Localize It

                  

Local heroes take Japanese video games to the world (Japan Times)

Although it's sad (but true) this article begins with the words "Japan may not be the all-conquering video-game powerhouse it once was," it's a nice profile of both my company, AltJapan Co., Ltd., and several other localization industry players. Thanks to the Japan Times for the coverage!

I don't talk much about games here because I like to at least try and keep my professional and personal lives separate, but it's hard to believe its been well over a decade since Hiroko and I started translating video games professionally. Today "localization" is a buzzword. It's a given that video games need to be carefully translated and re-written to match their local audiences. I run into young college grads who enthuse about getting into it as a career all the time.

But just ten years back, you could practically count the number of people who even knew what the word "localization" meant on two hands. Only a handful of people actually specialized in it full-time. It was a sort of Wild West, with everyone from producers to freelancers making the rules and conventions up as they went along. The luckiest worked in-house at big game companies; my college buddy Alex Smith was one, and his tales of work at Squaresoft (now Square-Enix) inspired me to get off my duff at the Patent and Trademark Office, where I was working as a technical translator, and take the plunge into games.

Hiroko and I finally got our chance in 1998, introduced to a client by mutual friend and anime-translation legend Michael House. It was a cult-hit platformer ("platform game" being the term for Super Mario-style side-scrolling action game) by the name of Silhouette Mirage, published in the US by the late, lamented Working Designs. (This link represents the first time I've ever actually laid eyes on the finished product!)

Hiroko and I were living in Washington DC at the time, and actually printed out the code on the trusty old dot matrix printer, wrote out translations in longhand while eating at the local pizza parlor, and then inputted the English back into the master file back at home. Today, Excel is pretty much the industry standard for localization files, and you go for pizza after you're done working for the day. How times change.

We'd go on to work on Lunar: Silver Star Story for WD and then a whole host of other titles for various agencies before deciding to found our own company. We hired an attorney to file the paperwork, commissioned a logo from my pal Alen Yen, and printed up business cards. That was back in 2001. Talk about a Space Odyssey of sorts.

Comments

[Blue Shoe]

Interesting topic. Would love to hear some of your localization stories and memories.

[Dave]

What?!?
You worked with Working Designs?!?
Are you in the credits for Lunar games?

I hope you didn't participate in the Dub for the Lunar Games though :O

[MattAlt]

We were only involved in the translations of Silhouette Mirage and Lunar, which were then (I assume) heavily re-written and then dubbed in-house by WD. We are definitely listed in the credits, though I believe they misspelled Hiroko's name as "Hikoko!" :(

http://www.mobygames.com/game/playstation/lunar-silver-star-story-complete/credits

[Dave]

Ah, this brings back memories.

I used to buy every Working Designs game that came out for the Sega CD and PS1 due to the high (well, for that time) quality of the localization.

I might be wrong but WD was one of the first 3rd party localization companies.

[Dustin Kopplin]

Im still on somewhat of a quest to get as much WD games as i can, even that crappy Gungriffion game for the PS2. I still need Lunar 2 either for Sega CD or PS1.

I was looking at Matt name under mobygames, you worked on Matt Hazard? Is that for Japan? And did people in japan REALLY buy that game?

[KINGOFNIGERIA]

Woah. I just thought Altjapan was the name of this blog.

[Jason Fetters]

My good buddy Colin Williamson worked at Square in Localization. That's the first time I heard of that kind of job.

[MattAlt]

Colin's a great guy! We worked closely on a project that unfortunately got cancelled halfway through, years back.

And regarding Matt Hazard, I will always have a soft spot for it, if for no other reason than it was the very first game we localized from English into Japanese! I don't know how well it sold over here -- it's an FPS parody in a land where FPS games aren't that popular -- but it was fun to work on.

[Dustin Kopplin]

Regarding Matt Hazard:

I did play the game (alright, well I own it but like for cheap) and the game play seems rather generic for a shooter and its not all that impressive, but its not a bad game regardless. I enjoyed getting achievement points JUST BY PRESSING PAUSE! Yes, you can get an easy 5 points by pausing the game, I am serious.

Yea, FPS is not that widely popular, and from what I understand neither is western RPG titles from BioWare or Bethesda that are highly regarded as fantastic games here in the states.

[Dan Arthurs]

Didn't realize that translating games from other countries was a job someone had. Someone has to do it, thanks! Try out a RPG, it's fun! I really enjoy taking a few hours and getting lost in a game.