What are your guy's thoughts on Japanese Game Developers on using AI translations?

[Gorse]

Yeah, I hate to say it, but I 100% agree with these companies using AI translations exclusively. (An impartial human proofreader is allowed, but only if they agree with my political opinions.) Modern Japanese localizations are truly atrocious (honestly, they've always been pretty awful, but never as bad as they are now), and with video games becoming more expensive than ever, I would never even consider dropping money on a Twitter freak's power trip.

AI translations, even as they are now, are really, really good, and, critically, they don't change (or outright remove) things. And they're getting better every day! It's horrible to generalize like this, but I've never known a Japanese-to-English translator who wasn't a generally insufferable person, and that stuff really comes out in their work. I don't know why Japanese media seems to attract the most petulant, petty, passive-aggressive people imaginable, but it does, and I'll take cold, unfeeling robots over them any day of the week. Beep!

 

[Gingervitis]

honestly, they've always been pretty awful, but never as bad as they are now

You know what, that’s debatable. Like, I hate the modern translations more, but I think the localizations back then were objectively worse. Working Designs would increase the difficulty, Breath of Fire 2 was barely comprehensible, Zero Wing was a laughingstock, and Dynamite Headdy decided to cut all the dialogue instead of even attempting to translate the game.

 

[Strategist]

Yeah, I hate to say it, but I 100% agree with these companies using AI translations exclusively. (An impartial human proofreader is allowed, but only if they agree with my political opinions.) Modern Japanese localizations are truly atrocious (honestly, they've always been pretty awful, but never as bad as they are now), and with video games becoming more expensive than ever, I would never even consider dropping money on a Twitter freak's power trip.

AI translations, even as they are now, are really, really good, and, critically, they don't change (or outright remove) things. And they're getting better every day! It's horrible to generalize like this, but I've never known a Japanese-to-English translator who wasn't a generally insufferable person, and that stuff really comes out in their work. I don't know why Japanese media seems to attract the most petulant, petty, passive-aggressive people imaginable, but it does, and I'll take cold, unfeeling robots over them any day of the week. Beep!

That seems a bit extreme, don't you think? They are plenty of angels out there that work for free translating games out of pure passion and they don't deserve the flak they get from extremists trying to drum up controversy for social media clout. Without people like those you denounce we would've never been able to enjoy so many Japanese games like we did growing up. To denounce a whole profession because a couple of translators are doing a poor job seems like an absurd reaction but typical for social media. I guess I shouldn't be surprised.

 

[Gorse]

I think the localizations back then were objectively worse.

You’ve made some very good points, and I certainly would never defend any of those translations on my life. At the very least, though, I’d like to think I can give some of those older translators the benefit of plausible deniability. Their mindset (a very misguided one) was of the same breed as changing boxart entirely because “kids don’t like anime” — which we all know was wrong in hindsight, but back then their intentions may have been slightly less evil than those today. (Hopefully.) The idea is that translations are supposed to have gotten better in the past 35 years, because we’re all more knowledgeable and culturally-aware than we were in 1991. So, y’know, don’t change anything. AI won’t!

Companies like Working Designs are utterly indefensible on any timescale, though. (And it’s not like we don’t get localizers completely removing gameplay today, either! )

That seems a bit extreme, don't you think?

I wouldn't have said it if I didn't genuinely believe it. Again and again and again and again and again, Japanese-to-English translators have shown me that they're completely incompetent at doing their jobs – that being providing an accurate version of the original media in a different language. (If not actively malicious towards their own audience, which they certainly always seem to be.)

I find it truly sickening how many of those examples I just listed are from the past year alone. AI translation won't make those mistakes, so why wouldn't I prefer it?

They are plenty of angels out there that work for free translating games out of pure passion

That's nice and all, but this isn't kindergarden – nobody gets free points for doing something if they don't do a good job, even if they do it for free. (And especially not if they do it for the amount of money being charged for professionally-released games, these days!) If a translator does a bad job, then yes, people are going to complain about it on the Internet, and they're completely correct to do so. Remember: You release a work for your audience's enjoyment, not to wax your own ego. (This should be stamped on every creative's forehead, so they never forget.)

Without people like those you denounce we would've never been able to enjoy so many Japanese games like we did growing up.

See above, but I find this a really flawed, manipulate way of phrasing things. When I was growing up (late-2000s to early-2010s), nobody would have thought to change or remove content from a localized game on ideological reasons, and they would have been rightfully eviscerated by A) the press and B) their audience if they'd done so. (I'm sure there are some examples to the contrary from before that point, but it most certainly wasn't a given like it is today.) Yes, there were changes made to games (as discussed above in my reply to Gingervitis' post), but everyone universally agreed that they were incorrect decisions to have been made, and negatively impacted the game when done so.

Again, I'm not giving any translator a free pass because they did their job poorly – in fact, I'm doing the opposite. It's that slimy, disgusting, manipulative tone that they use towards their audience that honestly turns my stomach.

ALSO:

the most petulant, petty, passive-aggressive people imaginable

To denounce a whole profession because a couple of translators are doing a poor job seems like an absurd reaction but typical for social media. I guess I shouldn't be surprised.

Case in point.

(See how insufferable that was? Would you buy a product from me after reading something like that? If so, hit me up – I've got a bridge to sell you.)

 

[Strategist]

I wouldn't have said it if I didn't genuinely believe it. Again and again and again and again and again, Japanese-to-English translators have shown me that they're completely incompetent at doing their jobs – that being providing an accurate version of the original media in a different language. (If not actively malicious towards their own audience, which they certainly always seem to be.)

The problem with your argument is assuming that the translators are doing this out of spite or some agenda and its not a mandate from the executives in the companies or the marketing departments. Think about it logically, why would a translator benefit from doing a worse job? They work to serve their clients and their clients are the companies that hire them, not the customer.

I find it truly sickening how many of those examples I just listed are from the past year alone. AI translation won't make those mistakes, so why wouldn't I prefer it?

Maybe not, but who's to say AI will solve the problem you claim it will solve? Again, the corporations that wish to censor anime to cater to a certain audience will be using the AI to serve their own whims. And in the meanwhile, we will get translations of lesser quality because of some misguided and illogical arguments.

That's nice and all, but this isn't kindergarden – nobody gets free points for doing something if they don't do a good job, even if they do it for free. (And especially not if they do it for the amount of money being charged for professionally-released games, these days!) If a translator does a bad job, then yes, people are going to complain about it on the Internet, and they're completely correct to do so. Remember: You release a work for your audience's enjoyment, not to wax your own ego. (This should be stamped on every creative's forehead, so they never forget.)

That's fine but a lot of the people on the internet that are passing judgment on the translations are simply not qualified to do so. A lot of amateur, learned Japanese on my own in my home, are judging the work of people with graduate studies in Japanese and have immersed themselves in the language. Not saying this is always the case, but I've seen several anti-localization twitter ranters get debunked pretty hard. All I'm saying is don't take all of these arguments at face value. This video from someone who has worked on localization of games really opened my eyes on what the problems are in the industry:

See above, but I find this a really flawed, manipulate way of phrasing things. When I was growing up (late-2000s to early-2010s), nobody would have thought to change or remove content from a localized game on ideological reasons, and they would have been rightfully eviscerated by A) the press and B) their audience if they'd done so. (I'm sure there are some examples to the contrary from before that point, but it most certainly wasn't a given like it is today.) Yes, there were changes made to games (as discussed above in my reply to Gingervitis' post), but everyone universally agreed that they were incorrect decisions to have been made, and negatively impacted the game when done so.

Now that is a joke. Have you ever heard of this small company called Nintendo? They would censor the crap out of every Squaresoft game in North America in the 90s. And they continued to do so for their first party games like Fire Emblem and Pokemon. The Pokemon anime was stripped of any Japanese references. This has always happened and it is generally the fault of the corporations, not the translators. If anything, the translators try their hardest to work around draconian policies to deliver an accurate translation to the best of their abilities. Again, the translators don't usually volunteer to do a bad job, they serve their clients interest.

Again, I'm not giving any translator a free pass because they did their job poorly – in fact, I'm doing the opposite. It's that slimy, disgusting, manipulative tone that they use towards their audience that honestly turns my stomach.

That's fine, that is your prerogative. But your solution to the problem is extremely flawed. Don't expect people to just accept a lousy solution that shows little foresight.

(See how insufferable that was? Would you buy a product from me after reading something like that? If so, hit me up – I've got a bridge to sell you.)

