Episode Transcription

LARA: Hi, everyone! Welcome to another episode of Open World. Hi, Ale. Hi, Meli. Today we have a special guest with us, Olga Petrova. Hi, Olga! It’s so nice to see you here with us. Thank you for joining us.

OLGA: Hi! Thank you for having me.

LARA: It’s a real pleasure. Like, we are really excited to have you.

MELISA: Yes, thank you so much for joining us, Olga.

ALEXIS: Olga, for everyone that’s watching us, can you please introduce yourself, provide some background on your experience on video games localization, and a little bit about your journey?

OLGA: Yeah, sure. Once again, thank you for having me. I’m super excited to be here and share a little bit about what I know about localization and what keeps me going, for more than 15 years already, going on 20, I think. Yeah. I’m mostly in project management throughout my career, managing teams and projects and video games localization. I have participated in localization of over 200 games, roughly. Triple A titles, MMORPGs, mobile games. So when I started, I was just a freelance translator, so I actually took the full path from being a freelance translator to being a professional. And I was lucky to have worked on some of the most successful projects in the gaming industry from…

ALEXIS: I was gonna ask you if there was any OP that you’re most proud of or that was very successful.

OLGA: So big companies like Activision, 2K, Capcom, Bethesda, Rockstar, I did projects for those.

MELISA: Dropping names.

OLGA: Yeah, I know. And then, yeah, so I used to work for a big… for the largest original publisher in Russia, and that’s when I got acquainted with big names. And then I moved on to work in the development studios, where I was able to do some influence on the development process and become a localization advocate and evangelist. Yeah.

ALEXIS: Yeah, it’s needed. It’s needed. Especially in indie studios. I started…

LARA: Not only in indie studios, but yeah. It’s just like…

ALEXIS: Everywhere. I remember one of my first steps in the video game industry was to be a localization something, you know, advocate, consultant or whatever in an indie dev studio.

LARA: Yeah. Yeah, it’s really needed. And you can tell when someone puts into the game localization early in the stages because you can tell that everything runs smooth, the localization is perfect, all the cultural aspects are taken into account. So, yeah. That’s awesome.

ALEXIS: Sorry I interrupted you, Olga.

OLGA: Oh, that’s okay. I couldn’t agree more to everything you guys are saying. Yes, it’s extremely important. And I’m, like, I’m still… It’s hard to believe that in 2023, we’re still talking about why we need localization to be a part of the game development, right?

LARA: Oh, my God. Yeah.

MELISA: Absolutely. That’s why I think it’s so important what you were saying. And since we’re already talking about this, I hope it’s okay, I’ll ask you the next question, which is very related. And that’s, what are some common challenges that arise when localization is brought in too late in the development process? And how can these challenges be mitigated?

OLGA: Yeah. Where do I start?

MELISA: A lot to say about this.

OLGA: Yeah. I sometimes call localization a Cinderella of the game development. We rarely get invited to the ball.

LARA: I love it!

MELISA: I love it. That’s so funny!

ALEXIS: Can I use that? I’m using that. I’m sorry, I’m using that.

OLGA: It is true. For a lot of companies, we are the least favorite stepchild, and it is what it is, right?

LARA: And we are so important. Like, come on. How? How can this happen? We’re like… We’re like Cinderella, you know? And you’re inviting us like… No, there’s no way.

MELISA: If you invite us, we’re gonna make an impact. Just saying.

OLGA: Yeah. Maybe drop a shoe or two. But yeah, in all seriousness, just, I think, for the most part, it’s never intentional. It’s just because the developers don’t know better and they just don’t think about it when they start their journey. So… bringing us late in the process essentially cost you. And you end up doing a lot of reworks, a lot of changes or just accepting a quality in localization that is… that is lower than what you have in English or whatever original language your game is created in. So you might be telling a joke that, when it is translated, will not get understood by most of the players who don’t speak English. You might have a puzzle in your game that a person who doesn’t speak English won’t make any sense and will leave them confused. Um… Your user interface might not support text expansion and it will just end up playing font size Tetris when you try to put in the translated text in that small box. What else?

MELISA: These are great examples. They’re very practical, like, very to-the-point ways to know how, like…

OLGA: It’s like, I am a manager, but I’m always very close to what I’m working on. So that’s also one of the things why you have to have localization people on your team. They will spend time, they will invest and make an effort to get your game. They will be on your side. They will be protective of the product that you as a developer are creating, and they will try to make it as good in other language as it is in the language that you used to conceive it. So yeah.

LARA: Yeah. I mean, when you were mentioning…

OLGA: And we haven’t even mentioned the cost here, right? So all that comes up when you bring in localization late, that means more money is gonna be spent on the work that can be done early in the process and therefore be cheaper.

LARA: Yeah. So when you were mentioning the challenges, I could easily like recall games that had those problems that I already played, you know? And I was like, oh my God, this could have been such an easy fix from the early stages, but here I am, playing this game, facing these challenges, and it’s like, Oh, this joke is not even funny in my language. So I totally agree. Um, I have the other question now. From your experience, what are the benefits of having a localization expert collaborate with the development team from the early stages?

OLGA: It’s a really good question, and I think we touched a little bit on that already, but let me just expand and see what else comes to mind when I think about the benefits for the developer. Well, let’s start with money. Because I think that proverbial return on investment from localization that everyone expects is one of the things that you can really justify and can really separate what exactly was the localization role apart from the marketing or user acquisition campaign or the game itself. Maybe the game is so genius that it doesn’t have to have all the bells and whistles that localization brings into. But the money is just, you keep the costs down. You… You avoid the expensive do-overs because you get it right the first time. So one of the games in my last workplace turned out to be extremely successful, but it was not created with localization in mind. They had it in English for the longest time. At the same time, the management realized that they’re leaving a lot of money on the table because, well, there are players who don’t speak English all over the world that could be enjoying the game and bringing in money, the revenue. So that need, it was there, so the decision was made to actually finally have the localization in the game. So without like even any numbers, I’m just gonna tell you that it took nine months of work for two engineers revamping the code and making the localization possible.

LARA: Oh, my God. Like the amount of money, time and effort. Oh, my God!

OLGA: The translation itself didn’t take that much time.

ALEXIS: Right.

LARA: I imagine. Oh, my God, it’s insane. I get, like, goosebumps. It’s insane.

OLGA: It can be really expensive. It can be, like, it can save you a lot of money if you think about internationalization. If you have the right people in the team who can guide the developer and tell them that there are certain things that are better avoided or there are certain things that need to be done from day one that, even if you don’t launch with multiple languages, even if you only launch in English, by the time that you make a decision to localize, it’s not exactly going like that, but very similar. And it does save you a lot of money and time to make it happen.

LARA: Money and time, two things that we could all have more of.

OLGA: And that’s the famous triangle, right? Money, time and quality.

LARA: Yeah.

OLGA: At least you hit two of those. And then quality is up to the professionalism of the localization people that you have.

ALEXIS: Olga, you’re talking about the quality, the professionalism that translation, localization, when taken in the right time and place of the development process, saves you money, saves you time. But I want to go back to the professionalism aspect and the cultural considerations that come with the localization process. Do you think that there are any cultural considerations, like in a broad aspect, that are particularly important for game developers to be aware of when creating content for different markets?

OLGA: Absolutely, Alex. It’s a very good question. Again, like it’s very relevant to the daily work that localization teams are doing around the world, right? We are bridging the cultural gaps. We’re doing it every single day. And we help because we’re bringing players together, and making us all a little bit closer to each other. So there are linguistic considerations. So language and humor, you don’t want to have any puns and jokes that might not translate well. It’s like, if you tell a joke that only makes sense in one language and you hear crickets from the audience, right? So you don’t want to run into this. And don’t get me started on geopolitical sensitivities. I can give you two very fresh examples and one not so fresh one.

ALEXIS: I was gonna ask for examples. Please, go ahead.

OLGA: Oh, that’s fine because I do have it. Say that Spider-Man game that was just released and the flag SNAFU with mixing up Cuban and Puerto Rican flags.

ALEXIS: Yes. I saw that.

OLGA: If they had a culturalization expert on the team or if they paid maybe more attention, they could’ve easily…

LARA: Oh, my God. Yeah.

OLGA: And that was…

LARA: It was so simple.

ALEXIS: It’s simple. We’re doing the same expression, Lali. We’re both like…

LARA: It’s just like, oh, my God. Yes, I saw it, and it was like, no way.

OLGA: It takes a certain like… It takes some skills, right? It takes a certain… Um… You need to be attuned to certain things in a game or in a movie or in a book to be able to catch up on these things. And that’s why you need people who can help you with that. The same thing with the Barbie movie that was banned in Vietnam because of the nine-dash line and that map that they were referring to, it didn’t even look like a map, but it was significant for Vietnamese people, right? And it was a big issue for them, so it was justified in their eyes. From my own experience, I can tell you that we had really big problems with Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 that was released in Russia with the level that Activision actually took away from the Russian edition with the terrorists killing civilians in the airport.

ALEXIS: Yes, that famous/infamous level.

LARA: Oh, my God, yeah.

OLGA: But we had quite a big backlash from inside the country that was pointed at the company at that time, the publisher. So they blamed us for neglecting this particular sensitivity in this particular case, even like considering releasing the game in the country. So just like, you know, like three quite bright examples, but there are so many more and they happen all the time. I actually, myself, I have a collection of the movies that make some funny things with the Russian language just because they sort of entertain me, and I find it interesting that, with the amount of money and the budgets that Hollywood has, they just neglect double checking so many things.

MELISA: I would love to see that collection.

OLGA: Well, the movies that have actually Spanish speakers in them, you probably, like, you can totally relate.

ALEXIS: We can do the same with the Spanish. It’s a horror.

MELISA: Yeah. But I think the point that you were making about the movie and why this, like, those are great examples. And it’s so painful, there’s a lot of effort and money and people working for years sometimes in some of these games, and just, you know, to get ruined or banned completely for a completely full audience like of several countries and stuff like that just for these tiny mistakes that, you know, can be avoided. That’s like how important I think this message that we are here trying to spread thanks to Olga. It’s like… You know, I think that’s a great proof of our point.

OLGA: And it’s heartbreaking for the teams because, like you said, they’re working so hard, they’re putting their heart and soul in the game and then they’re being criticized for something that could be easily corrected or avoided at all. So, yeah, those were my examples.

MELISA: Yeah, those are a great examples.

LARA: Great examples.

ALEXIS: Thank you for those great examples.

MELISA: And related to what I just said, can you share some advice for those game developers who may be listening to this episode and may need to become more familiar with the importance of early localization involvement?

OLGA: Yeah, let me try. So, I would tell that they need to be curious, because a lot of times, the developers speak only one language. And there’s nothing wrong with that. You can’t expect everyone to be bilingual or be interested in learning something about the different culture. But it pays off when you try and do that. So just be curious. Try to understand and embrace the landscapes of different cultures and languages. Do the research, ask questions. I think not being guilty to ask questions, and not be afraid to ask them is one of the most important things that a person can actually have in them. I think that the ability to ask questions and to show curiosity is actually showing that people are not indifferent and they’re passionate about what they’re doing. And that’s really important. And it usually shows in the results. What else? So besides curiosity and asking questions, building a diverse team.

LARA: Oh, my God, yeah.

MELISA: I love this.

OLGA: Different backgrounds from different countries speaking different languages. That usually helps. My biggest release so far was a game that was published on Netflix platform, and we launched in 15 languages and we ended up having 33. Obviously, I don’t speak 33 languages, but we had a lot of team members who were able to help out with a lot of them. And that did help. And because, again, like having people on the team who were able to give you advice about their culture, who can tell you what’s acceptable and what’s not, what is… what aligns with customs of the country and what doesn’t, and sometimes are able to tell you the peculiarities of the language. And, if you have a problem with, say, Hindi, which we didn’t know that Unity had, but we had some Hindi speaking people on the team and we were trying to assess how serious this issue is, can we actually release the game with this issue or do we need to change all the words in the game that have this particular glyph or this particular character in it to something else and try that approach instead? Right, so, there are those small things, but they add up to being very important and the quality, never going down. So, yeah, that’s… Definitely brings a unique flavor to the table, for sure.

MELISA: This is some great advice. Thank you, Olga, that was…

OLGA: In fact, with the Netflix release, there was… My mom was actually… Well, I was bragging on my social media, and she was seeing that and was asking, “But how do you translate in 33 languages?” Like, “Mom, it’s okay…”

LARA: I love that!

ALEXIS: I love that. It’s a constant that I found in many people working in the localization industry, that moms usually don’t quite grasp what we do.

OLGA: And that was after 15 years that I’ve been doing that, she was still very naive.

ALEXIS: “My daughter is a translator.” Right?

LARA: Yeah, that’s what my mom says, like, “Yeah, my daughter works translating video games.” She doesn’t even have a clue what goes into it.

OLGA: And I think that’s actually a common misconception that we also have to fight, because for… A lot of times for the management, we are just glorified translators, for some reason, who earn more than they deserve. But that’s not the case. Like a lot of work that we as localization professionals do is language agnostic. It needs to be done in your product no matter how many languages you support. You need to have your conversation with the Game Designer to find out what was put behind each and every player phrase and string in the game, you need to have it documented and you need to know the context for that game because the translators, they’re gonna ask you. And if not the first time, then maybe the second time around. And you need to have that localization Bible like I call it, like it’s usually based off on game design document, but it’s so much more, right? So you build up on that and you use the questions that are asked by the translation team, you add on to that and then, when it’s time to launch in a new language, you have it already and a lot of questions are already answered. So yeah, it’s so much more than just translation and just sending files back and forth. You have to think about so many things besides just having the text translated, starting from, I don’t know, choosing the right font, making sure that all the characters are there, like I said. When I started in localization, I was translating into a language that was not part of EFIGS. So very rarely the developers had an idea that there are certain sets of characters that will be used for displaying the text in the game. So a lot of times, we were receiving a localized version, no characters were seen or, the best case, we had like the tofu squares.

ALEXIS: Yeah, I remember those squares.

