »
Game Localization Business
In this post, you can find the four primary slides created for our GDC presentation on the business of games localization. The biggest take-away from these slides is that localization is still in its early days. Companies are still relying too heavily on their home language markets. Between 20% and 30% of publisher income is from localized SKUs. Only relatively small... »
Translation Party
This is a fun exercise in the utility and accuracy of mechanical translation. Go to Translation Party and input a random sentence. I used the opening of Lincoln's Gettysburg address. The script then does an automatic translation of the English into Japanese. Then it translates the Japanese to English, then back again. It will keep doing this until the English... »
Google Language Tools for the Industry
Google Language Tools have been around for a long time now, along with other machine translation tools. Are they useful to the translation industry? The answer is indisputably, "Yes!", though possibly not in the way you'd think. First of all, the tools are essentially useless for production level text. The kind of gibberish they produce can glean basic information of what the... »
Game Localization Award
At the GDC Localization Summit, there was an extended discussion about having a Localization Award. After all, we all want to have great localizations, and we need something to promote good work, yes? As discussed, the problem comes from several angles: Who is going to judge for the award? While we may have a few individuals competent to judge three, four or... »
GDC Localization Summit 2009 Quick Notes
Back home in Southern California. Ahh, it feels good to be home—the right coffee mug, comfortable office, wicked-fast internet connection, hard-wired to the company server. Ahh, the good things of life! Not to mention family and friends! Today, I'm going to scribble down a few of the general overview notes on the GDC Localization Summit. I may get a few things... »
Is That Translator Asking for a Review?
We do not offer public reviews of our translators. Ever. It won't happen. Yes, we do like you (those of you who are good and meet your deadlines). No. No reviews on Proz.com or Translatorscafe.com or Craigslist or anywhere else that is publicly available. Why? Imagine a bad translator (who is not aware of quite how bad he is). And he's awful.... »