What was insufferable about it? I'm not saying you are always wrong. I'm saying you are exaggerating the pervasiveness of the issue, which is true. And throwing a bunch of hard working people under a proverbial bus because of the policies of certain companies. That could also be considered to be "insufferable" by some.

 

[Gorse]

Strategist, bless you for engaging me in good faith, because I don't think either of us is going to change each other's minds. That being said...

The problem with your argument is assuming that the translators are doing this out of spite or some agenda and its not a mandate from the executives in the companies or the marketing departments.

OK, I've noticed that this is a very recent thing to say amongst the pro-censorship crowd as of late, and as someone who's been following this stuff since the mid-2010s, it seems like an obvious deflection now that alterations to Japanese games have become a widely-publicized to (and widely-despised by) general audiences. Unfortunately, I see it as exactly that – a deflection tactic – because it's easily disproven in both many of the examples I've already posted and the tweets of countless localizers, like this famous one (forgive that stuff at the bottom, I just got it from an image search) or this recent controversy, to the contrary.

Seriously, I'd like to know – where did you hear that "it's the corporations" line from? Is there an e-celeb or someone who started this? I'm really, genuinely curious. It's only popped up in the past year or so, and I think it's utterly disingenuous. Of course, if it really was the corporations telling them to do this, we'd have firm confirmation by people who don't have an incentive to lie to protect their reputations (with, of course, different individual confirmations for each company this has applied to), but... uh... we don't.

Also, speaking as someone with an MBA: Companies don't care about sociological issues, because their only goal is to generate revenue. (I could give you some recent examples, but this forum has rules against political conversation, SO...) The thought of a company changing a video game girl outfit in a video game is simply ridiculous to anyone who doesn't have something to gain by believing it.

Think about it logically, why would a translator benefit from doing a worse job?

Because of their ideology, as shown in the tweets above. If you're localizing a Japanese game that, say, has a line (or, god forbid, a whole game mechanic like in Fire Emblem Fates) that could potentially go against your sociological beliefs, you could change it, so that... well, so that you feel a bit better, I guess, because it certainly doesn't actually do anything in the real world beyond annoying your customer base.

Maybe not, but who's to say AI will solve the problem you claim it will solve?

Because AI won't change anything based on a certain ideology. If a company uses AI to alter content in a game's localization, that will also be an issue – but, of course, when people say AI translations will be better than official ones, they're referring to locally-hosted, individually-run AI translations applied to the base Japanese game. The great thing about AI is that you don't even need the company to provide you with it – you just run your own model atop a copy of the game, and you're good to go! That alone makes it a hugely-appealing proposition to me.

That's fine but a lot of the people on the internet that are passing judgment on the translations are simply not qualified to do so.

They're the most qualified to do so, because they're consumers unhappy with a product they've been sold. It really doesn't matter what people with a graduate degree in Japanese say – the customer demands accuracy, and these are electronics goods being sold to that customer. That's capitalism, baby!

I've seen several anti-localization twitter ranters get debunked pretty hard.

And I've seen several pro-localization Twitter ranters get debunked even harder. I wonder who the customer base agrees with more?

Have you ever heard of this small company called Nintendo? They would censor the crap out of every Squaresoft game in North America in the 90s. And they continued to do so for their first party games like Fire Emblem.

Yeah, and that was a very bad thing. It was considered a detriment to those games, and people didn't like it. Nintendo only did it at the time because they didn't know better – once they did, they stopped. (This is part of the reason why Japanese media translations in the 2000s, after all the initial kerfuffle, were so heavily acclaimed.) The problem only started up again when ideologically-driven translators started cropping up in the early-to-mid-2010s (usually in response to some other koo-koo cultural issues perpetuated on Twitter, but again, don't want to break the no politics rule.)

Don't expect people to just accept a lousy solution that shows very little foresight.

AI – a magical computer program that creates translations better than real people can, in seconds, for free – is not what I would call a "lousy solution".

I'm saying you are exaggerating the pervasiveness of the issue, which is true.

Dude, how many examples do you want? I gave you six in that other post, and two more here – shall I go up to ten? Twenty? You say "when", and I'll stop.

And throwing a bunch of hard working people under a proverbial bus because of the policies of certain companies.

In any other line of work, if you do your job poorly, you get fired. These localizers have done their jobs poorly, a solution has come along, so... Poof!

You know as well as I do – if you're being honest with me, which I hope you are – that companies aren't the ones dictating that anime girls should wear more clothing, or that face-rubbing minigames should be removed, or that any other number of translation issues that just so happen to line up perfectly with localizers' ideological values be implemented. It's the localizers. It's been them for well over a decade at this point. The audience now knows that they've been given an inferior product, and that AI will solve the issue. Fight it if you must, but the thing about superior robot lifeforms is that they're, by definition, superior.

Here's what it comes down to, for me, at least: I wouldn't be so pleased about AI translation if real translators were better than them, but they aren't. From what I've seen of Japanese-to-English translators on the Internet – which is quite a lot, I'd say! – they're all insufferable, smug, smarmy, politically-motivated ideologues who care more about stroking their own egos than they do about providing a good, entertaining experience. (I have a few pet theories as to why, but that’s neither here nor there.) I'm sure – I hope – that some translators genuinely are good, professional people who would translate something accurately even if they disagreed with it, but I've never seen one do so.

AI will always translate something accurately, so it's empirically better for what I want. Developers, like those mentioned in this thread's OP, are starting to agree.

 

[Gingervitis]

The audience now knows that they've been given an inferior product, and that AI will solve the issue.

I know I already brought this up, but I don't think AI will fix this. You'll still need at least one translator to go through the dialogue and clean up any jokes, idioms, cultural norms, or other language quirks that don't make the translation gaps. With that in mind, what's stopping an ideologically driven translator from getting the job and changing the dialogue to remove "homphobia" or "sexism", or just spicing up the dialogue on a whim?

Post automatically merged: Dec 2, 2024

Companies like Working Designs are utterly indefensible on any timescale, though. (And it’s not like we don’t get localizers completely removing gameplay today, either! )

Sorry about double posting. I'm not sure how to add quotes to a post I'm editing.

As terrible as Working Designs' localizations are, I'm willing to give them credit for one thing- they brought over a ton of games we would not have gotten if they weren't around. I know you're suspicious of that argument (and for good reason, considering modern localizers misuse it), but if Working Designs hadn't worked on Lunar or Popful Mail, would these games even be talked about in the anglosphere? Or would we have just forgotten about them like all the other Japan-only games laying in obscurity?

Of course, that doesn't work with modern localizers. If Nintendo Treehouse goes tits up (please God, let it happen), they can always use NISA, or Xseed, or form a completely different in-house localization group made of normal people.

 

[Strategist]

Strategist, bless you for engaging me in good faith, because I don't think either of us is going to change each other's minds. That being said...

At least you are willing to admit that I am engaging in good faith. I've seen some demonize anyone who takes my stance. I'll give you credit for that.

OK, I've noticed that this is a very recent thing to say amongst the pro-censorship crowd as of late, and as someone who's been following this stuff since the mid-2010s, it seems like an obvious deflection now that alterations to Japanese games have become a widely-publicized to (and widely-despised by) general audiences. Unfortunately, I see it as exactly that – a deflection tactic – because it's easily disproven in both many of the examples I've already posted and the tweets of countless localizers, like this famous one (forgive that stuff at the bottom, I just got it from an image search) or this recent controversy, to the contrary.

To be fair, I don't watch that much modern Anime, so the issue might be more pervasive in Anime-land than it is in video game world. But I wouldn't say it is something that's particularly new. I could give you examples of animes that were dramatically changed in localization. The most famous one was Robotech, which was a mashup of 3 different animes. And the Pokemon anime, which had all the Japanese references removed. To say one was ideologically driven and the other one wasn't is disingenuous. The ideology was that American audiences would find any references to Japanese culture offputting.

Seriously, I'd like to know – where did you hear that "it's the corporations" line from? Is there an e-celeb or someone who started this? I'm really, genuinely curious. It's only popped up in the past year or so, and I think it's utterly disingenuous. Of course, if it really was the corporations telling them to do this, we'd have firm confirmation by people who don't have an incentive to lie to protect their reputations (with, of course, different individual confirmations for each company this has applied to), but... uh... we don't.

Watch the video that I posted. That is clearly the case, straight from the mouth of a translator that worked for Squaresoft/Square Enix. If a corporation hires you to localize a certain text and wants to remove a certain aspect that they think is problematic for another audience, who are you to tell them no? It is their own property that they own and spent their own capital to produce. Why do you think the localizer has the right to dictate to the company what to do with their own creative property? Occam's razor and logic tells you that it this is likely what is happening. Of course there may be some exceptions in the manga world.