OLGA: I can’t count the times I had to get back to the developers and ask them, “Where’s my Cyrillic font? Why don’t they have a Cyrillic font?” So, it’s better now for sure. And a lot of phones have like a full set of characters for alphabetized languages, but it’s still, like, for a lot of them, it’s still a work in progress. And usually, the… the game designers, the UX, UI people, they like to work with the fonts that are pretty, that create a certain atmosphere. Like, imagine something like Bioshock, with its art deco vibes, right? So those fonts, they rarely have support for all the glyphs. So you need to think about that because your engineers, game designers, even your UI, UX people might not, and you need to help them. So, yeah, it’s part of the job. Very exciting, actually.

LARA: Yeah. Yeah, I love that. I love that. I mean, we in Spanish, we have special characters all the time too. And it’s actually funny because the tofu squares that, like you mentioned, I find them always, all the time, and it’s just like, oh, it was just as simple as changing the font. But yeah, there you have it. It happens.

OLGA: Yes. Or just testing, right? So just bring the pangram, use the pangram and you will be able to tell right away if any of the characters are missing. But it’s just because engineers are not trained and the game developers rarely think about it from the start, especially Hindi, right? Like they’re thinking about creating something so special, so new, so exciting that they just don’t have time to think about all the intricacies that might come with actually making a global release. So it’s just the nature of the work. And that’s why localization exists as a discipline and that’s why we need it.

LARA: I love it. I love it. This episode has been one of my favorites. Like, thank you so much, Olga, for your time. This has been amazing. Guys, I don’t know if you want to say anything else.

MELISA: Olga, everything you said was so on point. I think everyone listening, like, it’s just great, great advice, great examples. So thank you so much for joining us.

OLGA: Oh, thank you for having me. I really… I love my job. I really like what I do.

LARA: We can tell. We can tell, we can see the passion that you have.

ALEXIS: Thank you for sharing your own personal stories as well. That’s very important.

OLGA: I find it that some people usually want to hear something personal rather than just very abstract…

ALEXIS: We do it, too.

LARA: Yeah, 100%. We really appreciate it. Thank you so much, everyone. You that you are listening or hearing or watching this episode on YouTube or wherever you are listening this, too, thank you so much for joining us today. We will see you again in another episode. Bye-bye!

MELISA: Bye, everyone.

ALEXIS: Bye-bye.

Episode Transcription

MELISA: Welcome, everyone, to a new episode of Open World. I’m here with Ale and Lari, and today we have the pleasure to interview Hi-Rez’s Localization Director, Estelle Bailly. We are extremely excited to have you with us today, Estelle. Thank you so much for joining us.

ESTELLE: Well, thank you for inviting me. I’m very excited too.

LARA: Yeah, this is extremely exciting. And I have the honor to ask you the first question. So here it goes. What inspired you to pursue a career in linguistics?

ESTELLE: Oh, I’ve always been interested in having an international career. I wanted to be a diplomat, actually, so… I thought that, you know, languages would open new horizons to me, so I studied German and then English. And after college, I thought about maybe studying international business, but I wasn’t too sure, so… and I was a good student. So I went to what is called in France Hypokhâgne. It’s a preparatory school. And basically, once you’ve done that, you can apply to very elite schools to have international careers or do politics, you know, fancy jobs. Well… it depends on what you want. So the program is in two years and I did… one month. So, yeah, it was my first fail. There were so many things to learn, to be honest. So many books to read, essays to write, lots of things. It was like being back to college, but… worse. And you’re 18 and you want to have your student life you’ve been hearing about, right? You want to go out with your friends and do stuff, still, do some studies but, you know… have a good balance. So, after a month, I decided to quit and I signed up at uni to study English and German because that was the only two courses that I really enjoyed during this preparatory school. So that’s how it all began, I think.

MELISA: Great that it was just one month. Your decision was pretty quick. I mean, a lot of people start a career and then you’re like after a year or two… “Actually, this is not for me.” But you, immediately… “No.”

ESTELLE: “Diplomats? That’s really cool!” And after one month you’re like… “These people are not for me.”

LARA: That’s so cool. Yeah, I wasted like a year doing a career I didn’t like, and it took me a year to figure it out. So, if you figured it out in a month, that’s incredible. Yeah.

MELISA: And sometimes you force yourself, like you want to like it. Okay, I already made the decision, like, I have to do this now. But, you know, you don’t, so… It’s always good to, you know…

ESTELLE: Yeah, exactly. Or maybe I was just too lazy to, you know, to stay more than a month. I really enjoyed it.

MELISA: There was something telling you you had to go a different way, so…

ESTELLE: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Uni was better for me, I think.

ALEXIS: So, could you describe how was your journey in the world of video game localization from where it all began to where you are now?

ESTELLE: Oh, sure. So I was at uni, and I had to work to finance my student life.

ALEXIS: That’s always a good drive away. You know, I need money.

ESTELLE: Yes, I needed money. I did various jobs and then one day I saw this offer at uni, actually. It was to translate video games and it was in an agency not too far from where I studied, so I thought “Oh, that’s perfect.” And at that time I played video games quite a lot. And I have never thought… It was in 1999. Oh, the last century! Oh my God, I feel so old.

ALEXIS: Okay, wait. But do you remember what were you playing?

ESTELLE: Um… yes, it was more… more a girly game, but more like adventurous game. The 7th Guest, Grim Fandango. Remember Grim Fandango? Yeah, it’s the best one. Yeah, these kinds of games. I really liked it. The 7^th Guest, and I think the second one was The 11th Hour. It was not that good. The 7^th Guest was good, I remember that one. And then console games like The Mario thing and, you know…

ALEXIS: Sorry, I wanted to ask, but I love that you remember all the games that you were playing.

ESTELLE: Oh, yeah, yeah. Grim Fandango is still one of the best I’ve ever played. And that was… Yeah, last century, right? So anyway. Yeah. I didn’t know there was a job who could really need both my passions at that time, translation and video games. So, you didn’t know it existed, right? It was very… a while ago, I mean, a long time ago. Anyway… long story short, I applied, I got the job. A minimum wage, maximum working hours. You know, it was a true… How do we call that? Startup, you know.

ALEXIS: Putting your foot in the door.

ESTELLE: Oh, yeah. And you do everything yourself, right? But the team was lovely, very small. We would not outsource anything. And we were working almost nights and days, you know, seven days a week, for sure. On Friday nights you could go out, but then Saturday would be in the office. But I liked it. So it was a team of passionate people. And we all got along very well, so… When I think about it today, I think “Oh, that was a bit crazy.” But, um… actually I really enjoyed it at that time. And because we were doing everything ourselves, I learned so much. I really worked on all aspects of the localization pipeline. Well, obviously translation, but proofreading, project management, account management, I even did some assistance for our direction in the recording studio. Also recruitment, training of the new hires, going to conventions, and meeting with clients and team management throughout the end. So it was really hard work. I learned so much. I also discovered that I wasn’t that good after uni. You know, at the end of uni, you think that you know everything but actually, you know nothing. But it’s okay. You learn. And I had a mentor and good people who were passionate enough to teach me stuff, so I learned how to do it. And working at a localization agency, you adapt. You have to adapt so many… I mean, so much, because during the day you will work on six, eight different projects for as many different clients, jumping from one translation guide to another, one tool to another. And one day my boss told me: “Once you know how to handle the pressure and the work in a loc agency you can do anything… publisher, developer in localization because it will sound easy to you.” And I was like “Oh really? I want to try that. I want to go on the other side.”

ALEXIS: I want to see if you were right.

ESTELLE: Yeah, I want to work less. And so I tried to go to the other side to developer or publisher several times. I was looking for a job in France and there was not that many opportunities. And each time I got the same thing, you know, I ended up in the last two candidates and people said: “Oh yeah, you have some experience, but you don’t have experience as a publisher or developer. So we are going to pick the other candidate.” And you’re like… “Yeah, that’s why I applied to get this experience.”

ALEXIS: That’s what I’m trying to get.

MELISA: It’s a typical cycle. “You need the experience.” But I need to get in to get the experience.

ESTELLE: It’s like when you’re looking for an internship and you’re like… “Yeah, but you’re too new to know.” “Yes. That’s why I’m going to be an intern.” “Yeah, but, you know, you have no experience.” Yeah, it’s always the same thing, right? So, anyway, in parallel I became a mum and Paris is a lovely city, a very busy city. And it’s great. Just if you want to have a family life, especially with young kids, it’s not probably the best city you could live in. So, with my husband, we decided that maybe I could apply somewhere else. He’s self-employed, he just needs an internet connection. A good one, but, still… that’s convenient. So I started to apply to jobs in other cities and other countries, and that’s how I joined Hi-Rez in 2016. I didn’t know this company, actually, before applying to it, but the Free-to-play monetization model really interested me as well. So, anyway, I got the job once again and we all moved to Brighton in the UK with the kids who couldn’t speak a word of English at that time and that was quite an adventure, I have to say.

MELISA: How old were the kids then?

ESTELLE: They were six and eight. Yeah. In France, we start learning foreign languages very late. That’s why we are bad at foreign languages. But yeah. So, when we arrived here, a teacher said: “Well, you know, after three months, they’re going to pick a few words here and there. After six months, they’re going to start to understand. And after a year they’re talking.” And that’s exactly what happened. And now, you know, when I talk to their teacher and tell them that their native language is French, they say: “Oh, really?” They don’t know. While, when the teacher hears me, after 5 seconds: “You’re French, right?” I wonder how you guessed.

MELISA: It’s such a big change for everyone in the family, right?

ESTELLE: Yeah, but, I thought…

MELISA: It turned out good.

ESTELLE: Yeah, exactly. It was a great change.

MELISA: I love hearing your whole journey and through how you got to your current role. And now my next question is: What do you find most rewarding about your current role and why?

ESTELLE: Team management, definitely. I like being a team leader. I started in France. I had a great team in France as well, brilliant project managers. I was very lucky to have them. When I arrived at Hi-Rez, we developed the team, the localization team, and we had great people joining and learning with all of them. It was a multi… it was a multicultural team obviously, and that’s so interesting and I love being a team leader, taking care of people. I think… I’ve always known I like caring for people. But I think the older I grow, the more interested I am in human beings, you know, rather than projects. Sorry, no offense to Hi-Rez projects. I still like our projects. But I do love our people at Hi-Rez. And I think this really reflects my way of managing people. You know, if you ask me or if you talk to me about OKRs. Do you work with OKRs? Do you know what OKRs are? Well, if you don’t, you can Google it or just don’t Google it. It’s just like setting objectives and to each of your team members, you know, in a specific period of time and you need to achieve these and that and, and if you ask me to do this, I probably would run away because I’m more like on the human side… “Okay, tell me, what are you interested in? What kind of games do you want to work on? What kind of skills do you want to develop, to focus on?” You know, I try to keep that in mind when I sign a new project. It’s not always possible. I’m not saying: “Oh, I’m perfect.” I’m not perfect. So, definitely it’s not always possible to please everyone. But to me, if I can give a project manager a game they want to work on as a project, then I’m quite certain that they will do their very, very best to deliver an excellent job just because they would be motivated. You know, some people say “pressure makes diamonds.” I really don’t like that. I really prefer “motivation makes diamonds.” You know, that’s my motto, actually. And let’s say that when you’re motivated, I think half of the job is already done. Kind of.

MELISA: I love it. Motivation makes diamonds. I love it.

LARA: Yeah, it speaks wonders of you, honestly. You’re putting people first. I mean, nowadays, in this industry in particular, it speaks wonders, so.

ESTELLE: I try to do it. I’m not saying. Yeah.

LARA: But you are trying it at least. That’s something. Yeah.

ESTELLE: I think it is quite well, so, yeah.

LARA: Yeah. I have the next question. And how has your career evolved over the years and what lessons have you learned along the way?

ESTELLE: Oh, um… Well, as I mentioned earlier, I think I did all the roles I could possibly do, I believe, in the video game loc industry, not that I can’t learn anything anymore. But you know, from translation, proofreading, project management, recruitment, I even did some LQA at some point on casual games, and it was in my early years. But yeah, Team Leader and now Loc Director… Yeah, that’s pretty quick. I did a lot of things. There must be other things I can do. But the lessons I would say, a few lessons. Well, motivation. Motivation is key. Try to motivate your team. You know, that’s how they will want to stay in your company. Not necessarily stay in your team, but at least, you know, make them feel part of the they belong to a group, a team. I think that’s important. To focus on their motivation and on your own motivation as well. And obviously, communication, communication is key. Work-life, private life… communication is always key. I keep saying that to my kids. And communication is key. Not always when it’s bad, you know, to talk about the thing that went bad. If things go well, say it as well, you know, because, like, when you work with a vendor, you know, don’t be too shy, you know, and send them an email when you’re happy with them delivering the job with good reactivity, because they respected all instructions or because it went well. It’s not because you don’t have a bad comment to say that you shouldn’t communicate with them. So, yes, communicate. When you’re not happy, but also when you’re happy. It’s important. Communication is key.

MELISA: I think this is such a good point because I feel like feedback, a lot of times it’s like you just give feedback when something wrong is happening and so the other person might feel like… “Well, I’m doing everything wrong” But that just little positive feedback might give them that motivation. “Okay, I did a good job.”

ESTELLE: Yeah. And when you’re French, you know, French tends to focus on the negative. “Oh, you should have done better this, that.” And all this is not really good. “This is not really good.” It’s not really the positive education, even at school. So I think it’s really important that once in a while to send an email just to say thank you for your commitment, thank you for being there because, you know… you’re really part of our success as well. So it’s good to say that. And also send feedback when they didn’t think exactly what you were expecting as well, because otherwise they can’t know what they have to improve, obviously.

ALEXIS: And that’s something that you need to know how to do as well, right? To give that feedback the best way possible.

ESTELLE: Yes. Yes, exactly. Exactly. And also to accept the feedback. But yeah, definitely it’s super important. Communication. Be humble as well. Always. Don’t be afraid to be too vulnerable. I think, especially, when you are in the leadership team and Yeah. You can’t know everything. You can’t have the answer to every single question or you can’t solve every problem. You’re not perfect, so, yes, accept it. And try to just be humble and be open. You can learn from everyone any time. Well, overconfident people tend to make me feel very uncomfortable. That’s my impostor syndrome. So, yeah, humility is key. I prefer humility in human beings. Also don’t be an asshole. That’s one of our motto at Hi-Rez. Don’t be an asshole.

