Will AI machine translation help fan translation game projects?

[Graw]

And of course, the actual content of the game may be considered offensive by someone of a different culture background, so things of that nature would also need to be changed

I heavily disagree with the use of the word need here. It absolutely does not need to be changed because some people might be offended. Just because this happens as part of localization doesn't mean it's necessary or even should be happening. The easily offended really just need to learn their feelings are not the most important thing in the world.

 

[Egg (McMuffin) Man]

I heavily disagree with the use of the word need here. It absolutely does not need to be changed because some people might be offended. Just because this happens as part of localization doesn't mean it's necessary or even should be happening. The easily offended really just need to learn their feelings are not the most important thing in the world.

Ehhhhh, idk. I don't like censorship either but if you're a business than you probably want to avoid controversy. That's why Nintendo hasn't released Mother 3 in the West.

 

[Graw]

Ehhhhh, idk. I don't like censorship either but if you're a business than you probably want to avoid controversy. That's why Nintendo hasn't released Mother 3 in the West.

I don't fully disagree with you but I don't agree with you either but I feel like my opinions on all of this are outside the scope of the thread topic so I'm just going to leave it.

 

[Leon]

Ehhhhh, idk. I don't like censorship either but if you're a business than you probably want to avoid controversy. That's why Nintendo hasn't released Mother 3 in the West.

No, mother 3 hasn't been released in the west because of copyrighted stuff that can't be removed easily, at least that's what the creator of it claimed.

 

[Egg (McMuffin) Man]

I don't fully disagree with you but I don't agree with you either but I feel like my opinions on all of this are outside the scope of the thread topic so I'm just going to leave it.

And I don't disagree with you either but I think you're narrowing in on specific words and assuming that I'm saying something else. Especially the last part of the post should make it clear I wasn't advocating for any of that.

No, mother 3 hasn't been released in the west because of copyrighted stuff that can't be removed easily, at least that's what the creator of it claimed.

Sure that's one reason, but NoA also has its own policies and the game would need some heavy changes that would also not be easy due to the characters in question being crucial to the story of the game. Even if the copyrighted stuff wasn't an issue, NoA knows that America has two main groups and that both groups would be offended by the game and hurt their brand image. The game was always destined to stay in the import pile.

Btw it's good to see you here.

 

[Leon]

And I don't disagree with you either but I think you're narrowing in on specific words and assuming that I'm saying something else. Especially the last part of the post should make it clear I wasn't advocating for any of that.

Sure that's one reason, but NoA also has its own policies and the game would need some heavy changes that would also not be easy due to the characters in question being crucial to the story of the game. Even if the copyrighted stuff wasn't an issue, NoA knows that America has two main groups and that both groups would be offended by the game and hurt their brand image. The game was always destined to stay in the import pile.

Btw it's good to see you here.

Except it doesn't, it's got 2 small, heavily minded political groups, and 1 large group in the middle that literally doesn't care about politics unless people start insulting them for watching it or someone ruins it, same thing happened with the "satanic panic" of the 70's and 80's, the "video game violence" bs of the 90's and early 2000's, and now we have the current situation that's based on identity politics.

Most people are in the middle and usually don't vote and even forgetting all of that, mother 3 came out before this became a big thing, it started around 2010-2012 and really started with the ghostbusters remake, mother 3 was released in 2006 if i remember right.

 

[Egg (McMuffin) Man]

mother 3 was released in 2006

The magipsies would have been a problem in 2006. They would still be a problem today but for different reasons. They would have to censor them, but that would also change the story.

In 2025 it would be a much bigger issue than it would have been in 2006. I speculate that the Tingle games on the DS (Zelda spinoffs) didn't get released by NoA for similar reasoning; they would have been socially problematic and had the potential to harm the brand image which wouldn't have been worth it for a minor game featuring an obscure character. Mother 3 was probably in the same boat + the copyright issues and the late release date. Remember that NoA is the same company that forced things like censoring religious symbolism in Castlevania, they don't want to risk offending anyone.

 

[Leon]

The magipsies would have been a problem in 2006. They would still be a problem today but for different reasons. They would have to censor them, but that would also change the story.