Also, speaking as someone with an MBA: Companies don't care about sociological issues, because their only goal is to generate revenue. (I could give you some recent examples, but this forum has rules against political conversation, SO...) The thought of a company changing a video game girl outfit in a video game is simply ridiculous to anyone who doesn't have something to gain by believing it.

I am surprised someone who has an MBA actually is saying this. The economic benefits of self-censorship are obvious. M rated games have proven to sell worse than Teen or K/A games.

Because of their ideology, as shown in the tweets above. If you're localizing a Japanese game that, say, has a line (or, god forbid, a whole game mechanic like in Fire Emblem Fates) that could potentially go against your sociological beliefs, you could change it, so that... well, so that you feel a bit better, I guess, because it certainly doesn't actually do anything in the real world beyond annoying your customer base.

Nintendo has always censored the crap out of their games for the North American audience. Fates was a particularly egregious example of that. It had nothing to do with the sociological beliefs of Treehouse.

Because AI won't change anything based on a certain ideology. If a company uses AI to alter content in a game's localization, that will also be an issue – but, of course, when people say AI translations will be better than official ones, they're referring to locally-hosted, individually-run AI translations applied to the base Japanese game. The great thing about AI is that you don't even need the company to provide you with it – you just run your own model atop a copy of the game, and you're good to go! That alone makes it a hugely-appealing proposition to me.

AI is just a tool. A hammer is a tool that can be used to build houses or bash people across the head. There's nothing magical to it. It won't change the economic incentive of corporations to self censor their own work. I do agree that AI allows people to access an alternative option to play japanese games. But if you've actually tried to use the options available to the public such as chat-gpt or google translate, you'd know that they are inferior to a professional translator.

They're the most qualified to do so, because they're consumers unhappy with a product they've been sold. It really doesn't matter what people with a graduate degree in Japanese say – the customer demands accuracy, and these are electronics goods being sold to that customer. That's capitalism, baby!

Being an angry nerd does not make you an expert on the Japanese language and all the nuances that are required to be understood to convert it into English. Sometimes some "incorrect" translations are not as incorrect as some may claim on Twitter.

And I've seen several pro-localization Twitter ranters get debunked even harder. I wonder who the customer base agrees with more?

By whom? And what are their qualifications to debunk anyone? Again, it seems like you are decided in your stance, but I'm posting the other side for the benefit of those on the fence.

Yeah, and that was a very bad thing. It was considered a detriment to those games, and people didn't like it. Nintendo only did it at the time because they didn't know better – once they did, they stopped. (This is part of the reason why Japanese media translations in the 2000s, after all the initial kerfuffle, were so heavily acclaimed.) The problem only started up again when ideologically-driven translators started cropping up in the early-to-mid-2010s (usually in response to some other koo-koo cultural issues perpetuated on Twitter, but again, don't want to break the no politics rule.)

That is a narrative that doesn't hold up to scrutiny. Again, Nintendo has always censored their games of any controversial content.

AI – a magical computer program that creates translations better than real people can, in seconds, for free – is not what I would call a "lousy solution".

Spoken like someone who hasn't tried to use AI/Machine Translation to play a Japanese game.

Dude, how many examples do you want? I gave you six in that other post, and two more here – shall I go up to ten? Twenty? You say "when", and I'll stop.

Fair, the issue might be more pervasive in the modern Anime world than I thought. I can't say for sure since I have very little interest in most animes these days.

In any other line of work, if you do your job poorly, you get fired. These localizers have done their jobs poorly, a solution has come along, so... Poof!

The solution has always been readily available. Import the Japanese game, learn Japanese or pay someone to translate it.

You know as well as I do – if you're being honest with me, which I hope you are – that companies aren't the ones dictating that anime girls should wear more clothing, or that face-rubbing minigames should be removed, or that any other number of translation issues that just so happen to line up perfectly with localizers' ideological values be implemented. It's the localizers. It's been them for well over a decade at this point. The audience now knows that they've been given an inferior product, and that AI will solve the issue. Fight it if you must, but the thing about superior robot lifeforms is that they're, by definition, superior.

AI won't solve self-censorship. I've already stated the reasons why. Not sure if it will convince you, but posting it anyway for the benefit of the rest of the forum.

 

[Gorse]

I know I already brought this up, but I don't think AI will fix this. You'll still need at least one translator to go through the dialogue and clean up any jokes, idioms, cultural norms, or other language quirks that don't make the translation gaps. With that in mind, what's stopping an ideologically driven translator from getting the job and changing the dialogue to remove "homphobia" or "sexism", or just spicing up the dialogue on a whim?

I think there may be some confusion, here — when I discuss AI translations of games, I’m referring to…

locally-hosted, individually-run AI translations applied to the base Japanese game. The great thing about AI is that you don't even need the company to provide you with it – you just run your own model atop a copy of the game, and you're good to go!

The idea is that you use your own model to translate the game by itself — no middle-man required, so there’s no issue with unnecessary changes. We’re already seeing this with AI translations of games like this one. (And that’s nearly two years old — new AI translations are going to be even better!)

I realize that this thread’s OP is discussing JP developers using AI to translate their games, then selling that to the consumer, and I think that’s an excellent stepping stone in the right direction, but you’re right — the person “checking” the translation will need to be trustworthy, and issues could arise. The way I’d address this is through a standard QA testing procedure, where developers give the “evaluator” a list of criteria to “grade” the AI translation on, and they don’t touch anything directly.

Ideally, in the future, there will just be one version of the game produced in the original language, and you’ll run it through an AI embedded in your console/PC to translate it in the fly. That way, all the power is in your hands!

 

[Strategist]

Here's what it comes down to, for me, at least: I wouldn't be so pleased about AI translation if real translators were better than them, but they aren't. From what I've seen of Japanese-to-English translators on the Internet – which is quite a lot, I'd say! – they're all insufferable, smug, smarmy, politically-motivated ideologues who care more about stroking their own egos than they do about providing a good, entertaining experience. I'm sure – I hope – that some genuinely are good people who would translate something accurately even if they disagreed with it, but I've never seen one do so.

I haven't interacted with many of them, I don't really use Twitter. But I can say that the one I'm familiar with (Alexander O. Smith, localizer of FFX, Vagrant Story, FFXII) is a pleasant person and willing to engage in good faith arguments. I suspect that a lot of what may seem as smug or smarmy is translators having to deal with swarms of hate driven by social media clout seekers delivering bad faith arguments. But I'll give you the benefit of the doubt there.

AI will always translate something accurately, so it's empirically better for what I want. Companies, like those mentioned in this thread's OP, are starting to agree.

AI translation presents other problems though. There's a lot of ambiguity in the Japanese language, and direct translation can often lead to nonsensical statements and world salad. If you had actually tried to use AI to play video games, you'd know the limitations of these tools, however you've allowed yourself to be used by social media ideologues. And on top of that, you have things such as jokes and cultural references that are impossible to localize literally.

 

[Gingervitis]

I think there may be some confusion, here — when I discuss AI translations of games, I’m referring to…

The idea is that you use your own model to translate the game by itself — no middle-man required, so there’s no issue with unnecessary changes. We’re already seeing this with AI translations of games like this one. (And that’s nearly two years old — new AI translations are going to be even better!)

I realize that this thread’s OP is discussing JP developers using AI to translate their games, then selling that to the consumer, and I think that’s an excellent stepping stone in the right direction, but you’re right — the person “checking” the translation will need to be trustworthy, and issues could arise. The way I’d address this is through a standard QA testing procedure, where developers give the “evaluator” a list of criteria to “grade” the AI translation on, and they don’t touch anything directly.

Ideally, in the future, there will just be one version of the game produced in the original language, and you’ll run it through an AI embedded in your console/PC to translate it in the fly. That way, all the power is in your hands!

Now I see what you mean. Now that we're not talking past each other, I still think this is flawed. I dunk on localization because they're filled with the most egotistical "people" outside of soft science academia, but the truth is that some amount of localization will still be necessary to convey wordplay-based jokes, for example. Take the following joke, for example.

¿Por qué seis tenían miedo de siete? ¡Porque siete ocho nueve!

The joke makes perfect sense in English, because eight and ate are homophones. This joke doesn't work in Spanish, because ocho and comió (ate) aren't homophones. If this was in a translation, it would need to be replaced by a completely new joke to keep the same tone as it does in English. This is something AI is physically incapable of doing.