MELISA: I really like this message. Because usually it’s confidence that gets praised. Like you have to show yourself really confident, like you know everything. and, you know, being humble… is also really, really important. It shows really good things. For me, at least, you know, when I see a leader that is humble and it’s open to learn new things like you were saying, you’re like… “Oh, wow, okay.” You know, we connect a bit more, I think.

ESTELLE: Yes, exactly. Don’t be an asshole. Be nice with others. Assholes, they never win, in the end. Except in politics, but that’s another discussion. Yeah. And the last thing I would say it’s maybe this is just work. It’s important as well to remember that because especially when… If you are like me and tend to feel like an impostor and then you tend to push yourself to work as hard or as much as possible because you want to show to people that “Yes, I belong here, I deserve my promotion.” Or, you know, you want to prove something to others, then the burnout is never really too far from you. So learn to stop before it’s too late. I went through burnout as well in my early years in France, and that’s really not something you want to go through. It’s not nice. And it takes time to recover. So we’re not saving lives. We’re just doing video games, right? So it’s cool. It’s really cool, but just don’t forget it. It won’t change anything if you answer this email in half an hour. Just go for a walk. A short walk. Get a break. Yes. I mean, it’s just that you would be so much more productive. And yes, I don’t need to answer you email constantly. Because I was like… I would stay in front of my desk. Not going to the toilet or to go and get food. And, you know, just because I thought… “Oh, if I go back to my desk, there would be so many emails to answer. And you know, I need to answer right away because the clients need to know I’m on it. I’m on it.” You know, that was always my… “I’m on it,” you know? Yeah, actually yes, I’m on it, but I can be on it, like in half an hour and take care of yourself as well. It’s really important. And I think after COVID years, oh, I got to realize a bit more that it’s important, but it’s definitely the most important thing. Yes. Yeah, absolutely. You know? And yeah, yes. Because I’ve been working on my impostor syndrome recently, I try to be more gentle with myself and to accept that I’m not perfect. And some people have been in my team no more than I do, and actually it’s fine. Probably it’s because I was good enough to hire them. So I hired the right people probably. And I shouldn’t be afraid if they are better than me. Um. Yeah, I try to be more comfortable with my weaknesses as well. It takes time. I’m not going to lie, but, I’ve been there.

MELISA: That is such a good point. Being gentle with yourself. And you know how people say all the time there’s things like how we… we are so used to lifting other people up, and how a lot of things when something happens around a situation, we talk to ourselves like we would never talk to a friend, like we talk to ourselves and say… “Well, how is that possible?” We’re not being that compassionate with our own selves.

ESTELLE: Or we don’t have a lot of friends, right?

LARA: I mean, it’s so important because also I believe after COVID and remote working and everything, it was just harder to separate your personal life from work, you know? And for me personally, I have to constantly remind myself it’s just work. Like tomorrow is going to be okay If you send these like two hours later, no one’s going to die.

ESTELLE: Yes, my manager in Paris used to say that all the time. And I keep saying it because it’s true. No one will die. It’s just work. It’s just games. Even games are important.

LARA: Yeah, a hundred percent.

ESTELLE: But, yeah, no one will die, and that’s the most important thing.

ALEXIS: So, Estelle, with so many people experiencing impostor syndrome at some point, beginning or even when they get a high position. But you have presented some excellent talks about this subject, right? So, I don’t know how to phrase this question, but maybe it would be what strategies or techniques have you found effective that you’d like to share with us in fighting these feelings of inadequacy, self-doubt? I don’t know. You take it from whatever you want.

ESTELLE: Okay. First, allow me to… because of the terminology, because of my translation background. So it’s going to be a terminology minute.

ALEXIS: Yes.

ESTELLE: I know we all say “impostor syndrome.” I do say it all the time. In fact, the official historical term is “impostor phenomenon” or “impostor experience,” because it is an experience rather than… When we say “impostor syndrome,” it makes people feel that it’s a clinical diagnosis, which is not. So the right term should actually be “impostor phenomenon.” But, that’s the end of the parenthesis. “Impostor syndrome” is the term that is widespread. Indeed, just to confirm what you were just saying, it does affect 70 to 80% of the global population at one point in their lives. So if you do feel this way, you’re not alone. And I’m here.

ALEXIS: I have to say that I love that it’s a phenomenon, right? It sounds more interesting than something clinical that something is actually wrong with you.

ESTELLE: Yeah.

ALEXIS: We should spread around that it’s “impostor phenomenon,” not “impostor syndrome.”

ESTELLE: Yeah. I’ll try to use phenomenon in the rest of the interview. Yeah, talking about some tips or strategies or things I’ve learned with my research and my training so far, the best one, or what I find is the best one, at least to me, is to consider myself as a work in progress person. Someone who is constantly learning things. And then it allows you to make mistakes. It allows you to accept that you’re not perfect because no one is. You are not perfect, sorry, team. I’m not perfect. And it allows you as well to accept that good enough is actually quite excellent. Sometimes, as an impostor, you just… “I’m not good enough.” But actually you are. And good enough is good because you can’t be perfect. So, considering myself as a work in progress person is actually one of the best advice I received. And I keep repeating it to myself very often when I don’t have the answer. And that it’s fine. I’m learning. I’m open to learn, you know. Yes, I keep learning every day from everyone, so that’s fine. Don’t be afraid, we mentioned that earlier as well, you know, to ask for feedback or to ask for help, wise people actually ask for help. There’s nothing to be ashamed of and to be vulnerable as well, you know, especially as a leader, but not only as a leader. Yeah, asking for feedback is actually a good way to know where you are or where you think you are. And there might be a big difference, especially if you feel like an impostor. And be gentle with yourself because yes, believe it or not, you are entitled to make a mistake once in a while. So don’t be too hard with yourself. Self-compassion, I mentioned that in my talk. You know, if you’re good at being an impostor, you probably suck at self-compassion and you should consider self-compassion as a new friend, actually, because it can really help you to silence the negative self-talk or message that pops up in your mind each time the impostor syndrome, impostor phenomenon, is triggered. You know, well… “I’m not good enough.” “I don’t deserve my role.” “What am I doing here? I feel so stupid.” “They know better than me.” “They are better than me.” All these negative thoughts, they don’t define you. And, you know, self-compassion. Try to be more gentle with yourselves. And of course, talk about it. Normalize it. Break the silence. It sounds easy to say it like this, but in fact, when you’ve spent most of your life trying to hide that you feel like an impostor, trying to hide one of your biggest weaknesses, it’s not that easy to talk about it, but it’s really worth it. And also, consider the source, right? Try to contextualize the impostor phenomenon. Are you the only woman in this board meeting or the only person of color? Are you a student whose skills are constantly assessed? Exams, tests. Are you the first graduate in your family? Do you work in a creative field? In a highly competitive field, or in a field where everything changes so rapidly? You know, we talk about AI a lot at the moment, and I think you can quickly feel overwhelmed if you work in this field. So there are lots of societal and situational factors to take into consideration if you want to get a bigger picture of the impostor phenomenon.

MELISA: That’s such a great point that you just made. Like Ale said before, you know, the thing about “oh is there something wrong with me?” And a lot of times you can explain it, like you were saying, with the context as well. There’s a lot of things, you know, inequalities in the society and in the private sector, in companies and leadership roles, so a lot of times it makes sense that people feel that way because they’re not actually being represented. There’s no other people like them in the room. So it’s really hard not to feel that way.

ESTELLE: Yeah, exactly. It has a lot to do as well with diversity, inclusion, equity and yeah…

MELISA: And like you were saying, talking about it, you know, the phrase “fake it till you make it” and then people just feel like they’re faking all the time because they can’t really feel like they deserve what they’re doing, they know what they’re doing. And I was very shocked, also for everyone that’s listening, how we met Estelle. It was one of her talks at a conference, and I’d like to say it was one of the most popular talks in the conference. The room was full. Everyone was so interested in participating. And then, when you were asking people to raise their hands, everyone, in different parts of the talk, they were feeling represented. Everyone in the room. So you can tell how many people actually feel this way.

ESTELLE: And, you know, I’ve done these talks several times and each time I can’t help but being surprised, but in a positive way to see how actually people in the audience feel comfortable to open up about their own impostor experiences. You know, at the end I tried… Well, we didn’t have enough time in the talk when we met because it was limited, but I did another one with more questions at the end and I tried to do… I’m not a medical expert. So the Q&A at the end is more like an open discussion for people to share their experience if they want. And you know, rather than really… “Oh, what should I do when I feel like this?” And each time people really open up and talk about their experience in front of people they’ve never seen before, you know. And sometimes in front of their own colleagues as well, you know, who discover that “Oh, that’s how you feel,” you know. So that gives lot of discussion as well. It’s super interesting. It’s a topic I’m really passionate about and talk about it for…

MELISA: You’re very passionate as well.

ESTELLE: I’ve just completed a new training. It’s actually an impostor syndrome informed coach, so I can coach now. And it was delivered by the Impostor Syndrome Institute, who is actually co-founded by Dr. Valerie Young, and the conclusion of this training was actually the only way to stop feeling like an impostor is to stop thinking like an impostor. People who don’t experience impostor phenomenon, they just think differently when facing a challenge. They are not more intelligent or more capable or more competent than people with the impostor phenomenon are. It’s just that they think differently. I think it’s a good thing to keep in mind.

LARA: Yeah. I mean…

LARA: Yeah, I started, early in my life, doing some sort of switch. I still suffer impostor syndrome. I still have that monster in my bedroom. It’s still there.

ESTELLE: Oh, a monster? I call it my friend.

LARA: Yeah, it’s a monster. No, mine is a monster because it haunts me all the time. It could be a ghost, too. You just throw the Halloween theme there. They’re like…

MELISA: You have to turn it into a friendly monster.

LARA: Perfect Halloween costume: The impostor syndrome. Yeah. I mean, I started doing something about it. I am really hard with myself, you know? So every time I make a mistake, usually I will go like, extremely, super hard on me. But then I realize that if I don’t make that mistake, I’m not allowing myself to learn from that mistake. How else am I going to learn? So that’s something that like, I don’t know, interrupt in my mind one day and I was like… “Oh, well, it’s not that bad then,” but it’s so hard. So hard. I always try to remind myself it’s extremely hard.

ESTELLE: It is extremely hard, that’s for sure, but it’s worth trying to remember that because you’ve done this mistake that you are who you are today. Sorry, that sounds a bit cheesy, but it’s true. And you learn so much from your mistakes. It’s just… you have to do mistakes. Otherwise, you would never really improve or change. It’s part of the experience, the whole life experience, I think. During the training, I forgot the name of the guy, but we talked about this TED talk about a guy who thought about… We were talking about the importance of failure and the way you could see how failure actually helps you grow up and help you grow. And this guy actually presents himself only with his failures. You know, rather than… I’m going to try that in my next talk. I think I noted that down. But I want to try. You know, when you do this talk or presentation, an introduction, and there you would say… “Oh, I’ve done this and I’ve worked there and I’ve worked on that many projects.” And so it’s a good…

MELISA: All your achievements.

ESTELLE: Yes. And then, when you see these TED talks is just like focusing on “No, I’m not the best.” “I failed this, I tried this and it didn’t work” or “I had this company. Well, you know, I had to close it down.” And that’s what I learned. And that’s another way of presenting yourself. But I think that’s so much better. That’s my opinion. But yeah, I really liked it. I was just like… “Yeah, actually, you know, people know about your achievement.” They could just go to your LinkedIn profile and they have your achievements. Because you sell yourself, right? If you send your CV to a recruiter, you might not just list your failures, obviously. But I really like the way of introducing yourself or presenting who you are to an audience and see how they react as well. So. Yeah, in doing other talks I would try to do it.

LARA: I love that. It’s so cool. So I have the final question for you, Estelle. Are you ready for it?

ESTELLE: Oh, yeah, sure.

LARA: What advice do you have for those aspiring to follow a similar path in the video game localization industry?

ESTELLE: Uh, that’s a tough one. You get the tough one at the end. So. Um, my background is translation. Right. So first I was a translator. So, if someone wants to be a translator right now or aspires to follow these kinds of paths, my gut feeling would be to pick another career path, maybe if you still can, or at least be prepared to evolve in your job as quickly as the technology or AI does. You need to work with the machine, not against it, right? Talking about it. Actually, last week I had a realization. Yes. It happens sometimes. Do you know Asterix? The comic books, Asterix and Obelix.

ALEXIS: Yeah.

ESTELLE: Yeah, you know.

ALEXIS: The little guy and the big guy.

ESTELLE: Yes, I was in France, and so the new Asterix was out. I think in English it’s The White Iris. I bought it. I read it in French. And now I’m actually desperate to buy the English version. I need to order it. There are so, so many references, like cultural references, to the French culture. Songs, proverbs, obviously all the names of the characters are puns or references to French persons or culture. So honestly, it’s full of it. So reading it, I was like… “Oh, I hope translators had notes and contextual reference.” I’m sure that they had it for such an important release. But when reading it, obviously I thought with my translation mind. So I want to read it in English now because I want to see which miracles the translators have accomplished, to be honest. I think even for the English version, you would need a British English version, an American English version, an Australian English version to adapt this Asterix properly. I checked. I think there’s only one English version, which is sad, but I really want to see what they’ve done. My point is… my realization was actually Translators: yes, they have a future. Yeah, it’s good? I’m sure you’re relieved.

ALEXIS: That’s a great take away.