In 2025 it would be a much bigger issue than it would have been in 2006. I speculate that the Tingle games on the DS (Zelda spinoffs) didn't get released by NoA for similar reasoning; they would have been socially problematic and had the potential to harm the brand image which wouldn't have been worth it for a minor game featuring an obscure character. Mother 3 was probably in the same boat + the copyright issues and the late release date. Remember that NoA is the same company that forced things like censoring religious symbolism in Castlevania, they don't want to risk offending anyone.

Can't comment as i haven't played enough of mother 3 for that one, but tingle's game was probably left out because the fanbase at the time in north america was well known to DESPISE tingle with a passion, not for his "querks", but his overall character, including his greed, it was bad enough that had it come to america it would have effected sales.

The cross thing was stupid but fair enough on that one.

 

[ShinnAsukaYESTaylorSwiftNO]

in reality, regardless of your thoughts on AI in general, yes

 

[MontyMole303]

Looking at the positives, if it hadn't been for the progress with AI these days, we wouldn't have quite a few of the recent translations :)

For all the hate, I'm a fan.

Is it perfect? Of course not, but it's getting better.

Great times ahead.

 

[RageBurner]

Despite all the massive sprinklings of salt around the topic, it is a tool like any other. Ideally, AI translations would drum up interest from human translators for a future pass, but that often doesn't happen, and it isn't the fact an AI project exists that does it; often enough a given game would have gotten no patch at all, full stop. Correlation isn't causation, even though some people wish it were.

 

[Leon]

Despite all the massive sprinklings of salt around the topic, it is a tool like any other. Ideally, AI translations would drum up interest from human translators for a future pass, but that often doesn't happen, and it isn't the fact an AI project exists that does it; often enough a given game would have gotten no patch at all, full stop. Correlation isn't causation, even though some people wish it were.

The problem with AI is people keep thinking it's going to do what it legitimately can't, when it comes to jobs for example, truly skilled artists don't have anything to fear, but "artists" might since ai can do what they do, aka phoning it in.
Doctors will also be effected, but not as severely as people tend to think, most manual jobs we're decades from replacing.

The biggest problem with AI is the mass rollout in dangerous ways, like poisoning water tables and driving up electrical costs, these are massive problems and we do need to tackle them.

 

[RageBurner]

The biggest problem with AI is the mass rollout in dangerous ways, like poisoning water tables and driving up electrical costs, these are massive problems and we do need to tackle them.

That is a fact. Real problems need real addressing, not the imaginary ones.

 

[Valcrist]

Despite all the massive sprinklings of salt around the topic, it is a tool like any other. Ideally, AI translations would drum up interest from human translators for a future pass, but that often doesn't happen, and it isn't the fact an AI project exists that does it; often enough a given game would have gotten no patch at all, full stop. Correlation isn't causation, even though some people wish it were.

I don't think we need a future pass with the base being the lowest quality translation possible. As someone who used to edit and quality check translations for several years, I can assure you that you're playing a telephone game and the end result is severely damaged.

I'm fine with people having it if they want it but just know that machine translations don't understand context and Japanese for instance is a highly context sensitive language.

 

[Thatbro21]

Absolutely! Games that previously would have taken a long time to get translated into English, or would never have received one, are now much more possible.
- Ai is a Tool. Will you use it the right way? Will you get poisoned by it?

 

[MontyMole303]

"Japanese for instance is a highly context sensitive language."

"AI does not understand language like a human can. It does not pick up on subtext, innuendos, irony, or history in conversation."

"far too many hurdles and nuances "

I've worked in professional film translation for almost 20 years - and 'nuance' and 'innuendo' (etc) will make up, at best, about 5 - 10% of any project, and these would almost certainly be comedies, where 'nuance' and 'innuendo' tend to feature more prominently.

The other 90 - 95% could be translated in any basic translating tool with very few mistakes, if any. We'd be looking at messed up word order and not mistranslations in this case. Believe me, there really aren't many different ways to say "open the door", "listen to me!" or "Come on, let's go!".

Whether you're making a game or a movie - the fact is, you want it to appeal to as many people as possible to have a better chance of success. Drowning your project in nuances, for example, isn't going to make you famous or attract investors.