 

[Strategist]

Now I see what you mean. Now that we're not talking past each other, I still think this is flawed. I dunk on localization because they're filled with the most egotistical "people" outside of soft science academia, but the truth is that some amount of localization will still be necessary to convey wordplay-based jokes, for example. Take the following joke, for example.

The joke makes perfect sense in English, because eight and ate are homophones. This joke doesn't work in Spanish, because ocho and comió (ate) aren't homophones. If this was in a translation, it would need to be replaced by a completely new joke to keep the same tone as it does in English. This is something AI is physically incapable of doing.

I think a lot of bilingual speakers are seen as smug by the monolingual folk because we are more used to liberties being taken in localization and don't see it as a crime punishable by death. For example, as a kid I used to watch the Simpsons in Spanish and the dub took dramatic liberties with all of the jokes. And it made perfect sense as a lot of the references being used in the American version would make no sense to a Latin American audience. When I see some of these threads trying to dunk on game translations for not being 1 for 1 literal translations, I go "eh, really? Why get worked up about this? There are real problems in the world". As long as it is quality English and communicates the same ideas, it is a valid translation in my estimation.

 

[Gingervitis]

As long as it is quality English and communicates the same ideas, it is a valid translation in my estimation.

I mean, I agree in spirit. The issue I have is those translations that either try to spice things up for no discernable reason (like with every Dragon Quest after 8, or Valkyria Chronicles), outright remove gameplay mechanics (Fire Emblem Fates, Konami Krazy Racers for some ungodly reason), or try to mess with the game for ideological reasons (name an anime or animesque game, just pick one). These aren't liberties. These are just rewrites that detract from the experience and stray away from the spirit of the source material.

 

[Gorse]

At least you are willing to admit that I am engaging in good faith. I've seen some demonize anyone who takes my stance.

Just to be clear (not that it matters): I don't consider myself ideologically-driven in any regard, and especially not when it comes to video games. I play this stuff (and Japanese games especially) to get away from the real world's socio-political issues, which is why I can't stand alterations that remind me of them.

I could give you examples of animes that were dramatically changed in localization. The most famous one was Robotech, which was a mashup of 3 different animes.

This is an entirely different thing altogether: Robotech, and those 80s mash-up anime like it, was never positioned as a translation of any of the material it was based on. It was an entirely different series that used footage from several unrelated TV shows, combined with original animation, to create something new, so it can't really be judged on accuracy. The video game equivalent of this would be like one of those Flash games that mixes Mario and Sonic sprites together in a World of Warcraft map or something – it's not sold or presented as representative of an "original" text.

And the Pokemon anime, which had all the Japanese references removed.

I personally assure you that the Pokemon anime series' changes were massively ridiculed both at the time and today. Again, these were baddy-bad changes, and people rightly disliked them (well, in Pokemon's case specifically, they were made fun of because they were so stupid, but the point's the same.)

Watch the video that I posted. That is clearly the case, straight from the mouth of a translator that worked for Squaresoft/Square Enix.

Hey, you didn't post that video until after I made my initial reply! I actually didn't plan on watching it, because regardless of what the guy says, I'm still holding fast to the arguments I've been making all along – that the changes made in the 90s were made because nobody knew any better yet, that we should know better by now, and that those changes were still very, very bad and shouldn't have been made in the first place – but I skipped ahead to the "Censorship" section and it honestly kind of boiled my blood.

The host rephrases "censorship" as "collaboration" to sneakily make his point seem easier to digest (a common communicatory deception tactic, and one I know quite well), and the guy being interview just nods and agrees. Neither one convinced me, because they both clearly had a defined position from the start that they weren't interested in deviating from (especially insufferable when they condescendingly refer to their audience as misinformed). I've said it before and I'll say it again: Customers don't want censorship, and they're the ones the game is being made for, so whatever these bozos have to say really doesn't matter.

Oh my god, the interviewer in this video is giving me a migraine. There isn't just one writer in a video game? Are you out of your fucking gourd, you bearded idiot? I personally am going to remove the part of my brain that contains the memory of this video so I never have to think about this guy again.

If a corporation hires you to localize a certain text and wants to remove a certain aspect that they think is problematic for another audience, who are you to tell them no? It is their own property that they own and spent their own capital to produce.

Let me lay out my objections to this line of thinking in as clear a manner as possible:

1. I simply don't believe that this is what's actually happening, because I've seen firm, objective, non-biased evidence to the contrary in several cases, including those I've already linked.
2. The people who say this are people who have something to gain by doing so – the translators whose jobs are (rightly) threatened by AI and their followers who agree with them ideologically. I've never seen a video game developer – someone involved with the actual development of the game (or even a publisher!) – come out and say, in official material or otherwise, that they ask Americans to change or censor things about their games.
3. If this were true, I'd expect every individual Japanese developer who's work has been affected by this to state clearly that they're asking translators to censor their games. I say "individually" because there's no standardized board of video game localization that administrates these things, and these issues have cropped up across a wide range of different Japanese developers. The one constant in all of these cases is ideologically-driven translators, so why wouldn't they be the issue?

M rated games have proven to sell worse than Teen or K/A games.

Incorrect! Out of the top five highest-selling video game franchises, #2 is Call of Duty and #5 is GTA, both M-rated games, instantly invalidating your point. (This line of thinking doesn't even make sense – if it did, no one would make M-rated games.)

Nintendo has always censored the crap out of their games for the North American audience.

It was wrong then, and it was wrong now. The difference is – say it with me now – we should know better now, and that ideologically-driven translators are both clearly present and the constant.

But if you've actually tried to use the options available to the public such as chat-gpt or google translate, you'd know that they are inferior to a professional translator.

As an absolute matter of fact, I have – professionally! I'm actually a software copywriter myself, and my work is translated and published through AI tools like ChatGPT, Gemini, Copilot, and Google Translate on a daily basis. It's approved by native speakers at my globally-operating company, who admit that – gasp! – the AI does better work than they can, because, despite speaking the language, they aren't very good translators! Imagine that. For the record, as a writer, I trust AI translators to bring across accurate versions of my work far more than politically-insane real people.

Being an angry nerd does not make you an expert on the Japanese language

WELL, THAT DISQUALIFIES ALL PROFESSIONAL JAPANESE-TO-ENGLISH TRANSLATORS, THEN!!!!!!! Because, you see, they're all angry nerds, and I dislike them.

By whom? And what are their qualifications to debunk anyone?

I could ask you the same question! Who are these daring white knights, fighting the good battle against those gosh-darnable internet bullies who go to such extremes as to – gulp – complain on the internet? If the translators are doing it themselves, see my comment immediately above – if it's their fanboys, that's just extremely pathetic. The difference is that people who don't want censorship are THE CUSTOMER.

Spoken like someone who hasn't tried to use AI/Machine Translation to play a Japanese game.

See that game I linked in my reply to Gingervitis. I absolutely have played it – I actually played it when it first came out – and I was floored by how good the translation was. I imagine there had to be some hiccups somewhere – this was from the initially-released version of ChatGPT, which wasn't as advanced as it is now – but I sure as heck didn't see any issues. In fact, I thought it was as good as a professionally-translated game... and now we've come full circle.

AI won't solve self-censorship.

You're not wrong – Japanese developers being influenced by American cultural moors more generally certainly is an issue that AI can't fix (yet) – but that's not what we're discussing here, and for the reasons I've stated in roughly seven trillion words above, attempting to phrase it like that is A) factually incorrect and B) utterly manipulative.

But I'll give you the benefit of the doubt there.

Thanks! I like to thank I've proven my point with several examples. For the record, I've never used Twitter (or any other form of social media) in my life beyond seeing screencaps of these tweets on Internet forums. But that leads me directly into the crux of my argument, which is this:

however you've allowed yourself to be used by social media ideologues.

Strategist, I want you to read this line over again. Then again. Then again and again and again and again. Do you see what I'm trying to say? Do you understand that this is what you've done, because you agree with them? Please, say yes. I don't want to make assumptions about you, but I like to think I have a pretty strong understanding of your own ideological biases from this conversation alone, and – like a video game translator trying to convince people that he's not at fault after being caught ruining translations – you have an incentive to agree with yourself and people like you.

If you can't see that, then I really don't see how this conversation can continue.

 

[Strategist]

Just to be clear (not that it matters): I don't consider myself ideologically-driven in any regard, and especially not when it comes to video games. I play this stuff (and Japanese games especially) to get away from the real world's socio-political issues, which is why I can't stand alterations that remind me of them.

I feel the same way in general. I don't want anyone's agenda inserted into video games and dislike censorship. However, I'm willing to admit that companies have the right to self-censor the IPs they own as they see fit.