ESTELLE: But I mean, yes, because one of the most important aspects of translation is all the cultural and linguistic context of the texts, right? So, yes, AI has made amazing progress in natural language processing. I won’t deny that. I can’t deny it. But AI is still unable to get all the nuances of a culture or language, you know, like idioms, proverbs, puns, jokes. I mean, while AI can be useful in certain fields for language professionals, it cannot replace, I think, the expertise and the cultural awareness of a human translator, at least for now, right? So what I’m trying to say is that most probably my job… because it was a question. My job as it’s been over the past decades or as it’s still today, will keep changing, evolving as new technologies, AI progress are used. So probably for students today, it might be more useful to study linguistic engineering, maybe, if such a thing exists. Or if you’re not really into IT, to focus your studies on the cultural aspects of languages to become a cultural expert because we will keep needing that. And our chance in the video game industry, I think, is that the texts we translate are mainly creative and our human expertise adds a massive value to the final localized products. And, as I said earlier, you need to work with the machine, not against it. So you also need to know where your added value is. And as a video game translator, your added value is most definitely in the knowledge of all the linguistic nuances and the cultural references of your native language.

MELISA: Yeah. I think that’s a great advice, that you can adapt. And there’s a lot of changes happening in the industry, so… we’ll see what the future holds for us.

ESTELLE: I think there are a lot of uncertainties that we are trying to navigate, but it’s still uncertain at the moment.

MELISA: Absolutely, yes. Well, Estelle, thank you so much for joining us. This was a great episode. I’m sure everyone listening will agree. And all your advice is very valuable. So thank you so much.

ESTELLE: Thank you for inviting me. I had a great time. So, hopefully everyone had too.

LARA: I had a great time too, so I bet they have.

ALEXIS: Thank you so much.

LARA: Thank you so much, Estelle. It was amazing.

ESTELLE: Thank you.

ALEXIS: See you, everyone.

ESTELLE: Bye.

Episode Transcription

ALEXIS: Hi, everyone! Welcome to another episode of Open World. Hi, Lali! Hi, Meli! Hi, everyone from the other side of the world of the screen. Today we are happy to have an amazing guest who considers himself as a happy person and someone with a couple of years under his belt. He has worked in Star Wars, Pokémon, League of Legends, Fortnite, Far Cry. We have today with us Theo Cuny. Theo, welcome to Open World. Thank you for being here today.

THEO: Thank you for inviting me.

MELISA: Thank you, Theo, for joining us.

ALEXIS: A pleasure. So, I think that the first question that we should ask you is, who are you? Can you walk us through a little bit about your career, how you started? What did you study?

LARA: And first of all, yeah, what do you do to be happy? Like, why do you consider yourself a happy person? Because I wanna know, like, for real.

THEO: All right, I’ll try to answer this question first.

MELISA: See what advice we can get from this.

LARA: Yeah.

THEO: I think it’s a very unique thing to each individual. It’s about being able to know the limit between compromise and sacrifice, about being yourself, true to yourself and your values. And sometimes being able to make hard choices, like leaving a company where you’re just not happy because of a toxic environment. Those kinds of things. It takes some time, and it’s not an objective you reach, it’s a path. So you constantly try to change, evolve and take a step back. And for me, being happy is being surrounded with what I call my three F, so family, friends and food. I’m French, so that’s what matters the most. I travel a lot. Yes. And yeah, video games. And try to think what I want to do, where I want to be and try to reach this objective. This is my happiness.

MELISA: I love it. I love it. What a great start for the episode.

ALEXIS: Yeah.

THEO: And to go back to your question, Alexis, yeah, I can try to introduce myself. It’s not an easy question. Never easy. My name is Theo Cuny. I was born in a small place called Monaco, and I grew up between Monaco and Paris. I’ve been working in the video games industry for about 17 years now. My career is a little bit unconventional, I would say, because I have no degree, no diploma. If you ask about the studies, I did not do any. So back in the days, that was synonym to failure. You wouldn’t be able to… or you would be told that you wouldn’t be able to have a career, to be successful, to earn enough money. And with this idea in mind, I worked in a supermarket, in fast food, in a library. I worked in retail, I worked in a toy shop, until I got 23. Twenty-three, this is when my life changed. With the support of my family and my brother, I took a one-year visa to Montreal, which is a city I love, I cherish. And when I got there, I applied to about all video game companies. It’s still a core place for the industry. And I think I worked about 2 to 3 weeks in a bakery. I guess I’m French, so that was easy to get into, bakery. And before… Yeah, Ubisoft called me for an interview, and that was a start. So I worked as a Functional TQA Tester at Ubisoft, and my first project was a Far Cry game. And they kept me …

ALEXIS: What a way to start!

THEO: Well, no. Actually, no. It sounds like it, but that’s the game they buried and tried to make everybody forget. It was Far Cry for the Wii.

ALEXIS: Ah! Yes, I remember that one.

THEO: Nintendo Wii.It was terrible. But I was happy. That was a great start, still. And, yeah, they kept me for the entire duration of my visa. Then I had to go back to France. I worked for Ubisoft near Paris, then I moved to UK. I worked for Codemasters on Dungeons and Dragons online and Lord of the Rings online for one year. Then I moved to Madrid, a city I also love. I worked for Electronic Arts. Great place. And this is when I started my journey in localization. After EA, I got my first permanent contract. I moved to Dublin, I worked on League of Legends with Riot Games for three years and a half. And then I moved to Berlin, I got hired by Epic Games to work on Fortnite four years and a half. I got short contracts here and there because it took me some time to get a permanent contract. So I had like two months in Milan, like three months in Texas. I worked in Malaga for four months. It was a little chaotic journey. And recently with COVID, I got back to France and I worked at Paris Saint-Germain Club for a year, but that’s not related to video games. And I got hired by Tencent Games, I worked remotely like for a year. And now it’s been about four months I decided to take some time for myself and travel around the world and spend some time with my three F. So yeah, that’s about it now.

ALEXIS: Quite a ride so far.

THEO: Yeah, just following my gut, and it takes me to all different places.

MELISA: Yeah. Like different jobs and different places of the world, literally.

THEO: Yeah. And I’m not done yet. I’m about to release a very humble clothing brand this summer, hopefully. So, like, nothing to do. And I’m working on a salad bar concept in my city where I live, so. Nothing to do. I just like, yeah, listen to my guts and follow what seems to be…

ALEXIS: We’re gonna need the links from your websites or Web stores and check them out.

THEO: Of course. Of course. I’ll be happy to share them with you.

MELISA: That’s so cool. Is this something you’ve always been interested in? Like, this is one of your interests that you thought having a clothing brand… How did you come up with this idea?

THEO: It was somewhere in the back of my mind for a while. And the theme is very specific, it’s about skulls. So it’s not for everybody. But I’m a fan. And because I travel a lot, I always try to buy something like a pair of socks or a T-shirt with skulls like everywhere in the world. And actually, I find it very hard to find something that I like. It’s quite often there is this… yeah, stereotypical. So I thought I would try to make myself, like, to make a brand that I would actually be happy to wear and share. And COVID actually made me do it. I had enough time. I wanted to grow, I wanted to learn, I wanted to have challenges. I knew nothing about it, I made a lot of mistakes. It was terrible. But yeah, that’s a learning experience.

ALEXIS: That’s how you learn.

THEO: Exactly. Exactly. And now I’m about to launch a V2. A friend joined me, he’s taking care of the Instagram. We fixed a lot of mistakes and… It’s quite rewarding to see it growing slowly, and let’s see what happens with it. Like I said, it’s very humble. No… no big, big goals, objectives, but still happy to release it.

MELISA: That’s amazing. That’s amazing. I think we can tell from just the short stories that you’ve been telling us, how, like, you’re open to a different life experience and sometimes it’s taking you to different places. Um, and now I’m wondering, and this is like going back to the localization. And I know, you know, you’ve tried different things and in different companies, but in general, what would you say are some of, like, hard and soft skills that one needs to work in video game localization?

THEO: Yeah, the answer may differ depending on who you ask. For some people, it might be a bit technical, about knowing all the tools, the CAT tools. For some people, project management is very important, especially if you are willing to grow from a Localization Specialist Translator to something bigger at some points. But that’s something you can learn with practice if you have the motivation and the passion and the patience. About the soft skills, which I care more about, I’m more interested in the human side of the job. So for me, that would be patience. You need a lot of patience. You need to have some diplomacy, creativity, proactivity. We work in a very fast-paced environment. In localization, things change a lot. Even when you think it’s ready, it might change when you wake up. So you need to be structured, organized, and that’s not something you easily learn. You need some methodology. You should not be afraid of asking people. Like if you see someone doing something good well, you shouldn’t be afraid to ask and say, “Hey, by the way, when you have the time, a couple of minutes to explain to me how you do this.” It’s important to be humble about that, to ask questions a lot. We know that localization context is extremely important, so don’t stay there with just your questions because you might end up with frustration and a not so good delivery. And also we work in a very multicultural environment with people from different horizons all around the world, in all possible time zones with different backgrounds, beliefs, education as well. So it’s important always to take a step back, be humble, to not judge and to be patient. Ask questions. It’s… I see that a lot in my career and it’s very important to take a step back. And you also may interact with the dev team, audio team, video team, publishing. They all have their own priorities. So… It’s okay, leave the frustration aside and be patient, ask questions, and diplomacy a lot. A lot. It’s very important in this, in my opinion, in this environment.

LARA: Absolutely. I couldn’t agree with you more. Like patience, like… The first one, patience, yes, 100%. So what would you say are the best practices that you have acquired throughout your career that you can recommend to our audience?

THEO: Yeah. One of the most useful for me, because I know myself and it will all have, like, pros and cons, let’s say. I know that my brain… my brain goes everywhere, like, all the time. I have a lot of ideas and it’s hard for me to focus and to keep track of things. So one of the things I put in place is methodology with emails, for example. There’s a feature set that I use a lot in my professional life and my private life, it’s Marked as unread feature. Especially when you’re frustrated, it’s very important to… It’s okay. Mark as unread. Get back to it later, when you have the right time to answer. Sometimes, one of the things that is also important is you can actually answer and say, “I’ll get back to you in a minute or in an hour or tomorrow.” Do not let the people believe that you don’t care or anything. So communication is extremely important. As a methodology, you have tools, a lot of tools available everywhere. Marina, for example, is sharing a lot of useful tips and videos about localization on a weekly basis. It’s very important. You can have some videos on YouTube like memoQ, Trados, they post a lot of videos as well. You have forums specialized in localization where you can ask about filters, about how to import a file. So it’s… You cannot master everything. You constantly learn. Even if you have like 35 years of experience, it doesn’t matter. Like the technology evolves, the industry evolves. So there’s always new features. And never be afraid to say, “I don’t know, please explain. I’m not sure I understand.” That’s the kind of methodology I would try to teach to people, if I can.

LARA: And also thank God for Google. Like, you’re gonna Google stuff, you’re gonna… I mean, I’ve been in those situations.

THEO: It’s there. It’s all in your mind. So it’s up to you to be humble, take a step back again and acknowledge that you don’t know or you can be better. So always find the opportunity to grow. And it’s out there, so take it.

LARA: 100%. I agree.

ALEXIS: Yeah. And I love the fact that all of these things are, again, kind of on the soft skills side, you know, and how to make yourself better through things. And the read mark thing, it’s a visual thing. I can relate to that.

LARA: And you have to learn about yourself too, because maybe that doesn’t work for you. But maybe if you’re listening to this and be like, “Hey, that might work for me.” Like, yeah.

THEO: There’s one thing that I learned over time and not necessarily the easy way is, we are in a very competitive environment. I talk about localization, but life is just competitive, about jobs, about everything. Everything is competitive. Instagram makes you compare yourself to people all the time and it’s…

LARA: Oh, my God, yeah.

THEO: Yes, exactly. And in your job, it’s easy to blame yourself or feel bad because you’re not good at something. And it’s actually okay. It’s okay. It’s okay to fail. It’s okay to try. Just try again. Just try again, find a way. Like I’m not good at focusing. I will never be, that’s the way I am. So I found a way to help me go through this. And it’s okay, I don’t have to fix myself. I have tools all around me, filters that can help me do the job without compromising myself or my values.

ALEXIS: I love that. I don’t have to fix myself. I have to find a way to make it work with how I am and how to… Yeah. I love that.

THEO: We’re talking about, Alexis, about the soft skills, this is the most… maybe the most important thing for me. I often ended up in situations where we had to hire people. And you can have on one side a profile with a lot of experience with all the hard skills, let’s say, but you’re not sure that person is gonna be a good fit. And for me, I would… a thousand times, I would most likely pick a person with passion, patience, diplomacy, maybe new to the job and willing to learn, to grow and that would just fit. I would really want to work with that person in a year or in two years and more. So, yeah.

LARA: That’s beautiful.

ALEXIS: That’s beautiful. Inspiring. Totally. Okay, so to move a little bit from work, because we work in localization, we work with video games, right? So this question splits in two. So what are your all-time favorite games and what are you playing right now if you are? And if you’re not, what would you like to play right now that it’s like, “Oh, I can’t. I’m just traveling too much?”

MELISA: I’m traveling too much!

THEO: Actually, it’s true. It’s not easy. Okay. It’s not an easy question. I think I was four years old the first time I got my hands on a video game that was on an Amstrad in 1985. That’s how old I am. And because I have older brothers, I also got the chance to play on Amiga, MO5, Macintosh. I think I owned almost all consoles. So my favorite games of all times, it’s not an easy question, but I would say maybe Secret of Mana was one of them on Super Nintendo. EverQuest because I got the chance to play with my big brothers. That was a big thing for me. Might and Magic VI. Uh… Might and Magic III, Heroes of Might and Magic, Diablo II, The Witcher 3, Borderlands, The Last of Us. Big, big heart to Last of Us I and II. A Plague Tale, Diablo II, Duke Nukem, Doom. Like those old classics. That’s my… yeah, what brought me here.

ALEXIS: Yeah.

THEO: And about the second part of the question… What I’m playing right now, I’m playing Sherlock Holmes. I think, Lara, are you playing it, or…?

LARA: Oh, my God, I finished it. Yeah.

THEO: I think I saw your post…

LARA: I was not expecting that.

ALEXIS: Don’t spoil it for him, just in case. No spoilers, please.

THEO: Yeah. I’m only in like chapter four because I started before the travel and then I came back, I played a few hours and then I left again. I’m a huge fan of Lovecraft’s universe.

LARA: Ah, same.

THEO: And so I had to get my hands on it. I am enjoying it a lot at the moment. That’s the only game I’m playing because, like you said, Alexis, I’m traveling a lot.

