Gaming translation can be tricky and challenging. It demands accurate translation to function properly. Though an accurate and precise translation is every industry’s demand, it is crucial for the gaming industry. The gaming translation has become evident in the gaming industry as it revolves around localizing the gaming content and videos. Furthermore, translation is imperative for a game to adapt and launch in different regions. Translation has a greater role to play in the development of a game. Game developers and distribution companies have also started to use machine tools for gaming translation.
Slowly and gradually machine translation has also been making great contributions to the translation world. There are new translation tools that are part of the translation management system which mainly revolve around translation memory and glossary management. These have been helping people to share their translation burden. However, human supervision is a must.
Here is how TMs have been helping to maintain the quality and efficiency of game translation services.
Translation Memory
Balanced and smart use of the translation memory for gaming translation has helped greatly with the accurate translation of the gaming content. Translation memory helps store the previously translated gaming text, and its important terms and phrases. It offers and suggests similar translation in the next project ensuring consistency. This is crucial for maintaining a standard and uniform translation for a cohesive player experience and to avoid frequently appearing inconsistencies. This also eliminates the need for translating the same content multiple times. This way it also helps to save the translators significant time and allows them to focus on the new content.
Style guide integration
Style guides can help to decide a standard pattern of a certain game. Certain games are known for their peculiar style guides. Many machine translation tools help with the integration of the style guides to ensure consistent translation of terms and phrases. Style guides also help maintain the brand voice in translated content. Moreover, this practice helps with the maintenance of overall tone and style across different languages.
Fewer repetitions
With the pre-translated elements that are readily available, the translator can also help avoid repetitions. These help with the translations for better accuracy and cultural fit. They can make the changes easily. Translating similar things and writing about the same topics time and again can be frustrating and the people who work on game translation services can also face the same factors. This is why avoiding similar content every time makes them motivated to work on important areas only. This also helps with an effective localization process.
Contextual matches
Context matters a lot in the gaming translation. The contextual matches are hence really important. The translation management and its features also extend their support and help in suggesting better content based on the context. It does not fall for the exact word matches and rather emphasizes the connection. The machine translation has lacked proper context but things are improving gradually. This further paves the way for the translation of the phrases that retain the intended meanings within the specific game environment.
Fuzzy matching
There are fuzzy matching that are part of many games. The TM tools have also started to offer their help for making fuzzy matching easy. They often suggest similar phrases even if these are not the exact match in the memory. This factor helps the translators to leverage the existing translation while adapting these to make a fit for the new context. They do not have to put in their efforts from the start and get to start with already existing content with the proper context for the things around them.
Reduced costs
Gaming translation can cause a serious dent in your pocket. Using translation memory and terminology management also helps with the streamlining of the translation process. This way the petty tasks and minimized work can become a matter of a few minutes also helping in balancing the expenses. However, it is important to understand how machine translation works and the best use of terminology management and translation memory. Moreover, opting for a professional translation company to translate the gaming content and supervising the machine translation tools can make the process swift for you.
Improved scalability
Games can come with huge amounts of text. This is where using machine transaltion toolscan help to make it easier. This improves the scalability as well as saves translators from some petty efforts. Machine tools can handle large volumes of content while also maintaining the efficiency and consistency of the content. Scalability matters a lot in gaming scenarios and it is imperative to opt for the practices that help with improved scalability.
Conclusion
Gaming translation is a challenging and complex task. To meet the exceptionally growing gaming translation needs it is important to involve the machine translation tools. The recently developed translation management systems can help with better terminology management, consistency, and style guide integration along better contextual matches. Not only this but the cost can also be controlled with an improved scalability.