This is an entirely different thing altogether: Robotech, and those 80s mash-up anime like it, was never positioned as a translation of any of the material it was based on. It was an entirely different series that used footage from several unrelated TV shows, combined with original animation, to create something new, so it can't really be judged on accuracy. The video game equivalent of this would be like one of those Flash games that mixes Mario and Sonic sprites together in a World of Warcraft map or something – it's not sold or presented as representative of an "original" text.


I personally assure you that the Pokemon anime series' changes were massively ridiculed both at the time and today. Again, these were baddy-bad changes, and people rightly disliked them (well, in Pokemon's case specifically, they were made fun of because they were so stupid, but the point's the same.)

Sure, but it debunked the statements that you were making that ideology affecting localization is a new phenomenon.

Let me lay out my objections to this line of thinking in as clear a manner as possible:

1. I simply don't believe that this is what's actually happening, because I've seen firm, objective, non-biased evidence to the contrary in several cases, including those I've already linked.
2. The people who say this are people who have something to gain by doing so – the translators whose jobs are (rightly) threatened by AI and their followers who agree with them ideologically. I've never seen a video game developer – someone involved with the actual development of the game (or even a publisher!) – come out and say, in official material or otherwise, that they ask Americans to change or censor things about their games.
3. If this were true, I'd expect every individual Japanese developer who's work has been affected by this to state clearly that they're asking translators to censor their games. I say "individually" because there's no standardized board of video game localization that administrates these things, and these issues have cropped up across a wide range of different Japanese developers. The one constant in all of these cases is ideologically-driven translators, so why wouldn't they be the issue?

You are free to believe whatever you want, but I'm also free to think you are a bit off the rocker for believing said things. When you won't listen to a respected professional (who no longer works in the industry) with the experience to know what he's talking about, there might be some serious issues there.

Incorrect! Out of the top five highest-selling video game franchises, #2 is Call of Duty and #5 is GTA, both M-rated games, instantly invalidating your point. (This line of thinking doesn't even make sense – if it did, no one would make M-rated games.)

Eh, Nintendo has a different business model and corporate image than Rockstar and Activision. And I'm talking about the average M rated game selling worse than the average T or K/A game. But fair enough, that point I will concede that there are outlier M games that sell well.

It was wrong then, and it was wrong now. The difference is – say it with me now – we should know better now, and that ideologically-driven translators are both clearly present and the constant.


As an absolute matter of fact, I have – professionally! I'm actually a software copywriter myself, and my work is translated and published through AI tools like ChatGPT, Gemini, Copilot, and Google Translate on a daily basis. It's approved by native speakers at my globally-operating company, who admit that – gasp! – the AI does better work than they can, because, despite speaking the language, they aren't very good translators! Imagine that. For the record, as a writer, I trust AI translators to bring across accurate versions of my work far more than politically-insane real people.

Copywriting is a completely different enterprise than literary translation/localization. Accuracy is the foremost goal of that type of translation, whereas the literary translation has a different goal (to entertain the audience and convey an emotional response). Besides that, if you believe that every translator is politically insane then I can see why you'd think that AI always does a better job, but those with more reasonable beliefs don't necessarily see it that way.

WELL, THAT DISQUALIFIES ALL PROFESSIONAL JAPANESE-TO-ENGLISH TRANSLATORS, THEN!!!!!!! Because, you see, they're all angry nerds, and I dislike them.

At least you are honest in where you are coming from with this argument. Seems like a personal vendetta.

I could ask you the same question! Who are these daring white knights, fighting the good battle against those gosh-darnable internet bullies who go to such extremes as to – gulp – complain on the internet? If the translators are doing it themselves, see my comment immediately above – if it's their fanboys, that's just extremely pathetic. The difference is that people who don't want censorship are THE CUSTOMER.

I'm also against censorship, but I've seen many arguments construed as censorship that are misunderstandings or straight up lack of knowledge about the Japanese language from the person reviewing the translation. And let's admit that the people on twitter complaining about censorship about video games are a minority of the people who actually buy these games. Not that it makes these arguments less valid, but it is self serving to pretend to speak for the whole audience when many simply don't care.

See that game I linked in my reply to Gingervitis. I absolutely have played it – I actually played it when it first came out – and I was floored by how good the translation was. I imagine there had to be some hiccups somewhere – this was from the initially-released version of ChatGPT, which wasn't as advanced as it is now – but I sure as heck didn't see any issues. In fact, I thought it was as good as a professionally-translated game... and now we've come full circle.

I would love to see that. The version I've had access to of Chat GPT isn't that impressive, unfortunately.

You're not wrong – Japanese developers being influenced by American cultural moors more generally certainly is an issue that AI can't fix (yet) – but that's not what we're discussing here, and for the reasons I've stated in roughly seven trillion words above, attempting to phrase it like that is A) factually incorrect and B) utterly manipulative.

It is exactly what we are discussing here. AI as a solution to the dastardly rogue translators. I'm trying to establish that rouge translators aren't so much as a thing as companies wanting the censorship. So AI doesn't address the problem at all.

Strategist, I want you to read this line over again. Then again. Then again and again and again and again. Do you see what I'm trying to say? Do you understand that this is what you've done, because you agree with them? Please, say yes. I don't want to make assumptions about you, but I like to think I have a pretty strong understanding of your own ideological biases from this conversation alone, and – like a video game translator trying to convince people that he's not at fault after being caught ruining translations – you have an incentive to agree with yourself and people like you.

If you can't see that, then I really don't see how this conversation can continue.

Well, I can't really agree that AI is a good solution to any of the problems presented in this thread and I've seen no evidence to prove that. I've watched the same twitter arguments and youtube videos that you've probably seen and they fail to explain how AI is going to solve all these problems. AI is simply incapable of translating literary text in its current form from all the evidence I've seen. Dry legal text, sure, maybe with some human help. If anyone is trying to sell AI as more than it is, I have to call them an ideologue based on my understanding of what it is capable of and my understanding of the technology. I'm a computer science major, for whatever that is worth.

 

[Gorse]

I know you're suspicious of that argument (and for good reason, considering modern localizers misuse it), but if Working Designs hadn't worked on Lunar or Popful Mail, would these games even be talked about in the anglosphere?

Yes, easily proven by hyper-popular Japanese games that never had proper English translations until recently, the biggest example of which is probably the Touhou franchise. We've had the internet since the mid-90s – once that channel opened up, all high-quality Japanese games were on the table. (Also, I would not list any of Working Designs' franchises as being highly-discussed in modern gaming culture.)

If this was in a translation, it would need to be replaced by a completely new joke to keep the same tone as it does in English.

Absolutely not! The correct way to do jokes like these, as utilized by anime fansubs since the mid-2000s, is by translating the joke accurately – ideally, it should be funny enough on its own that the intended message is brought across regardless, but, if not, include a translation note, which helpfully explains the message in clear, understandable text that does not change the original script. If you'd really like to delete an original piece of writing and replace it with a completely unrelated one, PM me and I'll send you a knock-knock joke.

I think a lot of bilingual speakers are seen as smug by the monolingual folk because we are more used to liberties being taken in localization and don't see it as a crime punishable by death.

I see Japanese-to-English translators as smug because they:

1. Constantly act snide, smarmy, egotistical, and passive-aggressive.
2. Purposefully make changes to video games I'd otherwise be interested in, brag about it, then whine when people rightfully criticize it.
3. Are invariably ideology-driven lunatics who actively harm the entertainment industry as much as they think they're helping it.
4. Are generally repulsive human beings who I would never interact with IRL, LET ALONE online.

I've got no issue with bilingual people in general, as most of them aren't video game translators. But what do I know? I'm one of the mouth-breathing, rock-chomping monolingual folk.

I go "eh, really? Why get worked up about this? There are real problems in the world".

Excellent thinking! I'm going to make a video game with the most offensive, disgusting, politically-incorrect content imaginable in it, translate it with AI, then copy-paste this line whenever someone criticizes it. Disregard everything I've written above – YOU'VE CONVINCED ME!!!!!

 

[Strategist]

I mean, I agree in spirit. The issue I have is those translations that either try to spice things up for no discernable reason (like with every Dragon Quest after 8, or Valkyria Chronicles), outright remove gameplay mechanics (Fire Emblem Fates, Konami Krazy Racers for some ungodly reason), or try to mess with the game for ideological reasons (name an anime or animesque game, just pick one). These aren't liberties. These are just rewrites that detract from the experience and stray away from the spirit of the source material.