I understand that there are cultural differences - but they will almost always make up a tiny, tiny, part of any given game or film or book. What I see here is someone with a mid-level understanding of a language (almost exclusively Japanese) who then might spot the odd line that is a bit wonky, where nuance is perhaps lost, and then trashing the entire project... which is the remaining 90%

Just my 2 cents, but that's how I've been interpreting a ton of this hate towards AI translations. A good example is those videos where people have 6 fingers and odd stuff like that. Sure, 6 fingers? Weird as hell! But... what about ALL of the rest of the video that looks mind-blowingly realistic compared to what we've ever seen before? The initial criticism is perfectly valid, but it doesn't mean it's all trash, quite the opposite.

Do I use AI in my work? More than before? Nope, not really. I'm bi-lingual (but only a native English speaker) and I've honed my craft over 18 years. Would I have used it back in 2008? Definitely - it would have also sped up my learning of my second language. It would only have helped.

Curiously, I do sometimes have the chance to work with someone else's translations to compare to mine. You think AI is bad? Just check out some other human translations of the same thing and then come back to me.

TLDR

AI is a tool - and the criticisms of AI, while they are fundamentally valid, they are also way, way, overblown - and ppl are just happy to jump on that bandwagon like bees to honey, or flies to... ;)

Just my 4 cents.

 

[Onicat]

What do you guys think?

Of course.

Translating a ton of text from scratch and then “polishing” it to fit the story (time, setting, characters, their backgrounds, etc.) takes a ton of time.

For example, non-English speakers might be surprised by the sincere wish to “break their leg”. And this part of the text needs to be fully localized (by human), not just translated.

Modern “AI”-based translators can easily be entrusted with a rough draft of the text, which can then be handed off to a human to polish up. And at the end of the day, all of this will take much less time.

I (i'm from an non-english-speaking country) have seen times when video games weren’t translated at all. Not just Japanese ones, but even English ones. So you either played at random or learned the language (in the case of Japanese, you’d sketch kanji in a notebook and write down what happened when you selected them). Or you just didn’t play videogames at all :)

Then came the era we jokingly called “translated by professional programmers” (there used to be stickers like that on the CDs) . The English text was ripped from the game, run through the automatic translators available at the time, and without any editing, WORD BY WORD, inserted back into the game. And it was often such nonsense that you didn’t understand what was going on (sometimes a weird codepage was used too, and you’d get something like aaaAaaAaaAaoOOOooO, as if you were playing Ultima Online lol). But the worst part was the various puzzles, which often just broke because of that translation.

Those were wild times for video game fans :). Still, some weeks ago I tried out some modern AI-based on-screen translation from Japanese to English (in RetroArch), and even though the result is pretty terrible, I have to admit it’s better than nothing. And if you give that text to someone (who has already played the game) to manually polish it up, you can get a decent result pretty quickly. That is, if there’s no character limit for text in the game’s code. This makes the editor's job significantly more difficult.

 

[akualung]

I'd like to add my two cents on this matter as well. Part of that "it's better than nothing" mentality regarding AI translation surely comes from the way we've been treated by the fantranslation scene for years. Whenever there was the slightest criticism towards any translation project, their reply has always been "beggars can't be choosers!". One simple example is when the translation for the first psx Popolocrois rpg was released, but they decided to dub the cutscenes instead of subbing them and leave the original Japanese voice actress (can't remember her name now, but she's apparently a very famous and relevant one). The answer from one of the romhackers (Aishsha if I'm not wrong) was "it is what it is, take it or leave it! Beggars can't be choosers!!". I'm not mad at all they decided to do things their way (it was their project after all, and I honestly liked Cargodin's dub) but their attitude against people complaining left a lot to be desired (specially from the aforementioned person)

And that's just an example. There are many, many more. So, now the scene get surprised we're settling for AI translation despite results being sometimes subpar compared to human ones? Well, they've groomed us into thinking like this, treating all us waiting for fantranslations as if we were homeless beggars asking for a coin, settling for anything as long as we have our translation.

And there's also another matter: the amount of human made translations that end unfinished and unreleased forever because of sudden drama or any other unpredictable life events. At least, AI is immune to that and always available to be used whenever needed.

Hope I've managed to convey my thoughts accurately (English isn't my native language)

 

[Thatbro21]

"Japanese for instance is a highly context sensitive language."

"AI does not understand language like a human can. It does not pick up on subtext, innuendos, irony, or history in conversation."

