This presentation was used at "Fun for All: 1st International Conference on Translation and Accessibility in Video Games and Virtual Worlds", on December 3rd, 2010.
In this paper, I explained how a fan translation group, Tales Translations, managed to localise the game "Tales of the Abyss".
YouTube links (reuploaded):
"So I'll show you!" -> https://youtu.be/DZjNlURq8TY
"It was totally worth it!" -> https://youtu.be/aqrwrF6mTDU
Tales of the Abyss: fan translation of a video game
1. TALES OF THE ABYSS Fan translation of a video game Ana Ramírez
2. Defining fan translation Whatisit?An unofficial translation of various forms of media done by fans. Why does it exists?Because there is no official translation.
3. My vision… Share fan’s interests. Meet new people. Popularity in internet. Translating is fun!
4. Types of fan translation Fan translation of novels. Fan translation of comics (scanlation). Fan subtitles (fansub) of movies or TV series. Fan translation of videogames.
16. Phases of the project “Boss” extractsthetext. He uploadsitto ACME. Translation and revision. Beta patchfortesting. Correction of mistakes in ACME. Patchrelease.
17. Main problems I had not played the game. Continuity of the project. Relationship withothermembers. Bad organization. With the translation… No names, no references. Nullstandarization. No professional translators.
18. Organization and tools Three main tools: Private forum, divided in: Laboratory. Library. General. Wikis. ACME.
23. Too cool to put it into words...So I’ll show you!
24. Tales of the Abyss: release Duration: 16 months. Patch downloads: + 8,500. Total downloads: ??? YouTube videos, news in the webs, forum discussions... It was totally worth it.
25. ACME in pro localization? Betterthan Excel. Toolthought for translators. Easy to… Findmistakes. Make corrections. Upload new texts. Make modifications in oldones.
29. I mightbe hard… But it is important to make localization more productive! It is a vital part of the process, not some kind of “extra”. A change of attitude is needed...