I can't speak about games I haven't played, but what are the issues with Valkyria Chronicles's localization? I thought it had an excellent English dub and perfectly acceptable English text. As far as Fates goes, Nintendo wants to protect their family friendly image in North America and wants to avoid any controversy that might bring American politicians or morally conservative religious folk at their doorstep. So they felt the need to edit the face rubbing game. To their credit, they didn't outright remove it from the game.

 

[Gorse]

I don't want anyone's agenda inserted into video games and dislike censorship.

If that's true, then... good! Neither do I. Three cheers for agreement!

However, I'm willing to admit that companies have the right to self-censor the IPs they own as they see fit.

Simply put: for the reasons I've explained and the actual, factual, published material I've provided, I cannot believe that companies are telling localizers to purposefully ruin their own games, and I have every reason to believe that the localizers are doing it themselves. I doubt I'll change your mind on this.

Sure, but it debunked the statements that you were making that ideology affecting localization is a new phenomenon.

It "debunked" precisely nothing, because Robotech's situation is completely incomparable to video game translations for about forty trillion reasons. If we got games today that were original stories created using mashups of otherwise unrelated Japanese video games – which is what Robotech was, just in animation – that would be so different from a translated version of a game as to be utterly distinct.

When you won't listen to a respected professional (who no longer works in the industry) with the experience to know what he's talking about,

As a matter of fact, I don't, and I'm the customer. That's a big problem for those dopes, isn't it? I sure hope this guy doesn't screw up at his next job, because being incompetent isn't tolerated outside of the video game industry.

Copywriting is a completely different enterprise than literary translation/localization.

There are a lot of different ways I could go with this, but let's stay simple – really, it isn't. They're both pieces of promotional text aiming to accurately describe a message to an end-user. (From a comment you make later in this post, you seem to think copywriters deal with legal text, which isn't true – copy is the in-software messaging and the advertising material around it, almost like what they do in *gulp* video games.)

I write about feature sets instead of magical elf princesses with pointy ears, but at the end of the day, I'd want translations of both products to be as accurate as possible. Why wouldn't I? Can you imagine what would happen if some dipshit halfway across the world threw out what I wrote and made up a bunch of nonsense, then published that material as if it were my own? Why, I'd agree with the people criticizing him.

Besides that, if you believe that every translator is politically insane then I can see why you'd think that AI always does a better job,

Again, I'm the one who's supposed to be buying this crap, so it really sucks for those translators, doesn't it? Why, they should be shining my shoes and thanking me for the privilege – maybe then I'd buy their awful games. But probably not.

Seems like a personal vendetta.

I was going to buy those bloody Fire Emblem games.

I've seen many arguments construed as censorship that are misunderstandings or straight up lack of knowledge about the Japanese language from the person reviewing the translation.

And I've seen – and shown you – many examples of localizers purposefully altering a game's script to make it worse through their own idiocy. Again again, I'm the customer – the one who's paying for this – so my opinion matters most.

And let's admit that the people on twitter complaining about censorship about video games are a minority of the people who actually buy these games. [...] Not that it makes these arguments less valid, but it is self serving to pretend to speak for the whole audience when many simply don't care.

Oh, good! Then localizers have nothing to worry about – just let the devs start replacing their jobs with AI, and everything will work out just fine. Consumers won't care, right?

The version I've had access to of Chat GPT isn't that impressive, unfortunately.

ChatGPT 4o and the latest version of Gemini are literally – literally – the most impressive pieces of technology I've ever used. It's a magic computer program that does anything in seconds. Localizers should be afraid – I'd sure be!

It is exactly what we are discussing here. AI as a solution to the dastardly rogue translators.

WoahwoahWOAH, let's not try to steer the conversation using deceptive, manipulative runarounds! (We'd hate to do that, RIGHT???) Self-censorship – that is, developers making choices on their own, during the game's development phase because of an external influence – is an absolute problem, especially with a highly-influenced culture like Japan's, but, for the trillionth time, that's not what's happening here. It's the localizers ruining it. If you still disagree, read through every one of my posts again.

I've watched the same twitter arguments and youtube videos that you've probably seen and they fail to explain how AI is going to solve all these problems.

I've "watched" jack aside from little snippets here and there, and they're all I need to know that localizers are full of it. And, speaking of all I need to know:

American politicians or conservative religious folk

These six little words – these measly little letters, all put together – tell me everything about where your mind is, and where the minds of people who agree with you are. (Funnily, I'd say bringing this up would be against the forum rules, but again – what do I know? )

I may be a monolingual baboon, but I don't think like this, and neither does AI. That's why I'm going to use it, and why, god willing, all Japanese-to-English translators will end up living in a cardboard box by the side of the road. Thank you for playing, Strategist, but this time, I don't think "strategy" has been your strong suit.

 

[Strategist]

Simply put: for the reasons I've explained and the actual, factual, published material I've provided, I cannot believe that companies are telling localizers to purposefully ruin their own games, and I have every reason to believe that the localizers are doing it themselves. I doubt I'll change your mind on this.

Like I said before there are many reasons, but at this point we can agree to disagree.

It "debunked" precisely nothing, because Robotech's situation is completely incomparable to video game translations for about forty trillion reasons. If we got games today that were original stories created using mashups of otherwise unrelated Japanese video games – which is what Robotech was, just in animation – that would be so different from a translated version of a game as to be utterly distinct.

The Pokemon case came from a mild xenophobia that American audiences wouldn't accept Japanese culture in their TV shows and that has been debunked over time. That is a different agenda of sorts.

As a matter of fact, I don't, and I'm the customer. That's a big problem for those dopes, isn't it? I sure hope this guy doesn't screw up at his next job, because being incompetent isn't tolerated outside of the video game industry.

You are the customer and your feelings are valid. But you aren't the only customer and not every customer feels the same way about things.

There are a lot of different ways I could go with this, but let's stay simple – really, it isn't. They're both pieces of promotional text aiming to accurately describe a message to an end-user. (From a comment you make later in this post, you seem to think copywriters deal with legal text, which isn't true – copy is the in-software messaging and the advertising material around it, almost like what they do in *gulp* video games.)

I write about feature sets instead of magical elf princesses with pointy ears, but at the end of the day, I'd want translations of both products to be as accurate as possible. Why wouldn't I? Can you imagine what would happen if some dipshit halfway across the world threw out what I wrote and made up a bunch of nonsense, then published that material as if it were my own? Why, I'd agree with the people criticizing him.

Fair, but to claim that every translator does that is factually incorrect.

And I've seen – and shown you – many examples of localizers purposefully altering a game's script to make it worse through their own idiocy. Again again, I'm the customer – the one who's paying for this – so my opinion matters most.

I can show you many examples of localizers who've done a phenomenal bang-up job. Basically every game I've played. I don't know which world you live in where every game translation is a hatchet job but I haven't seen it. Again, I don't follow modern anime, so it might be more localized to that area.

Edit: Actually the games I've experienced that had the worst translations were usually done by non-native Japanese translators. Speaks to the value of fluent Japanese to English translators, in my book.

Oh, good! Then localizers have nothing to worry about – just let the devs start replacing their jobs with AI, and everything will work out just fine. Consumers won't care, right?

I care. I personally think machine translation is garbage not fit for human consumption without some handholding. My opinion matters as a customer, right?

ChatGPT 4o and the latest version of Gemini are literally – literally – the most impressive pieces of technology I've ever used. It's a magic computer program that does anything in seconds. Localizers should be afraid – I'd sure be!

I'd have to take your word for it. But I'd be careful in assuming that what a copywriter does is the same as what a literary translator/localizer does. And I'd like to see some proof of a commercial literary work being fully translated using ChatGPT. That would be the ultimate proof of its wondrous abilities, don't you think? Is it really that amazing if no company is willing to put their reputation on the line and publish a commercial work using it?

WoahwoahWOAH, let's not try to steer the conversation using deceptive, manipulative runarounds! (We'd hate to do that, RIGHT???) Self-censorship – that is, developers making choices on their own, during the game's development phase because of an external influence – is an absolute problem, especially with a highly-influenced culture like Japan's, but, for the trillionth time, that's not what's happening here. It's the localizers ruining it. If you still disagree, read through every one of my posts again.

Claiming that the Japanese are highly influenced and incapable of making their own decisions is highly patronizing, don't you think? Their companies are just as successful, if not more and they enjoy dollars and yen as much as the rest of us do.

These six little words – these measly little letters, all put together – tell me everything about where your mind is, and where the minds of people who agree with you are. (Funnily, I'd say bringing this up would be against the forum rules, but again – what do I know? )

I may be a monolingual baboon, but I don't think like this, and neither does AI. That's why I'm going to use it, and why, god willing, all Japanese-to-English translators will end up living in a cardboard box by the side of the road. Thank you for playing, Strategist, but this time, I don't think "strategy" has been your strong suit.