ALEXIS: Yes, sir.

THEO: While I’m traveling, actually, I’m playing an old game, Might and Magic VI: Mandate of Heaven, which is like a 20 or 25-year old game, because I can save and quit. I don’t have to commit too much. And again, I would like to play the new Diablo, I think, but I’m gonna wait a bit.

ALEXIS: You should.

THEO: Yeah. It’s harder for me…. It’s harder and harder to accept to spend like 70, 80, 90 Euros on a game. And especially because I know myself. I will play like 20 hours straight and then it’s gonna be gone. So yeah, I’m going to wait for it to be on sale. And yeah.

ALEXIS: By the time that we are recording this episode, we still don’t have, for instance, I don’t know, armor sets, or there aren’t any like the breaches that you could enter in Diablo III, you know, the dungeons. But we’re gonna have new content and updates and new seasons by October, so it can only get better. So if you wait it out, it’s gonna be even better. So you’re on the right track.

THEO: And I’m also traveling so much, I don’t want to start playing and then I have to put it on hold for like three weeks.

ALEXIS: You won’t be able to.

THEO: Exactly,that’s why I’m waiting.

MELISA: Theo, I’m curious, how do you play when you’re traveling? Do you take your computer with you?

THEO: I have my laptop almost always with me because I’m working on this clothing brand that’s taking a lot of time. I’m working on a different project as well, so I need to have my laptop with me most of the time. But I don’t want to commit to… Because I’m traveling, it’s beautiful outside, I don’t want to spend like 10 hours on a roll, so I’m taking like an old game I played, and it’s okay to… this is how I play it. I used to play on mobile. Not anymore. I’m just annoyed with the mechanics and the pay to win.

MELISA: Absolutely. And, Theo, it was great to hear like your, yeah, just what games you like and just hear about your career. And from all your experience, I imagine from when you started to right now, there’s been a lot of changes. How do you think technological advances kind of impacted that from when you started to right now?

THEO: That’s an excellent question. Um, as I told you, I joined Ubisoft in 2006. This is when my life changed, 2006. The Internet was around for about ten years. A bit more. 2006 is the first translation release from memoQ. So I saw it…

ALEXIS: You saw it… You saw it born.

THEO: Exactly. Exactly. The year after, 2007, was the first translation product from SDL and Trados as well. So it’s all… it was all new. Very exciting, very buggy. There was a lot of frustration, crashes, very slow. You had to be careful about how many words you would put in a database because not enough space. But it evolved so fast and so well, nowadays, like you can just take a few seconds to get something translated by a machine, and the result is gonna be very good. And about that, I think it’s natural and inevitable evolution, and I’m actually looking forward for some fields, if you think about… Take me, for example. I lived in six different countries, and we live in a world where more and more you have like migration fluxes between countries, between… It doesn’t matter anymore. You can be Spanish, Chinese, doesn’t matter. You can end up in any country. And it’s gonna be kind of okay. Now about medical, legal, administration, it’s very difficult. As an anecdote, I ended up myself in the hospital, like, emergency unit at, like, two or three some years ago, and I found myself translating the symptoms from a Mexican woman to a French nurse because she couldn’t explain. And now, I imagine, like, what could happen with technology in a few years where, it doesn’t matter where you are, who you are, and the barrier will fall. So I think it’s very important. Now, about localization, video games, it’s a bit different. If there’s one thing that technology will not take away is the difference between translation and localization. If you want a great product, the best product for your audience and for your global audience, you need emotion, you need a joke, you need a synonym better than a different one, you need a cultural expression. And for that you need good people. So it’s a natural evolution, is gonna bring a lot. But for video games and movies and entertainment industry, I think we still have a bright future for localization people.

MELISA: Absolutely.

LARA: I love that.Yeah.

MELISA: There’s so much talk nowadays about AI and how it’s changing our industry, so it’s really interesting to hear your opinion about it from the video game localization side.

LARA: Absolutely. Because it also says that… it shows how much you care about the video game if you are actually putting the emotion, if you’re actually taking care of that kind of stuff and not letting technology be too involved in the process.

THEO: Exactly.I mean, you are Terra Localizations, you work with a lot of developer studios. AI or not, it doesn’t change anything. The companies that does not want to put effort, involve money or provide context, they don’t care. If they don’t care, they don’t care. AI doesn’t change anything. If they care about it, they will provide context, they will do everything they can to make your job easier and to help you succeed, because that’s in everybody’s interest. This is what localization is about. It’s a group of people working on the same objective. It doesn’t matter if you’re inside the company, what role or title you have or… It doesn’t matter. So. Yeah, that’s…

LARA: Absolutely. Absolutely. So I’m going back again with the advices because I think that you’re such a notable person, like, oh my God. What advice would you give to someone who wants to pursue a professional journey in the triple-A industry? Because it’s just like, hearing you speak and all the emotion and all that you’ve been through is just incredible. Like, I’m amazed.

ALEXIS: And before you start, Theo, I love that, when you walked us through a bit about… when you walked us through your journey, you made it sound seamless, but at the same time, not simple, not something that just came easy. So… Sorry, I had to share that. Yeah, it was in the back of my mind from the beginning of the interview.

THEO: Nothing is easy. Life is hard. Whoever you are, it doesn’t matter. Rich or poor, the color of your skin. Nothing is easy, ever. You were not… Unless, okay, maybe you’re the son of, like, Bill Gates and you don’t care about anything. And still, it depends. I mean, the health is important, like, you can still be affected by the world around you, and nothing is easy. The mindset changes everything, how you go through things. At the moment, we talk a lot about gender equality, failure, acceptance of your body, your own body. This is like all in your mind and this is like how you change things. About my career, what you said, Alexis, it’s the same. Like, it was hard, I had tough moments at some points about accepting, taking good takeaways, being surrounded by good people and making the right choices. And most often, most of the time, the right choice is maybe not the most logical, but what you think is the right thing for you, even if it means moving away from what you dreamed about for like ten years. So it’s not easy. But about the advices for your question… There’s a lot of things you can do. A lot, actually. If you’re French, you have AFJV, which is like the French association for video games. They have job offers on a board every single day. You can learn or ask someone to explain to you how to use the filters on LinkedIn. I have a filter with localization, and there’s like hundreds of jobs every day all around the world. Might not fit, but the most important thing in the video games industry is to get your foot into it. So you may be able to… you may have to do some compromises, maybe to relocate, maybe to work in a field that you were not targeting initially. What you can do, you can follow the right people. Like, when I’m looking for a job, which didn’t happen for a while, but I had a browser open, and every single tab, I had like one of the companies I wanted to work with. And once a week, I would go through all the job offers and actually check. That’s also what you can do on top of LinkedIn. You can ask people to check your resume, especially if you work in localization, to avoid a spelling mistake, this kind of thing. Cover letter as well. You have free courses on LinkedIn. You can learn a lot from other people. Like I mentioned, Marina was posting a lot. And she’s not alone. Lara, you’re also like posting a lot. So it is true. It’s up to you to be proactive and to do the steps. It doesn’t guarantee that you will get the job you want, but you’re on the right path. That’s the best thing you can do, you don’t control the rest. But yeah, just do whatever you can to learn, grow, and it’s gonna be… you’re gonna… it’s a win-win situation anyway. Whatever you learn, it’s for you. So. Oh, and one thing I would also mention, one thing that is quite important to me, it’s cultural feedback. It’s not easy. People may think it’s easy, but it’s not easy at all, like in real life, to know when to provide feedback. The timing is very important, who to talk to, and the right words. How to deal with frustration, how to avoid like a negative spiral. So you also have training and courses about that. I think it’s quite important to… learn because communication is key in this job. So yeah.

MELISA: Amazing advice. Thank you.

ALEXIS: Amazing advice. There’s this saying, right? Shoot for the moon. Even if you miss, you’re gonna land among the stars anyway.

THEO: Exactly.

MELISA: I like it. And enjoying the process, going back to the start, trying to be happy during the process. And not thinking, “Once we reach the goal, then I’m gonna be happy.” This is something I liked from what you said at the beginning.

THEO: It’s very important and it’s not something you can easily teach. Like it sounds easy, like to share some wisdom in a way, but at the end of the day, the best way is to try, to fail and try again. That’s how you learn. So yeah, at the end of the day, like if you try very hard to reach an objective because you think this is what you should do, that’s maybe not the best thing. You should think about, “Okay, I want to do that?” Yes. No. Go for it. It’s hard to share, but yeah.

THEO: Yeah, it’s a great mindset. Yeah, I love that.

ALEXIS: Amazing, Theo. Thank you very, very much for taking the time to be with us here today. We could go on. I mean, we had go on talking over dinner in the past. But for today’s episode, this is the end. Thank you very much, Lali, Meli. And thank you all for sticking around till the end of the episode. And please don’t forget to follow us on our social media down below. We’re gonna leave you the links. Yeah, I don’t know where it is. Here, here, here. You know where it is. You know where they are. We’re gonna leave you some links that we’ve talked in the interview, wherever those links are. And we’ll see you next time. Thank you, everyone. Bye-bye.

THEO: Thank you very much.

MELISA: Thank you, Theo! Bye, everyone!

Episode Transcription

ALEX: Hi, everyone! Welcome to another Open World LocFact. Now, before we tell you what game we’re talking about today, don’t forget to follow us on all of our socials that you’re seeing here below.

FLOR: Yes. Today’s LocFact is about one of the best-selling PlayStation 4 games, God of War.

ATREUS: So I’m a man now. Like you?

KRATOS: No.We are not men. We are more than that.

FLOR: The 2018 game is still acclaimed and loved by everyone that plays it for its story, role design, art direction, music, graphics, combat systems and characters. The game is inspired by Norse mythology, with the majority of it set in ancient Scandinavia in the realm of Midgard.

ALEX: This is the first time that in the game series there are two main protagonists. Kratos, we all know him as the Greek god of war that is the only playable character in the game, but now he has his son Atreus with him.

FLOR: Having survived his final encounter with his father Zeus, Kratos has since traveled to Midgard in ancient Norway and now lives with his young son Atreus in the world of Norse Gods, the savage land inhabited by many ferocious monsters and warriors.

ALEX: In order to teach his son how to survive in such a world, Kratos must master the rage that has driven him for many years and embrace his newfound role as a father and a mentor. Now, Kratos keeps his troubled past a secret from Atreus, who is also unaware of his divine nature.

FLOR: The story keeps the fans absolutely involved with the game. From beautiful fan art to what brings us today’s LocFact, fans translating the God of War runes.

ALEX: The runes in God of War are primarily written in Elder Futhark, the eldest form of runic alphabet. This alphabet has been used from the 2^nd to the 18th century, and these runes appear all throughout the game.

FLOR: Some determined fans translated runes from an item in the game’s collector’s edition and were able to unearth a secret item. Since then, other fans have sought to uncover similar secrets or simply learn more about the game story.

ALEX: Now hold up. Here’s where we say that if you haven’t played the game, stop here, fast forward or something, because there are spoilers ahead, okay? Yeah, okay.

FLOR: Yes. You’ve been warned.

ALEX: So, one of the major things… You’ve been warned. One of the major discoveries that were made is the meanings behind Baldur’s tattoos.

FLOR: That’s right. The large red runes on Baldur’s back spell “cursed.” His arms feature a repeated phrase that roughly translates as “never to forget.” While the circular tattoo on his chest has been interpreted as, “Lights confine me with warmth so that I might feel something.“

ALEX: As if those runes weren’t ominous enough, Baldur’s neck bears the words, “I mark the twilight of the gods.” There are fans that believe that this phrase alludes to Baldur being the sign of Ragnarok. If only Atreus could have translated this rune to give Kratos a heads up about the world’s end.

FLOR: If only, right?

ALEX: Yeah.

FLOR: And that’s the end of today’s LocFact. Stay tuned for today’s interview with Renee Gittins, the executive director of IGDA. Thanks for joining us. See you next time.

ALEX: Thanks, everyone. Bye.

FLOR: Hi, everyone! Welcome to another episode of Open World. Today with us we have Renee Gittins. Renee is the executive director of IGDA. IGDA is the International Game Developers Association. How are you today, Renee?

RENEE: I’m fine, thank you so much for having me here.

FLOR: Yeah, we’re very excited to have you today, and we’re really excited to learn about your journey within the gaming industry, what it takes to be part of IGDA? What are you working on? So not many of our audience, not many people that tune in are familiar with IGDA, so we’re really excited to have you here and learn more about what you’re doing. So we know that you are a programmer and a game designer, right? So we wanted to learn a bit more about what’s your favorite part within the game design of a video game, and what are your inspirations or even concepts that you take into account during this stage to not miss direction.

RENEE: Yeah, absolutely. So what I think really compels me about video game development in general is that it brings together so many different disciplines and studies. Pretty much anything you learn can be practical within video games. Of course, there’s programing and arts and composition and design. But you know, if you have a history degree, you know, you can provide historical insight. You know, if you have a literature degree, you can help with writing in-game books or with the dialog creation. I just love how games as a medium bring together all of these different elements of human creation and creativity and innovation. And similarly with game design, which I really appreciate about it, it is problem-solving, but not technical problem-solving. Certainly, there’s technical problems. I’ve always been somebody who loves solving problems, but when it comes down to it, math problems and science problems and problems that have straightforward answers are, in my opinion, a lot easier than soft problems. You know, people problems, design problems, encouraging and evoking emotion and satisfaction and curiosity. Those are very difficult problems.

ALEX: It’s a bit trickier.

RENEE: Yeah.

RENEE: Yeah, you get more personal, so you have to be very careful where to draw the line or where to get more involved, right? In the narrative.

RENEE: Exactly. And I love that kind of problem-solving. And that’s what compels me about game design. So I wouldn’t say that I’m necessarily the most inspired game designer I know. I have a very good friend who has literally journals like books and books and notebooks of game designs. He just has game designs come out of his brain all the time and has to write them down, and then we’ll eventually pick one to try to make. I design through frustration.

ALEX: That’s a nice fuel, right?

