Approaches and Strategies to Cope with the Specific Challenges of Video Game Localization
Özet
Video games have become a global industry producing billions of dollars in revenue
each year. For this reason, the importance of video game localization industry is
increasing with each passing day. The aim of this study is to develop an understanding
on the specific challenges posed by video game localization and examine the
approaches and strategies employed by the localizers to overcome these challenges. To
this end, the Turkish localizations of two popular games in Turkey, League of Legends
and Football Manager 2015, have been choosen to be analyzed. Both qualitative and
quantitative methods have been used to conduct this descriptive study. Relevant
examples highlighting the challenges faced by the localizers of the games have been
presented, and the source and target texts have been compared to assess the strategies
employed by the localizers. The study demonstrates that video games with different
genres and themes create their own unique localization-related challenges. While
Football Manager 2015 mostly causes problems for the localizers due to lack of context
and its use of variable text strings, the challenges of the localization process of League
of Legends are mostly related to preserving the entertainment factor. Another finding of
the study is that the localizers of both games have drawn upon target culture norms to
create experiences that feel native. The analysis of the two games reveal that localizers
working on video games have to be culturally aware, tech-savvy and have a strong
grasp on gaming as a whole as well as the theme and genre conventions of the specific
video game they are localizing. This study is carried out with the hope of making a
contribution to this emerging field in Turkey and paving the way for further studies.
