What an “edit” job entails in video game localization

One thing to be noted when someone talks about “editing” video game translation is that it could mean:

  • You need to rewrite sentences, either because the tone doesn’t fit the game, the character, or the setting; or because it doesn’t fit more complex story stuff going on that the translator who did that part wasn’t aware of (because nobody has the time to read everything, or because we are receiving the text in chunks every few weeks).
  • You need to brush a few things here and there, but nothing major, and most of the time involving only a few stylistic changes.
  • You need to fix technical stuff, like manual linebreaks on wrong character limits which would bleed out of the modal (not that we see the modal, but we are informed about the limits; however, when they are 12 lines with 37 characters each, things get complex), or variables without proper spacing between them, some small typos, and other things like that.
  • You don’t need to do anything. The line is perfect. You move on to the next one.

Every project always has all of the above happening at some point, that’s why it’s impossible to claim full authorship about any aspect of the job. I might sound like a broken record but it is, literally, a team effort.

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