RENEE: Right? I will play a game and I will just get so frustrated about some aspect of it. And these are generally large concepts, not like, “Oh, I hate this mechanic” or “I hate this UI.” I’ll get frustrated with like an entire game concept, and then I will design a game based on my frustration there. And the game that I’m currently working on, Potions: A Curious Tail, it’s an adventure crafting game where you play as a young witch, she brews magical potions and she uses spells to battle monsters and solve puzzles. But the reason I created that game is because I was playing a game called Pixel Dungeon on the phone, and it was a rogue-like dungeon crawler. And it had two elements that I found not great. One is you had to eat food and each step you took slowly decreased your food you’d had and you could starve to death.

ALEX: Your energy. Yeah.

RENEE: Right. And then the other element is you wanna find the entrance down to the next level of the dungeon, but you have to kill all of the monsters on the level in order to level up enough to beat the boss monster that’s like five or ten levels down. Which meant that, if you were playing the game and you found the entrance down early, it was bad. It was a bad thing to find the exit to the next level because it meant that you had to still clear out the rest of the level and you’d lose your food, energy and things like that on your way. I was like, this is so frustrating. It’s so frustrating that something that should be satisfying and that feels good, like, “Oh, yes!” Like going deeper in the dungeon should feel good instead of the exact opposite.

ALEX: Because you weren’t prepared to be in the second level, right?

RENEE: Right. And that put me on like a whole tirade of like, why do games work the way they work? And it brought me to a conclusion, that I don’t really like the experience, like the leveling up experience. It’s just funny because I play lots of RPGs. They are generally very, very experience-based, but it encourages bad behavior. For example, you’re usually a hero of these games, but you get praised for just being completely psychopathic and murdering everything you see, right?

ALEX: Grinding.

RENEE: Right, grinding! You know, it’s like instead of just like, oh, kill some bunnies for some bunny fur, but if you keep killing bunnies, you still profit from it, right? Like, even when you’ve slayed like thousands of bunnies, far more bunnies than you should ever kill. And it just doesn’t feel… it doesn’t feel very heroic. And so I wanted to make a game that was balancing the cost of fighting with the benefit. And that’s why I came up with Potions. It’s all based around potions because that is resource management, and you literally don’t have an ability to kill anything unless you’re using resources to do so. So it means that as you get stronger, you don’t want to go through and murder everything because it’s a waste of resources to try to do that. And similarly, the way you progress throughout the game is you learn new things and you figure out new puzzles and you’re sort of expanding the tools or resources available to you. So it feels more personal, your growth, instead of just like, you got some numbers and your number bar went up and now your number of bars is bigger, right?

ALEX: You’re stronger because you killed a bunch of bunnies and you got XP out of it.

RENEE: Yeah, exactly.

ALEX: I know that you are a witch in your game, right?

RENEE: Yes, yes.

ALEX: I know that you’ve been working for quite a while in your game. Do you have an E.T.A.? And other than that, how’s the dev process behind this game that you’re so passionate about? And I want to know then if you are thinking about localizing it. I know that that’s quite the task as an indie developer, right? But what can you tell us about that whole process?

RENEE: Yeah. So we launched our alpha last December, and we’re getting close to beta. We’re probably about 85% of the way done with the game content. And right now I’m actually bringing on a designer or two. This is the first time I’ve announced it, so.

FLOR: Wow! We have the news.

RENEE: You do. Breaking news!

ALEX: Breaking news!

RENEE: To help with the final polishing, you know, additional puzzles, additional elements in the dungeons, you know, helping with tuning the boss fights. So we’re getting real close. I won’t say a date, but…

ALEX: That’s my idea. Okay.

RENEE: But I have a date in mind. I just need to make sure all the parts are falling into place there. Now, localization is a really interesting question because something that you might also know about my game is that it is very culturally inclusive. It’s actually inspired by fairy tales and folklore from around the world. So we have, you know, Baba Yaga from Slavic lore, and Tripitaka and Sun Wukong from “Journey to the West,” you know, traditional Western European fantasy, and things like the Zaqqum fruit from Islamic legend. And bringing those all together, I wanted to make sure that this was quite a worldly game. And because of that, I was thinking about localization from the very start. I don’t… You know, whether or not it will be localized, that is one question, but I built all of our systems with that plan. The only thing that I didn’t plan out yet was buttons, like the button text. I don’t have a lot of button text, so that will be something that will be fairly easy to go in and provide updates for. But all of the dialog I based around the ability to be able to localize it, because I knew that most localization companies like to use csv or xml files, and so I built our dialog system to be fed by xml files. I think when people are first making games, they’re sort of tempted to hard-code in their dialog, which is bad in so many ways, right? Like not only does it make your dialog much less accessible to anyone who is not technical, like you’re sending some poor writer in there, but it makes it very, very hard to localize because you have to cut and paste it all out and then send it over and then cut and paste everything back in. Whereas I have it where I could just export a bunch of csv files, send them in, and then… even the titles can change. Like they don’t even have to be like consistently named files. I could just throw them all in a folder and it magically works. It goes through, it processes all the keys, and I can then change elements such as the language very easily.

ALEX: But that’s like the ideal stage for a game that’s in the alpha stage, right? So that’s, that’s amazing. That’s good enough for an alpha stage game, almost beta, to have localization in mind from the very first moment. And then you can work your way around that. You’re certainly creating that space to make it easier for the future, right?

RENEE: Yeah, absolutely. And, you know, setting up your csvs properly, using unique keys for triggering dialog events and things like that allow you a lot of flexibility to add an additional functionality apart from localization. So I have audio triggers that I can put into those files as well. I have the visuals for characters who are talking, and then I have prebuilt ability to like change their facial expression, even though right now everyone just has a simple dialog image. It’s built so that, if I want to have multiple dialog images so they can look like angry or happy or surprised, that’s very, very easy to integrate.

FLOR: I think that’s amazing that you are taking all these considerations beforehand and not having localization as an afterthought, like we like to say. But I’m curious on how you learned that lesson, and was it the hard way that you start hard-coding your first games? Or was it something that you learned by reaching out to colleagues and friends within the industry?

RENEE: Um… Gosh, I think I learned it just… Like I said, I really like problem-solving, and one of the things I wanted to do is make sure that I was future proofing without over future proofing. And because of that… You know, I believe in that very strongly. Any time you’re architecting any system, whether it is games, whether it is mechanical engineering, which actually that’s my background, you want to make sure that you’re building it in a way where you can expand upon it if you think it’s going to expand in a certain way with minimal cost. And, you know, right now I don’t have a localization system in Potions, but adding a localization system will be very easy because I structured my game to support that. And that’s how I have tried to develop the entire game and the games and projects that I work on as well. I make sure that I’m considering what directions the features, the product, the game might take, and that those are considered in the base architecture and design. And I think that is sometimes learned through the school of hard knocks, but you can prevent a lot of that school of hard knocks learning if you just, you know, really sit down and consider the features that you want to have.

FLOR: Oh, yeah, for sure. I think that’s great advice for everyone who is starting with their project and don’t know what to plan for. And well, going back to IGDA, because of course we’re eager to learn what you’re working on, and we also know that you work towards different initiatives related to video game localization. So I was very curious to know, is there anything specific that game developers are interested in when it comes to localization? Or are there any questions that are repeated over and over in terms of localization when it comes to developers?

RENEE: Um, I think that one of the biggest questions that I’ve seen among developers is sort of twofold. One is what languages should we be localizing into? And the second…

FLOR: The million dollar question, right?

RENEE: Right. And the second is, how do we ensure that on the game side we’re getting easy-to-integrate localization? And obviously having these modular systems, making sure you can integrate the dialog translations easily is one thing, but you actually even have to think about the UI you’re using, which text you’re using. I think a lot of people forget that your font might not support, you know, all the languages you’re localizing into, and so you also have to add, you know, additional functionality to change the fonts along with the languages, you know, you’re providing localized text. I actually… I saw… One of my friends had a… like a technical test or like a technical producer test for an interview they were having, and in that there were some like “gotchas” in all of the problems. And I noticed when they were… One of the problems was like, “Oh, we need to do a global launch. We wanna make sure that everything’s localized. We have it all localized in EFIGS.” And as you’re probably aware, EFIGS is not like the current standard. For those who are not familiar with EFIGS, it’s for English, French, Italian, German and Spanish. Which is a whole bunch of languages that don’t work for pretty much a majority of the world, right? Like English has like…

FLOR: Exactly.

RENEE: But if you’re looking at like simplified Chinese, it’s gonna get you a far larger market than Italian is going to get you. No offense to Italians. Italians are great, but…

ALEX: No, but it’s very important to have, like, the proper market research, you know, and not just, let’s go EFIGS because that’s what you have to do, right? No. Know where you want to get your game published, then what languages does the gamer that you wanna reach out talk, right?

RENEE: Right, yeah. Doing research on similar games and seeing, you know, looking at Steam’s stats and seeing what languages they’re being played in, like what regions are playing them as well.

FLOR: Exactly. Yeah. I think that’s super important, to understand like what genres work on each specific market, right? Sorry, Ale, go ahead.

ALEX: No, please, Flor. It’s okay. I think that this may be like something that comes in the future of what we are talking like really. But if you had a chance to look into this future of the video game industry from your position as both things, right? As the IGDA CEO and as a developer, I don’t know, ten years from now, in the near future or whatever, what do you think or what would you absolutely love to see like happening on a regular basis that you think that there’s lacking right now?

RENEE: What I’m seeing the growth of and what I am excited to see grow more is the development of games from more regions. I mean, obviously there are game developers now everywhere, but we’re seeing a lot of enterprising game industry markets coming from regions that have previously not had that presence. You know, Africa is the big one that’s up and coming. We’re also seeing countries who have often provided outsourcing, like India, bringing more development in their in-house to develop their own projects instead of just providing assistance for other people’s. And I’d like to see that more and more, because obviously games are the largest entertainment industry in the world, but they have so much more room to grow in terms of supporting in all of these different regions and cultures because, they haven’t been fully global, at least not until more recently. And we absolutely can see more of that. And I’m seeing more of that up and coming every year. This is Calcifer. He says hi.

FLOR: Okay. Yes. We need a proper introduction.

RENEE: Go say hi, Calcifer.

ALEX: Hi, Calcifer!

FLOR: Oh, my goodness!

ALEX: He’s gonna make it to the episode, you know that, right?

FLOR: The fact that he’s called Calcifer is just great.

RENEE: Yes. Yes. Named after the Fire Demon in Howl’s Moving Castle.

ALEX: Yeah. It suits him.

RENEE: Yes.

FLOR: He’s like, “Mom, stop it.”

ALEX: Yes. “Mom, can I please go?”

RENEE: He likes being cradled, so he’s perfectly happy here.

FLOR: Well, welcome, Calcifer. So picking up on your last comments on the industry in general, it feels like you’re aiming towards more diversity, equity and inclusion within the gaming industry. And I know this has been a really hot topic in the last years, but this is something that you’ve been advocating and working towards for many, many years, regardless of the current status of the industry. And I know that there are many people out there trying to fully understand how they can collaborate and work together and create partnerships with different associations such as IGDA, even Women in Games and other associations that represent minorities within different markets and different countries. And is there any way or path you would recommend to game developers that want to get more involved in these initiatives and don’t know where to start?

RENEE: Yeah, absolutely. You know, the IGDA has many, many resources that can help on all different levels of that. If you’re interested in just learning more about creating an inclusive workspace and a healthy work culture, we actually published a paper during the summer called Guide for Game Companies: How to Create and Sustain a Positive Work Culture, which talks about tools for DEI, but also for, you know, just creating a healthy work culture that’s going to best support your employees and their mental health and their wellness and well-being. And of course, you know, equity and inclusion is a large part of that. We’re also just about to publish another paper that is called Inclusive Game Design and Development. It’s about how to create inclusive game development projects from building your initial team and, you know, concepting the gaming world all the way through the design of the game, accessibility considerations and all the way through marketing and community development. So those are gonna be great resources for anyone who is interested in learning more about those subjects. If you are passionate about, you know, improving the resources for the industry or helping others taking a stand, we have special interest groups, both affinity and discipline-based. So we have Women in Games, LGBTQ+, Muslims in Games, Blacks in Games, all the way through disciplines, such as game writers, game designers, quality assurance. And those communities come together from all over the world to help uplift each other and to provide support to these topics that they’re passionate about.

FLOR: Well, that’s amazing. And when do you think this paper is going to be published? Do you have a date for that?

RENEE: I do. It’s gonna be early December.

FLOR: Excellent. And what if someone from our audience wants to reach out to IGDA and get more information about how to become a member or even how to collaborate in these different initiatives or special groups that you’re mentioning?

RENEE: Yeah. All of that information is available at IGDA.org. If you’d like to become a member, of course we’ll welcome you, but you’re more than welcome to join our Discord communities. Even without membership, we have studio affiliation if you’re looking to get assistance for supporting all of your studio members. And, of course, we have all of these wonderful resources on our Resource Library that you can find right on that website as well.

ALEX: We’re gonna leave all the links below from the IGDA and from Potions: A Curious Tale at the Steam page as well.

RENEE: Thank you.

FLOR: Oh, yeah.

ALEX: Yep, yep, yep.

FLOR: All right. Well, how do we feel about going through the memes now? It’s about time, so I’m gonna share my screen. So “Doctors: Googling stuff online does not make you a doctor.” Programmers are like, mmm…”

RENEE: Oh, boy.

FLOR: Let me think twice about that.

RENEE: Yeah. I have to Google things all the time when I’m coding. I’ll forget something silly, like the exact formatting of switch statements or something like that, and I’ll just go, “All right, you know, the C-sharp switch statement. Easy enough, look it up.” But yeah, always, always looking up things, especially when you’re working in a game engine, you know, it requires so much documentation to understand how different calls are operating and what you’re getting back. So absolutely constantly Googling things.

ALEX: But please, everyone, go see your doctor. This is just for programmers. I don’t know.

FLOR: And now that you mentioned engines, what engine are you working on right now?

RENEE: So Potions: A Curious Tale is being made in Unity. I’ve found that its combination of 2D and 3D tools was really compelling, plus its ability to export easily to pretty much any platform.

ALEX: Nice.

