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

[dropsmegamega]

I don't believe any of these companies are progressive in the true sense of the word. They may put on a façade but from first hand accounts of people who have worked for the company, they aren't exactly against exploiting their workers.

Yes, I agree, it's all about maintaining their good image to the general public while exploiting their workers. And it's sad because sometimes supposedly progressive artists will defend then solely because their are being financed by then. But I've went for too long in this political stuff. Let's get back on topic.

 

[ATenderLad]

The "imperialist military American FPS shooter" genre died off in the mid-2010s (Spec Ops: The Line was 2011)

Let's start here, I'm amazed you referenced me and built a strawman out of opinions I don't have, but also didn't read any of my posts apparently? I literally brought up a recent game in the genre, and The Division 2 and Rainbow Six are still going strong. If you don't know something, why say it so confidently?

You all don't like it when privileged white people impose their western values on impressionable foreigners, right...?

I'm looking through my posts, when have we ever talked about this? My only guess I insulted that Nazi a few weeks back, I guess you've been keeping score on who's left/right like an obsessed culture warrior.

That's why I'm such a pedantic irritant about all this, because I actually liked what it had been before – even if it wasn't inclusive. Whoops! If you think I'm being overly dramatic, by all means, do laugh about it – I've got the champagne bottles ready for when AI eats you alive.

I'm glad you have your internet working again, but maybe you *should* be going outside more.

 

[Strategist's iconStrategist]

I'm looking through my posts, when have we ever talked about this? My only guess I insulted that Nazi a few weeks back, I guess you've been keeping score on who's left/right like an obsessed culture warrior.

He's referring to the idea that American/English speaking localizers are imposing their cultural norms on the Japanese and making an equivalent to cultural colonization (something that liberals would typically oppose). And I do think there's some validity to that idea but I don't think it is as pervasive as the online discourse makes it seem.

 

[Gorse]

I'm amazed you referenced me and built a strawman out of opinions I don't have, but also didn't read any of my posts apparently?

WoahwoahwoahWOAH there buddy, I wasn’t referring to you specifically at all! Throughout my posts, I’m referring to the general left-wing boogeyman who’s an amalgamation of all the things I’ve been arguing against during this thread. You’ll note that I also mentioned Strategist, who has repeatedly stated that he isn’t left or right wing (and, for the record, I don’t think he is ideologically-driven at all), in the same breath — because I was making a cheeky aside about how you both probably disagree with the opinions I’ve stated here in a very general, loosey-goosey sense. (You and I haven’t even replied to each other’s posts in this thread, yet!)

To be 100% honest, I haven’t even read your and Clippy’s posts in this thread and don’t plan on it, because it’s an entirely different discussion I wasn’t a part of and I don’t give a hoot about the subject. Neither you, Strategist, or anyone else in this thread is who I’m talking about, because you aren’t the ones translating these video games.

I guess you've been keeping score on who's left/right like an obsessed culture warrior.

I'm glad you have your internet working again, but maybe you *should* be going outside more.

 

[ATenderLad]

He's referring to the idea that American/English speaking localizers are imposing their cultural norms on the Japanese and making an equivalent to cultural colonization (something that liberals would typically oppose). And I do think there's some validity to that idea but I don't think it is as pervasive as the online discourse makes it seem.

I appreciate you clarifying, I knew that though. I was confused how it related to *me*, was all.

On that topic, all I would say is America being overwhelmingly the largest commercial market for games is going to influence the Japanese game industry more than any online censorship discussion or the work of individual localizers with a "terrifying agenda" ever could.

 

[Strategist's iconStrategist]

I appreciate you clarifying, I knew that though. I was confused how it related to *me*, was all.

On that topic, all I would say is America being overwhelmingly the largest commercial market for games is going to influence the Japanese game industry more than any online censorship discussion or the work of individual localizers with a "terrifying agenda" ever could.

That's my take too, although I am sympathetic to the creators. I blame the Japanese suits for that issue more than any American though. At the end of the day, the American market has certain restrictions for what belongs in certain game ratings. The Japanese businessmen can choose to release their games in North America at a higher age rating, profits be damned, but they choose to be cowardly and censor their games.