That wasn't meant as a political statement, it is a simple matter of fact that American politicians (influenced by religious/parent/teacher lobbies) have tried time and time again to restrict what video games the American audience can play. Look at the history of the ESRB if you don't believe me. Nintendo is smart in avoiding another controversy. Japan simply doesn't have the same restrictive mores when it comes to sexualized content in games for minors/teens.

You bringing up politics to deflect my criticism seems as a weak tactic, in my opinion. Try again.

Post automatically merged: Dec 2, 2024

Absolutely not! The correct way to do jokes like these, as utilized by anime fansubs since the mid-2000s, is by translating the joke accurately – ideally, it should be funny enough on its own that the intended message is brought across regardless, but, if not, include a translation note, which helpfully explains the message in clear, understandable text that does not change the original script. If you'd really like to delete an original piece of writing and replace it with a completely unrelated one, PM me and I'll send you a knock-knock joke.

I do agree with you that the fansub way to translate jokes is the most accurate one, especially if you can add annotations and such. However, historically this hasn't been the approach used by localizers in any media; video games, movies, animation or otherwise. As someone who has watched Spanish dubs over the years, I've noticed the willingness to translate jokes to other cultural contexts with mixed results. I can't say which approach I prefer overall, there are positives and negatives to both. But in a video game, where text space is limited, one seems way more practical than the other. In any case, this is clearly not a new phenomenon. Not sure why people are up in arms about it now.

 

[dropsmegamega]

There seems to be a lot of misconceptions about the localization process in this thread, as if some annoying twitter dude would alone take every decision without consultation and even cut WHOLE MECHANICS from a famous series!! Also it's not like corpos can't just hire someone else or direct the translator to translate things more accurately, instead of you know, not address these issues at all when they come up.

Plus there's extreme idealism both regarding AI itself and also how corporations intend to use it. There is absolutely no guarantee they won't simply get an underpaid schmuck to revise the AI translation and change lines that they deem controversial, but in this case, with shitty AI translation on top of it. Because if there is something to be taken from this whole AI thing is that they don't care.

 

[Leon]

As i'm sure has probably been pointed out but i'll reiterate, ai translation doesn't mean there's no human in the process, it means that a ai will do a blunt translation and one or a few proofreaders will put in the language nuances that the ai will miss, ai translations aren't on the face of it a bad thing, as long as they aren't "just" using the ai translator.

As for the political/woke insert side of it, translators can slip that in far easier than a proofreader can as the proofreader has far less control over the script and can only fix nuances, vs a translator, this is likely being made more viable both because of costs and what happened with eiyuuten chronicle, as unlike most cases where political biases can slip through on japanese games, the backlash was so bad it negatively effected the sales in english speaking nations.

 

[Strategist]

As for the political/woke insert side of it, translators can slip that in far easier than a proofreader can as the proofreader has far less control over the script and can only fix nuances, vs a translator, this is likely being made more viable both because of costs and what happened with eiyuuten chronicle, as unlike most cases where political biases can slip through on japanese games, the backlash was so bad it negatively effected the sales in english speaking nations.

What was the political bias in Eiyuuten chronicle? I ask because I've seen that claim but I haven't really seen any substantive proof of it.

And proof that the backlash actually affected sales? That seems impossible to substantiate without insider sales figures.

 

[Gorse]

Like I said before there are many reasons, but at this point we can agree to disagree.

Yes, I think that would be best. THAT BEING SAID, THOUGH, I do want to reiterate that I’ve supported my points with factual evidence and proven examples, not motivated reasoning from biased parties, but at this point I don’t think that’s going to change your or anyone else’s minds, so.

I don't know which world you live in where every game translation is a hatchet job but I haven't seen it.

I’ve given you about eight examples in this thread so far — and, might I add, those examples were chosen specifically because they were from series that I was interested in! There are several trillion more examples, obviously, like other people have listed in this thread, but, again, at this point I don’t think providing any more will change your mind, so I’m not going to list them out.

My opinion matters as a customer, right?

It certainly does, but the entire point of this thread is that both consumers and developers are becoming more comfortable with AI translations — so, y’know, that side is winning out. I consider it progress.

And I'd like to see some proof of a commercial literary work being fully translated using ChatGPT. That would be the ultimate proof of its wondrous abilities, don't you think? Is it really that amazing if no company is willing to put their reputation on the line and publish a commercial work using it?

Hey, it’s still early days! Consumer-grade AI has only been out for around 2 years, with advanced models being out for less than one, which is below the development time of most video games. I think there actually must be professionally-published games that are already using it on digital stores like Steam, but nothing comes to mind, so for now, I’ll reference fan-hacks like Welcome House or this Shining Ark translation. Come back in three years or so and I’ll gladly be able to provide you with boxed games that use AI.

Claiming that the Japanese are highly influenced and incapable of making their own decisions is highly patronizing, don't you think?

Japan’s culture, and its pop culture specifically, being heavily influenced by outside forces is a well-documented phenomenon that’s obviously a much bigger issue than is worth discussing here. (That page is a very, very general example, but I’m sure there are others about America’s more recent influence on Japan’s culture — see also the book Pure Invention by Ken Alt.)

I’d personally go so far as to say that the Japanese people are more easily influenced by external sources than other people are for all sorts of koo-koo reasons, but I haven’t read enough on the topic to offer an informed opinion. (That being said, though, I’d point to the large-scale change in target audience of Japanese entertainment from domestic audiences to American ones starting in the late 2010s as a big example of this, but again — I’m not informed enough to know for sure, and I know this is a controversial topic.) I say this all purely academically, and can’t argue the points beyond what I’ve listed here, because, despite everything I’ve written in this thread, I’m actually not that big of a Japanophile.

it is a simple matter of fact that American politicians (influenced by religious/parent/teacher lobbies) have tried time and time again to restrict what video games the American audience can play. Look at the history of the ESRB if you don't believe me.

Dude, the post-Night Trap video game ratings controversy was in 1991, over thirty years ago, and was rightly condemned by the industry and players at large. Things, as I’ve said endlessly in this thread, have changed a lot since then, and we should be more culturally aware and less willing to censor three decades after that controversy.

Also, I am so, so glad you mentioned that you weren’t politically-motivated, because the Night Trap controversy was spearheaded by this crazy right-wing conservative wackadoo named Hillary Clinton. I don’t know how this evil Republican cur — probably hyped up on Fox News and other alt-right media sources — ever got away with it. Let’s hope she never runs for president!

You bringing up politics to deflect my criticism seems as a weak tactic, in my opinion.

I’d say using snide, smarmy, smug manipulation to (unsuccessfully) steer the conversation, disregarding all provided evidence in favour of presenting biased arguments by people who agree with you, purposefully ignoring very clearly-accurate, unarguable issues, presenting falsified versions of real-life events that don’t coincide with your own reasoning, and impotently attempting to control your image through the repetition of things you’ve heard other impotent pro-censorship ideologues say on the Internet are pretty “weak tactics”… but, again, hey, what do I know.

But in a video game, where text space is limited, one seems way more practical than the other.

Well, thinking about it, you could make the argument that there’s really no reason not to — translators, as shown previously, seem more than happy to alter content in a game, so why not include a few translation notes here and there? Anime and manga translators have, and I’d prefer context be added rather than taken away.

For the record, I don’t actually expect anyone to do this… but maybe AI will?

As someone who has watched Spanish dubs over the years, I've noticed the willingness to translate jokes to other cultural contexts with mixed results.

OK, Strategist, let me level with you for a second here. I, as you may be aware, am an English-native speaker from an English-native country. (Well, Canada technically has two official languages, but let’s put that point aside for now.) I don’t know if the culture where you are is different — maybe Spanish translators are more willing to cut stuff out and make stuff up — but this thread is exclusively about Japanese-to-English translations, for the benefit of people who speak English natively in English-dominant countries. I genuinely don’t know what people who speak other languages value in their translations — I can’t imagine it would be that different from my own values, because high-quality work seems universally good to me — but maybe alterations and censorship are more common and acceptable elsewhere. If that’s the case, then heaven bless you all, and I legitimately hope you get the translations you want.

As a native English speaker, though — the primary audience for Japanese-to-English translations, and therefore the most informed to pass judgement on them — I personally assure you that high-quality, accurate translations with as few alterations as humanly possible are what we, by and large, demand. There are many exceptions from insane ideologues on the Internet, but, as the widespread adoption of and enthusiasm for AI has shown, they are now the minority, and things are going to change a lot going forward. Maybe that isn’t true for non-English speakers, but, uh… for us, it is.