FLOR: Excellent. “The two states of every programmer: I’m a God versus I have no idea what I’m doing.”

RENEE: The Googling comes in on one of these.

ALEX: Yeah. I can imagine that the guy on the left has a Google tab open somewhere.

FLOR: I think it can come in both.

RENEE: I have had to… So a funny thing about Unity is a lot of times the way that you write the code is you’re writing monobehaviours and they don’t run unless they exist in the scene. And so you’ll spend all this time writing new code and new functionality, and then you’ll test it and it’s not working. You put in print statements or you try debugging it and it’s not being called and it’s not printing. And I have spent, you know, up to 30 or 40 minutes trying to figure out what’s wrong. And I forgot to add the code to the scene. I just didn’t like drag and drop it. Oh, boy, yeah.

FLOR: We all have those moments, like we’re both geniuses and this dog with no idea what they’re doing.

RENEE: Yeah. And it’s funny because I go straight from “I have no idea what I’m doing” to “I added in and it runs perfectly the first time,” then I’m, “I’m a God!”

FLOR: Never didn’t have it.

ALEX: These are interchangeable.

RENEE: Oh, absolutely. Yeah, 100%.

FLOR: Oh, okay.

ALEX: Shower thoughts.

FLOR: How often does this happen to you?

RENEE: Oh, boy. When I’m doing a lot of programing, it happens all the time. I think that what I really appreciate about this meme is that… This is not the original version. The original version, when she’s in panel four, is like… existential dread, you know. Hence the face. But it works perfectly for when you’re thinking about that bug as well.

FLOR: Also bugs can be existential dreads.

RENEE: Pretty much. Yeah. You know, the funny thing is, human brains work better when you’re not just constantly focused on a problem. So this is 100% happens. I can get too much into it, but there is actually a lot of reasons why, if you get stuck on a problem, you should go take a walk.

FLOR: Yes.

RENEE: Or shower or whatever you need. I recommend some light exercise because that feeds your brain. But yeah, get away from your problems instead of just bashing your face on your keyboard.

FLOR: Yeah, some fresh air, sunlight, and just get the blood flowing and then come back and everything will feel a little better.

RENEE: Mm-hmm. 100%.

FLOR: For sure. Okay, this one. Poor thing. She has no idea what’s going on.

ALEX: I have to say that I needed context. The first time I saw this, I needed an explanation. I thought it was just, like, the cutest thing, but no.

RENEE: It was cute. I… I really enjoy, like, dark humor that’s hidden, you know? I don’t like over the top dark humor or in-your-face dark humor, but I love dark humor that’s under a few layers of understanding. That just tickles me. And yes, this is very dark.

FLOR: Well, would you like to walk our audience through this? Because maybe some people need also an explanation.

RENEE: Yeah, I imagined. So if you’ve not watched “Fullmetal Alchemist,” this is a spoiler. So if you’re gonna watch it, don’t listen for the next like minute. This guy is like a scientist, he does experiments, but one of the things that he does is he combines his daughter with the family dog into a chimera and creates this horrific suffering creature that wants nothing more than to be put out of its misery. So this filter of, you know, seeing her like a dog…

FLOR: Yeah, it’s really dark.

ALEX: Yeah. It’s very dark.

FLOR: Of course, he has no idea what’s going on. He’s like, “Come on, I’m gonna take a picture of you.”

RENEE: Yeah.

FLOR: Again, Googling.

RENEE: It’s… Yeah.

ALEX: Again, interchangeable. One thing comes with the other.

FLOR: One thing can be two things, so.

ALEX: Yeah. Two things can happen at the same time.

RENEE: I would say the hardest thing about game development…. So I’ve actually mentored high school students before, and the hardest thing isn’t coming up with game ideas, it is figuring out how to solve problems you haven’t faced before. And 90% of that, aside from just like the initial approach of figuring out what the problem even is, is figuring out how to type it into Google. Because obviously, like, how do you phrase this? What sort of terminology do you use? If you’re a self-taught programmer, you know, I was a self-taught programmer or a self-taught game developer, a lot of times you don’t even know the terms that you should be using to describe the problem that you’re facing or what you’re looking to solve or the tool you’re looking to access. So being good at Googling is a very, very important skill to be a good game developer.

FLOR: Oh yeah, for sure. And the same applies to video game translators because most of the time, well, more often than we’d like to, we don’t have enough context. And if we’re lucky enough, we’re working on a franchise or something that we can Google. If not, we’ll have to go into the deep web and find how that specific term or word can be localized into your culture and into your language, right? So Googling is a really good skill.

RENEE: I have to ask about that. How do you handle names?

FLOR: Well, that depends on, of course, the game that you’re working on and the client, and if they have a style guide or if they… Because maybe you can open the discussion and decide together with them, because sometimes they have a clear vision and they know that they want their games to be fully localized, because the names may refer to something within the narrative or a characteristic of the…

ALEX: The character.

FLOR: The character. So you may want that to be localized and sometimes you don’t, but it’s a process that you go through together with the game developers or even the publisher, because of course, if you’re going to localize and look for the same impact, you have to come up with a whole new name sometimes. So it can be tricky.

RENEE: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, that’s something that I’ve been thinking a lot about with my game because I have characters who are literally named from lore, right? Like Tripitaka and Sun Wukong, the English translation version that is used in the “Journey to the West” copies that are really popular over here. But obviously, like, they are quite popular lore and they have different names in different regions that are attached to them. And I imagine a lot of the fairy tales or folklore from Europe that I use similarly probably have multiple different names based on what region that they’re being sold in.

ALEX: Yeah, I mean, one of the things that we like to say…

FLOR: Yeah, that’s something…

ALEX: Sorry, Flor.

FLOR: Oh, go ahead.

ALEX: One of the things that we like to say every time that we have the opportunity is that video game translators, localizers, are the gatekeepers of their culture, right? So to have that safe space to talk with the developers, to see what’s the best thing for each market, for that particular game, to have that open communication and to have that knowledge to like, “Hey, this would be interesting to localize it for this market because it would be more approachable or easy to understand.” And that’s always like the best-case scenario, so to speak.

FLOR: Yeah. And in your case, like your game, if you make reference to so many… if you have so many cultural references, you definitely want to investigate and make sure that you’re using the right term, since there’s probably already a validated version in their language.

RENEE: Absolutely.

FLOR: That’s very important. And you’ll have to Google a lot for that.

RENEE: And that’s why you go to experts, right? This is why people need to go to experts who do localization versus just trying to like throw it all into Google Translate.

FLOR: Oh, yeah, absolutely. We Google, but we don’t Google translate. That’s the thing.

ALEX: If you’re gonna do that, then don’t.

FLOR: Unless you want a Frankenstein or something out of the translation. Okay. “When you see Superman using the car you’re still making payments on as a weapon.” Like, why?

ALEX: I love the fact that his face is smiling, but he’s like in terror.

FLOR: That expression, it’s like… oh, boy. “Four years after college and all of my peers are getting married, and I’m just sitting here making video games.” Well, and having cats.

ALEX: That’s your leading character, right?

RENEE: It is. It is. And the picture behind her is her familiar. It’s been edited in there, too. A subtle additional extra. Yeah.

FLOR: That’s so cool. I feel like it’s so interesting that memes are a new way for game developers to connect with their communities and to get their characters out there and more relatable. So this is great.

RENEE: Yeah. That’s also very old. I’m ten years out of college now, so…

ALEX: You’re gonna need to, like, erase the board. But it’s okay, you can get away with the four, don’t worry about it.

FLOR: “When you’re working really hard on code for an upcoming deadline.” And bugs.

RENEE: There is that wonderful song, “99 little bugs in the code, 99 little bugs. Take one down, patch it around, 117 bugs in the code.“

ALEX: Like I just feel sad for the poor little Charmander here.

FLOR: Yeah, his little sad face, like. Yeah, I can definitely relate. Well, I think like throughout all of our episodes and interviews, one of the most common memes was the one of the dog that says “This is fine” while everything is on fire. So I think this is everything is on fire, taken to a next level.

RENEE: So, yeah, you’re taking things, you’re trying to put out the fires causing more fires, right?

FLOR: And you are on fire.

RENEE: You are on fire. Yeah. Try as you might.

FLOR: Yeah, yeah, yeah. And that’s the end of our memes. Thank you so much, Renee, for sharing…

RENEE: Oh, it’s a pleasure.

FLOR: …those with us. I love to learn what makes our guests laugh. And thanks for making us laugh, too.

RENEE: Happy to share the laughs.

FLOR: Yeah, of course. It was so nice to have you, so nice to learn more about IGDA and about your project. We’re really looking forward to see when it’s gonna be released. So as soon as you have more information to share with us, please do, because we’re very excited to learn more about it. And thanks everyone for tuning in. See you on our next episode of Open World.

ALEX: Bye, everyone. Thank you.

Episode Transcription

EP05.mp4

ALEX: Hi, everyone! Welcome to another episode of Open World. Today we’ll be talking with Miguel Sepulveda, from King. But first, let’s check out the LocFact of the day.

ALEX: Hi, everyone! Welcome to today’s LocFact. We are Alex and Lucho and on today’s LocFact, we will be talking about culturalization in one of the most famous video game sagas of all times: Assassin’s Creed.

MAN: You want it darker. We kill the flame.

LUCIO: We want to address the last 3 releases of the game, which are set in Egypt, Ancient Greece and several Nordic countries, whose distinct cultures were adapted to fit the game story.

ALEX: Now, let’s remember that these games are set prior to the templars and the assassins’ becoming the order and the creed that we all know today.

LUCIO: Also, don’t forget that this video game saga, though it takes some historic events from the past, is not 100% accurate. Assassin’s Creed is well known for mixing those boring history lessons with some action and fantasy, creating a parallel timeline.

ALEX: There are way too many historic character appearances to name them all, but just to name a few, we can see Perikles in Assassin’s Creed Odyssey. The warring sons of the legendary Viking warrior Ragnar Lothbrok in Assassin’s Creed Valhalla. And we shouldn’t forget Cleopatra and the Roman Republic under the command of Julius Caesar in Assassin’s Creed Origins.

LUCIO: One of the most appreciated cultural representations in Odyssey is the fact that Ubisoft worked with a cast of native Greek voice actors. And they decided to keep some go-to Hellenic swear words. For example, cries of “maláka,” which is one of the most loaded and oddly versatile swear words, so it’s the one that we hear the most.

ALEX: In Assassin’s Creed Origins, its main character Bayek cannot embody the culture of an entire civilization, but that’s where the game’s thoughtful side quests come into play. They offer opportunities for the player to learn more about ancient Egyptian civilization through intimate moments with other characters. For example, the “Bayek’s Promise” quest tasks players with finding several stone circles. These stone circles trigger flashbacks from Bayek’s past in which you can see him discussing love, family and loss, and each flashback is tied to a specific Egyptian deity represented with a constellation. Pretty cool, right?

LUCIO: Yeah! What Valhalla definitely got right was the common practice of Norse culture and mythology called “flyting,” /flʌɪtiŋ/. This tradition consisted in the exchange of insults similar to a rap battle between two rivals. And yes, the experience can vary between languages due to the loc process carried out, but players can get to experience flyting as close as it can get in the 21st century in a wide array of languages.

ALEX: All in all, you might not be able to experience Greek philosophy, Egyptian culture or Norse way of living firsthand, but playing Assassin’s Creed will surely feel like visiting a really fancy and lively theme park.

LUCIO: If you don’t have the game, you can also see what Ubisoft did with their research of the places. Check out Discovery Mode Tour!

ALEX: Well, that was the LocFact for today’s episode, everyone. I hope you enjoyed it, and see you on the next one.

FLOR: Hi, everyone! Welcome to this new episode of Open World. Today here we have Miguel Sepulveda. Hi!

MIGUEL: Hello!

FLOR: So welcome, Miguel. Miguel is a blogger, researcher, Game Global advisory board member, language geek, and a father of two lovely kids. He started his journey in this exciting localization world back in 1995 as a Spanish QA specialist for Microsoft. After many years working on the LSP side, he shifted to the gaming industry in 2007 and started working at Electronic Arts also in the QA area. In 2014, he joined King, the mobile publisher known for Candy Crush, where his role is to lead the globalization efforts of a very talented team in a very cool company. So, Miguel, welcome. We are super happy to have you here. How are you today?

MIGUEL: I’m doing very well. Thanks for having me. This is really fun.

FLOR: Yes, it is. So we prepared a couple of questions for you because we want to learn about your background. So I believe Lore… There you are.

LORE: Yeah.I’d love to start. Hi, Miguel!

MIGUEL: Hey!

LORE: And so I guess, in general, what does it mean to be a globalization manager? What does a day in the life look like, and what kind of teams do you interact with on a regular basis?

MIGUEL: Many, many things. After all, we are like in the middle of everything. The way I see a localization team is like the glue between different things, like being in the middle. And quite often I think that we are breaking the silos between all the different departments, and… that looks like breaking that silos, because it would start working with, I don’t know, game designers, trying to understand what they are going to build for the next levels and trying to get the information that we may need to do our localization activities. But then, all of the sudden, you might be talking to people in marketing, trying to understand how they are gonna do the promotion of the next event. And then you might be talking with, of course, the vendors, but also you may be talking with the finance people. So… And I do interact with many, many different stakeholders during the day, and I like that because it’s a good opportunity to know a lot about what the others are doing. And at the same time, it’s also quite challenging because, as you might imagine, not many people know the ins and outs of what we do. So it’s a continuous, like, evangelization of what we do, and sometimes it may be a little bit exhausting.

FLOR: I bet. Yeah, I bet dealing with so many people at the same time and so many different roles within the same company.

MIGUEL: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Because some of them are in a different phase in the development phase. So with some teams, you will talk more at the beginning, while with others, it’s gonna be more like at the end. So it requires to have a clear understanding, a clear road map about who does what, and then linking all these individuals.

ALEX: Yeah, it’s about being an all-court player, right? Pretty much.

MIGUEL: Yeah, it is. It is.

ALEX: Miguel, you mentioned the vendor side. I know that you have worked as a vendor manager as well, so what can you tell us about that and…? What can you tell us about that? And let’s go to the second part later.