For example the DQ3 remake controversy that was discussed a couple of months ago:

https://www.reddit.com/r/JRPG/comments/1fsvzno/creator_y%C5%ABjidono_and_db_editor_kazuhikodono/

Quoted from the link above:

Naz Chris (Host): "The costume design has become a huge topic of discussion."

Yuji Horii: "Well, there are various regulations, you know. We can't have too much exposure."

Naz Chris: "But that's fine. Even though it's fiction, you, the protagonist, are going on an adventure within it, so I think that's okay. Isn't it?"

Yuji Horii: "I don't really know. I'm not sure about that."

Naz Chris: "It's a game. It's a non-fiction virtual experience within fiction, so I think it should be fun."

Yuji Horii: "If there's too much exposure, the target age rating goes up. It could no longer be suitable for all ages."

Naz Chris: "I didn't think about that back then."

Kazuhiko Torishima: "There's this absolute god called 'compliance.' It’s like evil disguised as good. Not everyone can feel comfortable with everything. After all, concepts of beauty and ugliness, good and evil vary from person to person. At the root of things, there are definitely some things you should never do, and as long as you avoid those, everything else should be fine. But that’s not the case. The concept of sex education that comes from religious ideas in the West is prevalent in America. Their view on compliance is really narrow. When they publish comics over there, they have to categorize them by age. If it's a Weekly Shōnen Jump manga, it can't be published for anyone under 13 years old. Everything has to go through reworkings. You have to get insurance in case of lawsuits. It's really troublesome. Japan has also been negatively influenced by this."

Yuji Horii: "You can choose the protagonist's gender, but you can't say 'choose male or female.' It's type 1 and type 2. I wonder who would complain if we just said male and female? I don't understand."

This interview suggests what common sense would indicate: The censorship is dictated by the corporate guidelines that are trying to meet the restrictions of American books for teens and young kids. So it is a sort of cultural colonization, but the culture that's colonizing isn't the American. It is the effects of the free market. If the Japanese valued artistry over profits, it would be a non-issue.

 

[Clippy]

To think the last 3 pages could've been avoided if only we used a simple guide to modern Internet discourse.

But noooooooo, we had to take the high road and be adults about it. I'm actually kinda proud of us.

 

[dropsmegamega]

This interview suggests what common sense would indicate: The censorship is dictated by the corporate guidelines that are trying to meet the restrictions of American books for teens and young kids. So it is a sort of cultural colonization, but the culture that's colonizing isn't the American. It is the effects of the free market. If the Japanese valued artistry over profits, it would be a non-issue.

How is the culture colonizing not the American? The market imposes profit and to make profit you need to meet the American cultural restrictions, at the end of the day its the same because without profit (most) things cannot get made.

 

[Strategist's iconStrategist]

How is the culture colonizing not the American? The market imposes profit and to make profit you need to meet the American cultural restrictions, at the end of the day its the same because without profit (most) things cannot get made.

A company can take a principled stand and choose to value their customers over absolute profits. Taking every cost cutting measure in the interest of maximizing profits is not always in the best interest of a company. They could release their books with a teen rating and accept the lesser profits. No American is forcing them to release them a certain way. At the end of the day, they are choosing money over art.

 

[dropsmegamega]

A company can take a principled stand and choose to value their customers over absolute profits. Taking every cost cutting measure in the interest of maximizing profits is not always in the best interest of a company. They could release their books with a teen rating and accept the lesser profits. No American is forcing them to release them a certain way. At the end of the day, they are choosing money over art.

In most cases this is a very idealist take. But it doesn't matter how you put it, it doesn't take away the fact these cultural restrictions exist in the first place and are used to impose values, even if they technically aren't absolute they still constitute a form of censorship and shouldn't be underestimated.