"far too many hurdles and nuances "

That dude, should ask himself some stuffs: So, do everyone know how to read japanese(not hear or talk)? Do poorly ppls have the right to acess ART?...
My simple opinion is, no one should say whats the best for others, knowing that others are download a translated romhack of a forgotten niche game from like 1990 lol
Things like "open AI" company, do fear me! But AI itself...

 

[zerodayhx]

if i see "machine translation" i ignore it.
If its not translated by a human then as far as im concerned the game is untranslated, this goes for both google translate and ai slop

 

[BigTony]

I'd rather read a shitty machine translation than no translation at all

 

[Moreno909]

Basing off my experience using it for translating my own texts; it can be used to get a good translation very quickly and to even refine a text, but it tends to smudge off nuances and make it sound a bit more bland
For simple short scripts I think it's fine, specially if human revised

 

[Feitang]

probably ok for non rpg games. Like something without a very long story.

 

[blodia20]

I took my time to think about this important and gaming changing topic, to at least give my personal feelings and also the proper props to everyone (mostly non ai machine to ai machine translators) It is really a hard task, a work of passion, and we do have to remember that, neither one of them are receiving no money or founds to do what they've been doing. The world of fan translations are proceding for more than 20 years of making non japanese speakers dreams come to fruition! And for that I will allways be gratefull to the botton of my heart! There are so many great RPG games out there that we don't even have the time to play in those turbulent times! What they provide for us in more than 100 hundred options in that regard. Aside from the more known projects we have pretty almost obscure hidden gems that have been brought with so much attention on care! Aretha I and II, Power Of Hired, Illusion City, Tales Of Destiny Directors Cut, just to name a few.... And also most antecipated ones like Samurai Shadown RPG, Growlanser and last but not least Tengai Makyou Zirya! Namely the first installement of my fave alltime RPG and game series of all!! As I am already talking about this amazing series, let me talk about the issues that I have with the fourth one. My favorite game of alltime Tengai Makyou Apocalypse IV. How come my fave game of alltime receive a translation that despite seems to be meaning well in its intention, do not convey the proper adaptation that this masterpiece of a game deserve. And I am saying that, comparing to Zirya translation whitch is TOP NOTCH!! TengaI Makyou Apocalypse is a much more streamlined experience. The PSP version in my oppinion is even more (with added quaity of life improvements such as saving anywhere) the game is not too challenge at all (mostly some challenging nice puzzles in some of the dungeons) I'd recomend you, not to go out of your way to grind, because the game paces itself in a way that if you just battle every battle instead of run, you will allways be keeping with the bosses (which I find very easy for the most part) the game is a blast, a rollercoaster with amazing pacing and full of great events and villains to begining to end! I finished it two times! First in the original sega saturn and the second almost recently (two years ago) on psp. In japanese. But I've been trying to play this machine translation one for the second time and it is hard... Don't get me wrong. I aprecciate the endevour and some lines are legible enough, but when they speak about individual characters, the meaning crumbles a bit. Sometimes they are treat as objects to the sentence and feels almost like they are talking about places or furniture instead of actual characters. which no matter what anybodie says, it affects the overall experience pretty badly. In comparisson I've finished Tengai Makyou Zirya with this amazing english patch. The game is a grindfest! The music is monotonous and blip and most of the tracks don't pass the 30 second mark without repeating it's theme. It is almost nes hard rpg, very old scholl stuff (but at least it have a run button, whitch for 1989 standarts are a fine welcome feature!) and still, with all those barriers (considering we have in our disposal lots of far more streamlined rpg experiences to undergo) I managed to finish it! Reason being for, the amazing writing, that comes to its glory for us weastern speakers and readers, by the stunning adaptation of the fan translators involved in this project! Coming back to the AI, I trully apreciate the effort, and also it makes the process so much faster!! But I am more in favor of AI assisted translation! You use AI to cut trough the rough edges, but than do a revision to make the text more clear and in sync with the original intention! Heck, a great example is the almost recent Growlanser one translation! It comes to my knowledge that this game uses AI, but still looks very good to me! At least for me the translation is clear and very good! Could it be, because is AI assisted? So that is my two cents about this important topic! Thanks and take care yall!!

 

[SamanthaSamantha's icon]

I'd rather read a shitty machine translation than no translation at all

I had come to say exactly this.

Way too many great games would be unplayable otherwise... Besides, it doesn't even have to be final! Someone else could come along and do it "right" after the pressure of getting there first is out of the equation!