In the localization industry, we not only translate games’ contents, but also their changelogs, patch updates, news, and marketing copies. Usually, it’s all fine, except when there’s an upcoming event and we have to start checking clocks and doing math because it will be a global launch or event and we have to “translate” the time to BRT.

But oh, it’s not that easy.

One would think “I just need to add or subtract”, but no, because a lot of countries have daylight savings, and the northern and southern hemispheres work at opposite times for this, so you have to check the calendar and see when the daylight savings start, when they end, then pray to god if you got a date that’s right in the week the time is changing in one of the countries in one of the hemispheres, otherwise you might throw off thousands of players or make them miss an event.

It’s… horrible. I wish we all adhered to the .beat time or something like that. “The event starts November 17th @748.3, I have no idea what that means for you and I don’t care, good luck.” So much simpler.

Don’t even get me started when there are marketing blurbs about winter or snow. Because, you know, when it’s winter up in the northern part of the planet, it’s summer on the other, but if the marketing is all about hot chocolate, snow, fireplaces, and tucking in, things get a bit… dissonant.