 

[starseeker300]

This sums up my thoughts on ai pretty well

 

[spectresfrommercury]

indifferent

 

[Pockets]

I've used AI to translate some Japanese only manga that never got fully translated and I used the AI real-time translation mod to play Dragon Quest X in English but that's for stuff that isn't officially available in English.

I think if you're paying for anything it should not be made with AI.

 

[BROTHERJGRJI]

I guess they probably shouldn't use AI to translate games.

I played AI-translated Love Plus on DS and it looked like a genuine localization. Otherwise we'd never receive a translation even though it's a big company. But they have to have a supervisor as others pointed out. If it'll mean we will get a localized game then I'm all for this

 

[Skeetos]

As long as there is still human input for proof reading I don't mind. It'd probably make these projects cheaper and quicker. But I can see it being horrible if someone doesn't advise the AI.

 

[ZEGA ZONIC]

Real translations are better than AI ones.

Let the real people that have real talent & dedication & love for a game translate your games.
Not a beep-boop 1010101010101 Skynet looking bot.

 

[Ikagura]

Real translations are better than AI ones.

Let the real people that have real talent & dedication & love for a game translate your games.
Not a beep-boop 1010101010101 Skynet looking bot.

Unless they're shoehorning memes and pop culture references or are even changing the intent or personality of a character.

I'm sorry but I think that some "localisers" are just not that talented but managed to meet the right person at the right moment.

Even if it's rare I just think that if someone gets paid for a translation we expect some quality in return

 

[Strategist's iconStrategist]

Unless they're shoehorning memes and pop culture references or are even changing the intent or personality of a character.

I'm sorry but I think that some "localisers" are just not that talented but managed to meet the right person at the right moment.

The reality is that we don't know what decisons were made due to corporate interference, creative decisions to alter the script for a particular locale, or time constraints. Assuming that apparent mistakes are a clear indication of incompetence is "speaking out of your arse" for a lack of a better phrase.

 

[RageBurner]

The reality is that we don't know what decisons were made due to corporate interference, creative decisions to alter the script for a particular locale, or time constraints. Assuming that apparent mistakes are a clear indication of incompetence is "speaking out of your arse" for a lack of a better phrase.

Scripts are, for the most part, a combination of all these things. There's really no true substitute for knowing the original language, sadly.

 

[Strategist's iconStrategist]

Scripts are, for the most part, a combination of all these things. There's really no true substitute for knowing the original language, sadly.

Yup, even Spanish to English translation where it should be relatively easy, there's idiosyncrasies that prevent a 100% accurate translation. Its even worse from Japanese to English. A completely accurate Japanese to English translation seems impossible from what little I know about the language. Some creative decisions have to be made to make it sound like fluent English.

If you don't believe me, here's 20 words/phrases in Japanese with no direct correlation in English.

23 Untranslatable Japanese Words with Beautiful Meanings

There are hundreds of untranslatable Japanese words that have no English counterpart. Here is a list of 23 beautiful and untranslatable Japanese words.

avo-translations.co.uk

 

[Lee__Kanker]

WoahwoahwoahWOAH there buddy, I wasn’t referring to you specifically at all! Throughout my posts, I’m referring to the general left-wing boogeyman who’s an amalgamation of all the things I’ve been arguing against during this thread. You’ll note that I also mentioned Strategist, who has repeatedly stated that he isn’t left or right wing (and, for the record, I don’t think he is ideologically-driven at all), in the same breath — because I was making a cheeky aside about how you both probably disagree with the opinions I’ve stated here in a very general, loosey-goosey sense. (You and I haven’t even replied to each other’s posts in this thread, yet!)

To be 100% honest, I haven’t even read your and Clippy’s posts in this thread and don’t plan on it, because it’s an entirely different discussion I wasn’t a part of and I don’t give a hoot about the subject. Neither you, Strategist, or anyone else in this thread is who I’m talking about, because you aren’t the ones translating these video games.

