Title
"I don't remember any typos, I was just trying to play". An end-user perspective on the role of game translation
Conference name
Media for All 10 Conference
City
Country
Belgium
Modalities
Date
06/07/2023-07/07/2023
Abstract
The premise of this paper is neatly captured in the following observation by Mangiron (2018: 277): “The ultimate goal of game localisation is to provide players of the localised versions with an engaging and immersive gameplay experience that is similar to that of the original players.” Keeping in mind this observation – or perhaps postulate – we present our findings into how receptors can respond to the different properties of video game translation. Our general aim was to see how much the experience of playing a game can be reshaped by its localisation. We explored a total of 15 experiential and attitudinal constructs of reception (Deckert & Hejduk 2022a; Deckert & Hejduk 2022b; cf. Szarkowska & Boczkowska 2020).
The experimental factor (independent variable) we opted for in this study was the presence or absence of errors in the game’s dialogue subtitles. Our reasoning is that translators may, albeit inadvertently, introduce unambiguous linguistic deficiencies into a video game, possibly reshaping the players’ reception of the target text. The exact proxy we utilised were spelling errors (Skorupska et al. 2018; Deckert 2021; cf. Figueredo & Varnhagen 2005; cf. Schloneger 2016; cf. Boland & Queen 2016; cf. Pedersen 2017: 220) deployed throughout in-game texts.
As part of our study, participants played the Polish version of the video game “Distraint: Deluxe Edition” (Makkonen 2017) – an ‘authentic’ commercial game, in contrast to one designed specifically for experimental purposes (e.g. Knežević & Jovanović 2021). The game was specifically selected for the experiment to meet a set of criteria motivated by the remote protocol of the study. A total of 201 participants were tested remotely across 2 conditions: one with 25 typos added into the translation (experimental group) and one wherein the same Polish localisation had no typos whatsoever (control group).
After the gameplay component of the experiment, participants completed a psychometric questionnaire called GUESS-18 (Keebler et al. 2020; cf. Phan et al. 2016) as part of a larger set of survey items. The survey also probed for other dimensions of reception, like cognitive load or plot comprehension. We also collected demographic profile data as well as experiment-specific details (e.g. participants’ gaming experience). The study moreover explored whether localisation-specific typos might have an effect on the perceptions of translation quality as well as the translator’s diligence and professionalism. Importantly, we can relate these findings to our participants’ rates of successfully identifying typos in the target texts. While these rates were significantly different between the experiment’s conditions, the rates were relatively low in either group. Generally, our study found no traceable effect of typos on the majority of player reception aspects we studied (Deckert & Hejduk 2022a; 2022b).
Gaming is a booming, global industry with billions of players – in no small part due to its accessibility features and cross-linguistic transfer. Yet, localisation remains understudied from the vantage point of end-user experience (Mangiron 2018: 277). Our study feeds into the emerging field of cognitively-oriented reception research in game localisation by offering empirical evidence on the key dimensions of user experience.
The experimental factor (independent variable) we opted for in this study was the presence or absence of errors in the game’s dialogue subtitles. Our reasoning is that translators may, albeit inadvertently, introduce unambiguous linguistic deficiencies into a video game, possibly reshaping the players’ reception of the target text. The exact proxy we utilised were spelling errors (Skorupska et al. 2018; Deckert 2021; cf. Figueredo & Varnhagen 2005; cf. Schloneger 2016; cf. Boland & Queen 2016; cf. Pedersen 2017: 220) deployed throughout in-game texts.
As part of our study, participants played the Polish version of the video game “Distraint: Deluxe Edition” (Makkonen 2017) – an ‘authentic’ commercial game, in contrast to one designed specifically for experimental purposes (e.g. Knežević & Jovanović 2021). The game was specifically selected for the experiment to meet a set of criteria motivated by the remote protocol of the study. A total of 201 participants were tested remotely across 2 conditions: one with 25 typos added into the translation (experimental group) and one wherein the same Polish localisation had no typos whatsoever (control group).
After the gameplay component of the experiment, participants completed a psychometric questionnaire called GUESS-18 (Keebler et al. 2020; cf. Phan et al. 2016) as part of a larger set of survey items. The survey also probed for other dimensions of reception, like cognitive load or plot comprehension. We also collected demographic profile data as well as experiment-specific details (e.g. participants’ gaming experience). The study moreover explored whether localisation-specific typos might have an effect on the perceptions of translation quality as well as the translator’s diligence and professionalism. Importantly, we can relate these findings to our participants’ rates of successfully identifying typos in the target texts. While these rates were significantly different between the experiment’s conditions, the rates were relatively low in either group. Generally, our study found no traceable effect of typos on the majority of player reception aspects we studied (Deckert & Hejduk 2022a; 2022b).
Gaming is a booming, global industry with billions of players – in no small part due to its accessibility features and cross-linguistic transfer. Yet, localisation remains understudied from the vantage point of end-user experience (Mangiron 2018: 277). Our study feeds into the emerging field of cognitively-oriented reception research in game localisation by offering empirical evidence on the key dimensions of user experience.