Not sure why people are up in arms about it now.

Because — sing it with me now — poor-quality translations were bad then, and they’re worse now, because we should know better at this point. I actually think you know exactly why people are “up in arms about this stuff”, but are choosing to act aloof about it to maintain your own ego. (Hello, “weak tactics”!)

as if some annoying twitter dude would alone take every decision without consultation and even cut WHOLE MECHANICS from a famous series!!

It happened, very clearly and obviously, with Fire Emblem. Is that famous enough of a series for you?

 

[Strategist]

Yes, I think that would be best. THAT BEING SAID, THOUGH, I do want to reiterate that I’ve supported my points with factual evidence and proven examples, not motivated reasoning from biased parties, but at this point I don’t think that’s going to change your or anyone else’s minds, so.

I think we can agree that the problem exists. And it is a problem that will always exist when it comes to Japanese to English translation due to the differences in the language. The severity of the problem is where the disagreements come. Again, I have no reason to doubt your sources but I see a lot of twitter back and forth in some of the arguments and very little line by line comparisons. I don't care about twitter drama, I care about substance.

I’ve given you about eight examples in this thread so far — and, might I add, those examples were chosen specifically because they were from series that I was interested in! There are several trillion more examples, obviously, like other people have listed in this thread, but, again, at this point I don’t think providing any more will change your mind, so I’m not going to list them out.

Like I said that is fair, but you didn't make the argument that the translators for your anime show are hacks. No, you made the claim that ALL translators are hacks and social activists. And that is not only unverifiable, that is also patently untrue.

It certainly does, but the entire point of this thread is that both consumers and developers are becoming more comfortable with AI translations — so, y’know, that side is winning out. I consider it progress.

I don't doubt that some day we will have the technology to translate everything perfectly without the need of humans. That day hasn't arrived yet and won't be arriving anytime soon. Probably not in our lifetimes.

Hey, it’s still early days! Consumer-grade AI has only been out for around 2 years, with advanced models being out for less than one, which is below the development time of most video games. I think there actually must be professionally-published games that are already using it on digital stores like Steam, but nothing comes to mind, so for now, I’ll reference fan-hacks like Welcome House or this Shining Ark translation. Come back in three years or so and I’ll gladly be able to provide you with boxed games that use AI.

Fan hacks don't have the money for anything other than AI translations and don't have to suffer any major consequences from a botched translation. Seems like the ideal spot to mess around with machine translation. I do think that AI has a place and that seems like an ideal spot for it. And also providing access to an AI service to translate less common languages like what RetroArch does. It could even be used for those who prefer a literal translation to Japanese. I wouldn't be against providing an option for a machine translated script in a video game. But I don't think it is an acceptable replacement for quality prose written by an expert. At least not yet.

Dude, the post-Night Trap video game ratings controversy was in 1991, over thirty years ago, and was rightly condemned by the industry and players at large. Things, as I’ve said endlessly in this thread, have changed a lot since then, and we should be more culturally aware and less willing to censor three decades after that controversy.

Also, I am so, so glad you mentioned that you weren’t politically-motivated, because the Night Trap controversy was spearheaded by this crazy right-wing conservative wackadoo named Hillary Clinton. I don’t know how this evil Republican cur — probably hyped up on Fox News and other alt-right media sources — ever got away with it. Let’s hope she never runs for president!

I didn't mean to assign blame to any particular party. I corrected my post because I noticed how it could be misconstrued in that way. However, you are incorrect when it comes the Night Trap controversy, that was the project of a Senator Lieberman, an independent. And Hillary Clinton is particularly conservative when it comes to many social issues.

I’d say using snide, smarmy, smug manipulation to (unsuccessfully) steer the conversation, disregarding all provided evidence in favour of presenting biased arguments by people who agree with you, purposefully ignoring very clearly-accurate, unarguable issues, presenting falsified versions of real-life events that don’t coincide with your own reasoning, and impotently attempting to control your image through the repetition of things you’ve heard other impotent pro-censorship ideologies say on the Internet are pretty “weak tactics”… but, again, hey, what do I know.

Yup everyone who disagrees with you is snide, smarmy, smug and a manipulator, got it. Solid arguments!

Well, thinking about it, you could make the argument that there’s really no reason not to — translators, as I’ve shown previously, seem more than happy to alter content in a game, so why not include a few translation notes here and there? Anime and manga translators have, and I’d prefer context be added rather than taken away.

For the record, I don’t actually expect anyone to do this… but maybe AI will?

This is one of the few constructive arguments you've made in this post.

As far as translator notes, I've only seen them used in classical novels and fan subs. Academia and hardcore anime nerds certainly see the value in those footnotes, but entertainment corporations do not. Maybe you could use your passion to convince them otherwise.

OK, Strategist, let me level with you for a second here. I, as you may be aware, am an English-native speaker from an English-native country. (Well, Canada technically has two official languages, but let’s put that point aside for now.) I don’t know if the culture where you are is different — maybe Spanish translators are more willing to cut stuff out and make stuff up — but this thread is exclusively about Japanese-to-English translations, for the benefit of people who speak English natively in English-dominant countries. I genuinely don’t know what people who speak other languages value in their translations — I can’t imagine it would be that different from my own values, because high-quality work seems universally good to me — but maybe alterations and censorship are more common and acceptable elsewhere. If that’s the case, then heaven bless you all, and I legitimately hope you get the translations you want.

Somebody posted a joke in English literally translated to Spanish. Propose to us how you'd translate that joke properly to a Spanish speaking audience. Or if you think it is a proper translation to leave it as it is literally, because that is what the AI will do.

As a native English speaker, though — the primary audience for Japanese-to-English translations, and therefore the most informed to pass judgement on them — I personally assure you that high-quality, accurate translations with as few alterations as humanly possible are what we, by and large, demand. There are many exceptions from insane ideologues on the Internet, but, as the widespread adoption of and enthusiasm for AI has shown, they are now the minority, and things are going to change a lot going forward. Maybe that isn’t true for non-English speakers, but, uh… for us, it is.

How do you think I mostly consume Japanese media? Through English translations. Although I prefer subtitles whenever possible. Seems weird to gatekeep English localization when people all over the world are forced to use it to consume Japanese media.

Because — sing it with me now —poor-quality translations were bad then, and they’re worse now, because we should know better at this point. I actually think you know exactly why people are “up in arms about this stuff”, but are choosing to act aloof about it to maintain your own ego. (Hello, “weak tactics”!)

Yup bad translation is bad, we can all agree on that. What you refuse to see is that not everyone agrees on what you consider to be a "bad" translation. And they have valid reasons to do so.

Uh, it happened, very clearly and obviously, with Fire Emblem! Is that famous enough of a series for you?

Which gameplay element was removed from Fire Emblem? Like I posted before, the face rubbing wasn't removed, it was toned down in the American version. And it certainly wasn't at the behest of a translator. A translator doesn't have the technical expertise to remove a whole feature from a game without breaking other stuff. That would require cooperation from a developer and a project manager would probably be aware of it. Project Managers report to higher ups so everyone is aware of what's going on. I speak about this from experience working on software projects.

 

[Leon]

What was the political bias in Eiyuuten chronicle? I ask because I've seen that claim but I haven't really seen any substantive proof of it.

And proof that the backlash actually affected sales? That seems impossible to substantiate without insider sales figures.

Perhaps political bias wasn't the right term but i didn't really want to use "woke" for this, what i remember specifically was removing some gendered language (he did this vs they did this kind of thing), a specific sexualized dialogue was altered and a ton of, i hate using this term but, "zoomer slang" was inserted where it made no sense especially for a game set in a fantasy story.
Nexus mods has examples in the translation patch for the script to be more closer to the japanese script:

Eiyuden Chronicles Translation Fixes

This mod makes changes to the official English localization.

www.nexusmods.com

More examples here:

Eiyuden Chronicle: Hundred Heroes

Eiyuden Chronicle: Hundred Heroes is a Japanese RPG that was developed by Rabbit and Bear Studios and published by 505 Games. The video game was released on April 23, 2024. The Western localizations were made very politically correct, making them considerably different from the original Japanese...

censorship.fandom.com

As for the sales numbers, during it's release there were mentions from the translator how they were upset being blamed for the game's poor sales in the english speaking areas on steam, sorry but finding the post would be difficult, it was also mentioned in a few news articles but i'm blanking on them atm, so you can disregard that if you want, but it was widely mentioned around the game's release.