Gorse you crazy bastard, at the risk of sounding gay I love you! I thought I was gonna get banned for expressing my hatred of woke localizers and censorship! It already happened on the discord so thanks for testing the waters!
I'm all for it, I long to see localizers finally switch to being unsuccessful writers like they've always wanted to and live in their nice cardboard box where no tweet can bother them


I love how its the most nuanced topic in the universe us lowly nerds who didnt get in the industry through personal connections would never understand, but also so easy to figure out fans have been doing it for free since forever and translation inaccuracies get spotted so quickly they become famous

Localizers also never do anything out of malice and spite for the costumer except when they brag about it in public

Personally Im an english teacher and Ive done a bunch of translations for friends, in italy censorship and general script deviations are always met with distain so I was surprised to see the anglo ones have their diehard white knights. I never understood it but hey, whatever makes ya happy

As for my experience with AI; I used the one from opensubtitles.com to translate king of the hill and when the wind blows. To my surprise they got like 90% of it right despite the heavy use of dialect and figures of speech/phrases that dont exist or are untranslatable in italian! It used to take me a good 2 hours to translate a movie!

Im really really looking forward to when it makes fantranslations a breeze, when fans will be able to translating something before the internazional version even comes out, or even better going back and fixing old stuff like the ff8 english script

If its already "good enough you can follow it" in two years who knows about the future!

 

[Ikagura]

Gorse you crazy bastard, at the risk of sounding gay I love you! I thought I was gonna get banned for expressing my hatred of woke localizers and censorship! It already happened on the discord so thanks for testing the waters!
I'm all for it, I long to see localizers finally switch to being unsuccessful writers like they've always wanted to and live in their nice cardboard box where no tweet can bother them


I love how its the most nuanced topic in the universe us lowly nerds who didnt get in the industry through personal connections would never understand, but also so easy to figure out fans have been doing it for free since forever and translation inaccuracies get spotted so quickly they become famous

Localizers also never do anything out of malice and spite for the costumer except when they brag about it in public

Personally Im an english teacher and Ive done a bunch of translations for friends, in italy censorship and general script deviations are always met with distain so I was surprised to see the anglo ones have their diehard white knights. I never understood it but hey, whatever makes ya happy

As for my experience with AI; I used the one from opensubtitles.com to translate king of the hill and when the wind blows. To my surprise they got like 90% of it right despite the heavy use of dialect and figures of speech/phrases that dont exist or are untranslatable in italian! It used to take me a good 2 hours to translate a movie!

Im really really looking forward to when it makes fantranslations a breeze, when fans will be able to translating something before the internazional version even comes out, or even better going back and fixing old stuff like the ff8 english script

If its already "good enough you can follow it" in two years who knows about the future!

I don't like saying woke because like many other things on the Internet many are calling anything they don't like as such and other overused terms but I'll say that Crunchyroll and Funimation's ""translation"" gave me a bitter taste.

I don't care the slightest about MKDM nor Slice of Life but this is not professional at all.

This is 4kids level of change.

 

[Somnia]

But you GOTTA have a human overseeing the project.

This! AI tools for tons of projects from translation to upscaling can produce solid work but it /needs/ humans overseeing it for those results to be worth anything. I've seen people on twitter try to argue for or against certain translations or localizations purely off of AI translations when the user themselves doesn't know the language. It almost always ends up in someone who does know coming in and having to explain why the original user is wrong or misinformed.

The idea of someone with no knowledge just throwing it into an AI and then using the output without the ability to verify or refine anything makes me sad lol

 

[Lee__Kanker]

I don't like saying woke because like many other things on the Internet many are calling anything they don't like as such and other overused terms but I'll say that Crunchyroll and Funimation's ""translation"" gave me a bitter taste.

I don't care the slightest about MKDM nor Slice of Life but this is not professional at all.
View attachment 37396

This is 4kids level of change.

Well "biased" can be used like that too, 4kids-tier may be lost on ppl under 24, at least with woke in this context most ppl know what you mean

Oh Ive seen that one but you can go more way more recent

 

[RageBurner]

It would be no different than asking a parrot to do simultaneous translation for you while praying for the powers that be that an international crisis can be avoided.

Edit: Wow the above is J2E levels of cringe. Wrong and biased