Have you ever thought about moving out and all that is involved in the process?
Going over this is easy. It means leaving one place and start living somewhere else.
It sounds simple, isn’t it?
But moving out also involves a number of things that maybe we don’t often thing about.
And I don’t mean just choosing a new apartment, finding the right kind of furniture, organizing the kitchen, and selecting the color of your sheets.
Although all of the above takes some time, it might be said that this is just the easy part of moving out, as this depends 100% on the tastes and preferences of the person, and does not take much more than a few hours (and of course, some money).
There is another set of key factors, however, that should be taken into consideration when dealing with a moving process. These factors are a little bit more complex, and it is very important to be familiar with them, to assess them before beginning any moving process.
Moving from one place to another often means a cultural shock and a major adaptation process, because things as we know them or as we used to experience them might change entirely.
This may reach larger proportions when we move from one continent or country to another, but can also occur when we just simply move to a different location within the same country.
Moving out requires adjusting to different habits, a different lifestyle, and a new way of seeing and interpreting many of the things we’ve known before.
Even the meaning of some words might change, and it is very common to find some new “sayings” and expressions.
I’m writing this because all of this reminds me of a service that is in high demand in the translation industry. I’m referring to product localization, particularly the case of videogames.
It might be said – just to explain it simply- that this is about the “moving process” of the characters and the whole world built around them. For a localization to be successful, all aspects concerning the videogames must undergo a thorough adaptation process to adjust to the new market in which it is intended to be launched.
The character’s personality must change in line with the traditions and culture of the new country or region. They must speak differently. They should act and react differently.
Sometimes it is even important to change their “modus operandi” completely.
Thus, localization goes beyond just adapting characters, which is why I was mentioning that the world built around the characters must also face this “moving process”. Frequently, the names of places must change, the background music, the packaging design, and even the website of the videogame must go through an overhaul.
All of this for purposes of facilitating how the videogame is perceived not only in terms of language, but also culturally-wise, so that it can work much better with the new audience, preventing it from offending people or going against the specific idiosyncrasy of the launch market.
Finally, we should consider what Wikipedia has to say about localization. It defines localization of videogames as “the preparation of videogames for other regional settings. This adaptation to the regulations of other countries goes way beyond a simple translation of the videogame’s language. There are different aspects to be considered such as language, culture, hardware, software, legal differences, graphic identity and music”.
Despite this, I just simply see it more informally as a moving process (and all it takes) of the characters, situations, places, and dialogues of the videogame to a new region.
LOCALIZATION OF VIDEOGAMES -EXPLAINED PLAINLY AND SIMPLY-
Have you ever thought about moving out and all that is involved in the process?
Going over this is easy. It means leaving one place and start living somewhere else.
It sounds simple, isn’t it?
But moving out also involves a number of things that maybe we don’t often thing about.
And I don’t mean just choosing a new apartment, finding the right kind of furniture, organizing the kitchen, and selecting the color of your sheets.
Although all of the above takes some time, it might be said that this is just the easy part of moving out, as this depends 100% on the tastes and preferences of the person, and does not take much more than a few hours (and of course, some money).
There is another set of key factors, however, that should be taken into consideration when dealing with a moving process. These factors are a little bit more complex, and it is very important to be familiar with them, to assess them before beginning any moving process.
Moving from one place to another often means a cultural shock and a major adaptation process, because things as we know them or as we used to experience them might change entirely.
This may reach larger proportions when we move from one continent or country to another, but can also occur when we just simply move to a different location within the same country.
Moving out requires adjusting to different habits, a different lifestyle, and a new way of seeing and interpreting many of the things we’ve known before.
Even the meaning of some words might change, and it is very common to find some new “sayings” and expressions.
I’m writing this because all of this reminds me of a service that is in high demand in the translation industry. I’m referring to product localization, particularly the case of videogames.
It might be said – just to explain it simply- that this is about the “moving process” of the characters and the whole world built around them. For a localization to be successful, all aspects concerning the videogames must undergo a thorough adaptation process to adjust to the new market in which it is intended to be launched.
The character’s personality must change in line with the traditions and culture of the new country or region. They must speak differently. They should act and react differently.
Sometimes it is even important to change their “modus operandi” completely.
Thus, localization goes beyond just adapting characters, which is why I was mentioning that the world built around the characters must also face this “moving process”. Frequently, the names of places must change, the background music, the packaging design, and even the website of the videogame must go through an overhaul.
All of this for purposes of facilitating how the videogame is perceived not only in terms of language, but also culturally-wise, so that it can work much better with the new audience, preventing it from offending people or going against the specific idiosyncrasy of the launch market.
Finally, we should consider what Wikipedia has to say about localization. It defines localization of videogames as “the preparation of videogames for other regional settings. This adaptation to the regulations of other countries goes way beyond a simple translation of the videogame’s language. There are different aspects to be considered such as language, culture, hardware, software, legal differences, graphic identity and music”.
Despite this, I just simply see it more informally as a moving process (and all it takes) of the characters, situations, places, and dialogues of the videogame to a new region.
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