Why do the Japanese like their buns askew (2026)

Nearly half of these 100 are from games that were translated into English, btw, and a full half of the top 10 entries were written by translators. Sadly, some of them, like Suikoden 2, Yakuza 0, and Metal Gear Solid 4, blanket credit translation companies instead of listing names of individuals.

(Unprovoked personal attacks aside, @inkle.co's Game Narrative Kaleidoscope is a rather well-mannered book that I would indeed recommend)

An open book showing an Alexa Ray Corriea essay titled "You cannot die on every hill"

Yes I can and guess what

Stargazing With Murderous Intent [lofi/chill beats] YouTube video by Liam Vickers Animation

Do you have music videos or albums you've Pavlov'd yourself into focusing with? This is my main one and not to be dramatic but if it's ever taken down I'll probably lose my job and die

A variant of "Pushing Both Buttons" meme. Left side reads: "Toby Fox: Translation is so hard, better leave it to the fans", right side reads: "Warhorse: Translation is so easy, better leave it to AI"

2026 Localization Discourse

Dear #gamedev, we know that making a game is hard, but please try to wait until you have more strings before you send them to your translators.
To translate those 15 words, we still have to accept the project, add it to our task tracker, open the project, start the actual translation work...

THE RAT ZONE

I think @therat.zone's mission statement might be the best thing on the internet, except maybe that one webpage that lets you stare at a pug in a blankie and passively level up your pug-honoring skill
therat.zone/mission

Steam community requesting additional body types for added immersion.

A large block of sentient tofu

Steam community: “Can we play as a male character?”

Me (indie dev in this economy):
“Best I can do is sentient tofu.”

The Dungeon Experience demo is out— @punnymercenary.bsky.social and I only worked on the French loc but we can vouch for the quality of the scented candles! Why not buy a few 💜 come on do it 🫶 you know you want to 🥰 do it

Thanks @michelpimpant.bsky.social for the trust & the delightful crab jokes

Avec la complicité non moins espiègle de @oreli.bsky.social en relecture sur Frog Detective à l'époque ♥ Nous avâmes bien rigolassé ! (<= le genre de phrases que j'écris quand personne ne me relit)

Game by Semyon Itmaniuk Maxim Begunov Aleksandr Khozeev Ilia Burdin Dmitriy Romanov Konstantin Auerbakh Innata Vita Ivan Vodoleev Yelisei Permiakou

In The King is Watching, developed by Hypnohead and published by @tinybuildgames.bsky.social, translators are NOT in the credits. The game is available in 10 languages including English.
#TranslatorsInTheCredits

Screenshot from the credits with a dark background and white letters of Big Hops that lists several people in this order: Ryan Manning, programming Conrad Wilson, programming Kieran Boyce Quality Assurance Localization 1Stop Translations Special Thanks Mon Tom Huffman William Chyr Nathan Vella Max Hudetz Greag Wohlwend John Pantaleon Gabrielle, the surname is cut out.

Big Hops, developed by @luckshotgames.com and localized in 4 languages, does NOT feature any #TranslatorsInTheCredits.
Only the localization agency, 1Stop Translation, is credited.

La tirade des nay

Rue Valley (Emotion Spark Studio | @owlcatgames.bsky.social) and its captivating time loop are finally out, and we're delighted to announce that we have translated this narrative adventure into French alongside @locdandloaded.net, who helped us with the prologue 🕣

Mais une manne pas encore à même de passer inaperçue, impliquant donc une étape supplémentaire, particulièrement cynique : « Les multinationales de la localisation ont trouvé la solution miracle, j’ai nommé la post-édition », explique Jérémie. « Au lieu de traduire, on nous demande de relire et corriger de la traduction automatique, en exigeant unefacturation deux à trois fois inférieure. Ça ne permet pas de vivre décemment, et qui plus est, c’est un pur cache-misère. Ici comme ailleurs, l’IA générative ne fonctionne que parce qu’il y a des petites mains sous-payées pour préserver les apparences. [...] C’est un travail abrutissant qui peut nécessiter des réécritures complètes. En gros, on retraduit souvent de zéro... au tarif de la correction. Au nom de quoi devrions-nous brader notre savoir-faire parce qu’un intermédiaire artificiel a une solution stupide à proposer ? »

Merci à @killylog1.bsky.social de m'avoir longuement laissé la parole dans le nouveau @jvlemag.com pour décrire la dégradation des conditions de travail dans la traduction de jeu vidéo à cause des délires autour de l'IA. J'ai pu placer ma meilleure punchline 🥊

#gamelocalization #gaming #localization #translation | Alpha Games Hey Indies! Wanting to get your game localized, but feeling the pressure of a tight budget? We've got you covered. At Alpha Games, we truly believe that the language of play unites gamers worldwide...

Alpha Games, one of the most notorious late-payer (and more often than not non-payer) of game localization, is currently running a loc grant for indies.

Fun fact: it's not even close to the amount they still owe to dozens of translators.

Cynicism at its finest.
www.linkedin.com/posts/alphac...

From the Void - Otherworldly Game Localization — The Fundamental Question of AI in Game Development: Why? - From the Void "You were so preoccupied with whether or not you could, you didn't stop to think if you should"

When someone aks what we think about the use of AI, the first question that comes to mind is always:

But why? Why would we, or anyone really, want to use it?

Here's @mittovac.bsky.social's piece about this very topic. Please share to anyone who needs to read this ⬇️
fromthevoid.net/blog/ai-in-g...

I'm preparing to publish the next installment of AI Killed My Job. This time, the focus will be on translators.

If you or someone you know has had a translation job (including translator, interpreter, game localizer, etc) impacted by AI, and you'd like to share, please do: AIkilledmyjob@pm.me

🥹

Pour les franchouillards : le portrait de Stéphane Radoux paru au début du mois est désormais en libre accès chez Canard PC !

Un article très chouette sur un traducteur également très chouette, merci bien @canardpc.com

Of course some queries are overkill and a client shouldn't have to explain basic (nor advanced) English to you, etc.

But we have to stop worrying that we'll spook clients who send zero context whatsoever. They should be worried they'll spook *us* 😌 We have the power of dull queries on our side!

This! And if your team has a query tyrant -usually great linguists who internalized an extreme "don't ever spook the client" policy- & they point out that the answers are likely XYZ, politely ignore them. We all know the likely answers, these are educational queries.

Plus, "likely" can be a trap.

Memes aside, this was a pretty brilliant plot point about the policing of language as a means of control and oppression. Loved it*

*derived substantial appreciation from the presented perspective

Trying to fit the character limit on mobile games be like

Try not to develop a massive crush on Shotty challenge

~ French trailer subs & in-game localization homecooked by yours truly, with a dash of @mittovac.bsky.social and a sprinkle of @michelpimpant.bsky.social 🤌~

The place to Rou-be

Happy birthday to us 🥳

✨ Cheers to our partners for creating awesome games & going for ethical, human localization to make them shine 🥂

✨ Cheers to the players who noticed our work 🤍

✨ And of course, cheers to our linguists for their outstanding professionalism & talent 💫

To many more!

Happy birthdayyy 💜

Let's use this #WishlistWednesday to bring visibility to indies!
Here are 3 titles currently on our watch list...
Spooky edition 🧙‍♀️ 🤍

🦉 Crimson Hollow
🎃 @elderfieldofficial.bsky.social
🧹 @witchbrook.bsky.social

(Steam links below ⬇️)