MIGUEL: I can tell you that it’s a very stressing job.

ALEX: Okay. On that same note, do you think that vendor managers have it easier nowadays to find qualified linguists with the tools that we have?

MIGUEL: I think it mightbe easier to reach people. So on that front, nowadays we are all connected. So compared that with ten years ago, now it’s easier. Still, getting the right talent, that’s always challenging and it will be always challenging. But at least now the good thing is that, if there are good people, probably you know about them, because now with all the social media, LinkedIn and all these different sites, it’s kind of easy to know who are the good ones. But still it will be difficult to get them on board. But at least the first connection about, who should I talk to? That part I think it’s easier. But I do feel that, in a way, bringing the right people for the right game, in this case, that’s gonna be always challenging.

FLOR: Yeah, there are things that never change, right? Unfortunately.

ALEX: You might get it easier in some portions of the whole job. But yeah, you’re right.

FLOR: Yeah. And I wanted to follow up on your experience working on the LSP side, because I know that you worked with Lionbridge. And what would you say that is the best… And maybe you can also share the worst of that side of the coin of the industry. Because I know it can be challenging as well.

MIGUEL: Yeah. I think the best is that you have the opportunity to work with multiple clients, and a lot of growth and the learning opportunities there. Because every client will work… Well, they will share some kind of framework, but then there’s gonna be some parts that they are very different, not only like in the tools, but also like in the mindset or even the culture that they have in that specific company. So I learn a lot, because you are continuously putting yourself in a situation that you don’t know very well that particular thing you have to do. But in the end you just do it, so that’s good for your self-esteem and growth and everything. So I do really like that. I always say like, I don’t know, one, two years in a vendor is like five years in a client. Something like that.

LORE: Vendortime.

ALEX: Vendor time.

MIGUEL: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

FLOR: I love that concept.

ALEX: Yes. It’s pretty accurate, too.

MIGUEL: Yeah, that’s what I felt. That’s what I felt. And the challenging part is… is the… is the margin that you have to make, is the availability, is the targets you have to do when it comes to sales and everything. And, in many cases, if you are a production team, it’s not really on you. Because I remember that myself, I was not doing the sales myself. I was supporting with my expertise the sales people, but I was not selling myself. But still, in a way, I was accountable of certain margins. And that’s very, very stressful because it’s one thing that you don’t really have control, and… Yeah, I don’t have great memories of that.

ALEX: Again, being like a glue, right? Like you’re accountable, even though you’re not in charge of it.

MIGUEL: Yeah, yeah.

FLOR: Yeah, ormaybe more like an octopus, like being like multiple arms and…

LORE: Octo-dad, ’cause he’s also a father.

ALEX: Octo-dad. Yes.

FLOR: Definitely.

LORE: I think we all have some nightmare memories of being in a group project where you’re just praying that everybody else does things to the same level that you’re doing. Everybody’s gonna show up on that day. So another thing that has probably changed throughout the time is the experience of testing. So we know you’ve managed the Automation Testing Department back in 2007 with EA. How do you feel the testing has changed then in your experience?

MIGUEL: No, it’s much more mature. I remember back in the day that at EA, we had this console farm where we had all the consoles playing all night FIFA games and simulating all the different combinations. And it was really like a farm, like a big room with a lot of hardware there. And everything was like programmed like very manually, trying to create the scripts, simulating what you might do with the remote controls of your Play or X-Box or whatever. So… And now it’s all with artificial intelligence, and it’s so different because now it’s like you teach one bot and you create like a script that is going to run that script for you in multiple languages and then all the screenshots are going to be stored in one folder, and then you can share this with the vendors and linguistic, that they can just have a look to those screenshots, without really needing anything else. So it’s definitely nothing, nothing to do. And I do think that, with artificial intelligence when it comes to the linguistics part, we are saving a lot of time for that particular part. So it’s going well. It’s going well that part.

LORE: I could see how that automation would really be more efficient, I suppose, in a lot of ways.

MIGUEL: Yeah. Yeah, because, I mean, quite often, it’s always this dilemma about robots taking the job, right?

LORE: Yeah.

ALEX: Right.

MIGUEL: But actually, I think it’s very complementary, because it gives you the opportunity to test things in time frames that otherwise is not possible.

FLOR: Absolutely.

MIGUEL: If you think about mobile phones, the games that you are working in a sprint, in a sprint you may have content every two weeks, and that will include everything, the creation of the game levels itself and the localization. And it’s very difficult to fit everything in those two weeks if you have to fit also the LQA. So doing a manual LQA in a sprint in two weeks, it’s really difficult. But if you have tools like this, then it’s totally different because you will teach the bot to get the screens of all the new key content that you are localizing, you will isolate that, and you will send that only to an LSP for the linguistic testers. And without automation, I don’t know how we might do that, because the testers would have to run these manual test cases and do this manually, and they might spend, I don’t know, a couple of days, probably. I mean, there is no that big content to test, but still a couple of days they will spend just trying to follow all the different test cases. So I think it’s a great complement, the automation, in this type of initiatives.

ALEX: Yeah. It’s not a threat to our line of work or anything. It’s an amazing tool like to automate things that otherwise would be impossible to fit, right? In the time frames that we have nowadays.

FLOR: Yeah. And I bet that you leave less room for error, right?

MIGUEL: Yeah, yeah.

ALEX: Yeah, that, too.

MIGUEL: And, and in the end, many of these tasks are like a “monkey job,” so it’s better to use the brain of the testers in something more valuable.

LORE: So don’t replace them, just give them a different job to do.

ALEX: Exactly.

LORE: Thank you.

ALEX: So, Miguel, following up on that automation and how things change, what kind of advice would you give to a dev studio who is making their first game, in terms of localization? And what are the key elements that they need to keep in mind when they start thinking about translating their game? Right? As most people refer it to. I’m thinking localization, globalization. I mean, things that involve this overall process, right?

MIGUEL: I think it’s important that people not familiar with what we do, that they understand that localization activities is not a one single time task that you outsource and you are done. It’s an iteration, it’s a continuous process, and it’s another business process that you have to plan since the very beginning. We do still see this misconception of localization as an afterthought, that you do the English, and then, at some point, you will start thinking about the rest of the languages. We need to change that. I don’t know how, but we need to change that because it’s the wrong mindset. Because when you think of one activity like that, it’s painful, right? Because you see it like a transactional activity, and something you have to do about that it’s like, “Ugh!”

ALEX: Yeah, that’s how many people see it. And I love the fact that… I love that term, localization as an afterthought. We need to move away from that.

MIGUEL: Yeah, because it doesn’t work for many reasons. It’s perceived as a kind of transactional activity that it’s not really given any kind of value, when we know that that’s not the case. It puts the team, like, in a kind of black box that the developer, they will not know very well what they are expecting to receive. They will be continuously like chasing shadows, because I’ve seen quite often that then you have all these problems with implementation of the font, then you have all these problems with variables, placeholders, internationalization issues, with the time, with the date. All these things are happening because it’s just seen as an afterthought. But, if when you start creating the English content, you just see localization as another activity that you just need to do to create a multi-market product, then everything is different, because you are creating like the framework of your English code and you are preparing some activities to enable, in the future, to handle more languages. And it’s a requirement as any other requirements, and that’s what it needs to be done. I mean, in the same way that you will plan for the music and plan that you will need to integrate the music, and you don’t start thinking about the music like in the middle or, even worse, later, you just need to do that with the text and with the content. And I always find it kind of fascinating and weird that we see all this text in the games, and you might see game teams that they’re spending, I don’t know, many, many weeks with the concept of the mock-ups of the screens and the workflow and just the player journey, blah, blah, blah. And they tend to forget that… They tend to forget two things. The first one is that they are putting a lot of effort in English, and most of the players, they will not see that because they will see another language.

ALEX: Yeah.

MIGUEL: And it’s missing… They pay so much effort creating the perfect English copy. And then we just get in a hurry when it comes for the rest of the languages. And I’m always thinking, why is it like that? I mean, this does not make any sense.

FLOR: Well, we’ll have to change that, then.

ALEX: It is our job, right? To change that.

MIGUEL: Yeah. That’s why I think it’s… A lot of the job of a team like us is like explaining all these things and evangelizing and explaining, “Hey, pay attention to the rest of the languages. Put the same emphasis in quality as you are putting in English.” Because non-English speakers should not be considered citizen B. They are equally important, right?

FLOR: Yeah, exactly.

ALEX: Yeah, exactly.

FLOR: Yeah. And it talks about how you care about your own content, because if you’re developing a game and you’re proud of what you’re doing, you want everyone to actually have the same experience. So why wouldn’t you think about other players in the same way?

MIGUEL: Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah.

FLOR: Sorry, Lore, I interrupted you.

LORE: Oh, no, not at all. I completely agree.

ALEX: Yeah, I know. And it’s amazing how you worded, how well you explained it because… I mean, it is true. I see a lot of devs that pay so much attention to English, and then they just go, “Okay, I will just translate it at a later date.” But no, it’s a constant process. I totally agree, Miguel, with your explanation. Thank you so, so much.

FLOR: And I have another question for you related to your blog, because, of course, we know that you are very active with your blog Yolocalizo. And I was reading…

LORE: I love it.

FLOR: Yes, we are great fans of your content. And we know how important quality source material is in determining the quality of the job of localization. But we wanted to know, have you ever found yourself in a situation in which you didn’t feel that the source material was quite where it needed to be?

MIGUEL: Yeah. I mean, actually, at King, one of the phases that I am really emphasizing and promoting is the copy edit phase. And this is something that we have one person in my team that the main focus is copy edit of the content. And we change the copy quite often because, I mean, there are different layers there. First, it’s that… Which is another irony. You have people writing copy that they are not writers. They are developers, they are game designers. Their expertise, their craft… They are not words people. They are very good coding or they are very good drawing, but they don’t really know how to write. So that’s one thing. And the other is that maybe they are… or quite often, that’s the case, they are not native English speakers, and you could see that maybe the copy is okay, but it’s not engaging, right? It’s just normal English grammatically…

FLOR: Yeah, plain text.

MIGUEL: Exactly. So we like reviewing everything that we receive before starting localizing. We like spending a couple of hours just reviewing the English copy and just ensuring that the right terminology is used, that the right style is used, that the glossary is in place. I do think that that phase is super, super important. And, yeah, that’s something that you would be surprised of how many times we are making tweaks and corrections in the copy we receive. Very, very often.

ALEX: Right.

FLOR: Yeah. It’s remarkable the work that you do at King. And, on that note, I wanted to know, because not everyone is doing that. And on the side of the linguists and the people who are actually working on the localization side of the game, in case that they encounter with a not so great source material, what would you recommend them to do?

MIGUEL: You need to just partnership with experts. Nowadays, there are experts for everything. And you cannot pretend that you are gonna do great in all the different disciplines, because making a video game is complex, and everyone needs to be mastering their little craft and expertise and just embracing the mindset of together is better. That’s how I see it.

LORE: Right person for the right job.

FLOR: It’s a team effort.

LORE: Yeah.

FLOR: Thank you, Miguel.

LORE: So I have one more. It might be our last question, unless anybody else comes up with something else. But I would love to hear a little bit more about your time working with the Sulake Habbo Hotel, which I understand is, or at least was at the time, the world’s largest social game and online community for teenagers. Having an online community has become so foundational to teen life at this point, and I see that some 10 million teenagers visit the different communities from 150 countries each and every month. And that’s a lot of teens, like a crazy amount of teens. Is there something that ties together the human experience for all of us at that age group, regardless of our culture and language?

Miguel: For Habbo Hotel, it was an interesting experience because they could explore what’s the real meaning of being a tribe and finding your tribe. And that’s what people do there. And you could find your tribe at different levels. It might be in your country or it might be in the way that you decorate your rooms. Or it could be the furniture you buy. I don’t know. It could be… It could be very, very different things. But in the end, you will find your community. And then, you were someone. And I guess that that’s what we need as human beings, right? You need to feel part of something. And if we are just alone by ourselves, we feel we are maybe incomplete, maybe, in a way. And with this type of community, it’s all about belonging and it’s all about sharing experiences. So, yeah, it was interesting. And actually, during these months, because of the Covid and everything, it’s going very well again, Sulake and Habbo, because people are going back there to have their virtual parties and do their virtual lives.

LORE: Love it.

MIGUEL: So it’s living a second life of success.

FLOR: Wow, that’s amazing.

LORE: Yeah. It’s a really beautiful concept that, finding your tribe, that everybody, you know, we all need somewhere to belong. I mean, so at that point, you’re not just localizing for a certain region or language, you’re localizing for people at, like, a really angsty and transformational time in their lives. I think we all know all the emotions that we have as teenagers.

ALEX: Yes.

LORE: Does that emotion make it easier or harder when it comes to localizing?

MIGUEL: It’s… It’s more challenging. And the key here is to have a stable team providing and producing the localization, because at the beginning, is gonna be very difficult for the translator to get the right tone and transfer this personality. But, eventually, she or he will get it, and they will know all of the different humor and the fun and the way of speaking of the teenagers. So definitely something that it’s… you get it. You just need to have a very stable team. So I remember back in my days there, that the main criteria, we were working with kind of a small vendor because what we want, it was a very dedicated team and to have always the same translators. So the continuous onboarding and continuous sharing the material with them, in the end, they get it. And in the end, it was like an extension of my team, and I felt very comfortable working with them. So it took them a few weeks at the beginning, but in the end, they were producing very good quality of localized content.

LORE: Nice. Once you get it, you got it.

MIGUEL: Yeah.

LORE: That’s beautiful.

FLOR: Well, thank you so much, Miguel. We know that we asked you for some homework. So we always like to end our sessions in a high note, so that’s why we always ask our guests to bring their favorite memes. So I’m gonna… Yes. That’s our favorite part.

LORE: Everyone’s favorite part.

FLOR: Yeah. So I’m gonna share my screen here, and we are gonna go over what Miguel brought for us today.

ALEX: We’re gonna see what makes you laugh, Miguel.

MIGUEL: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Indeed. Yeah, yeah. This one is very related with localization, right?

FLOR: Yes, it is.

LORE: Absolutely.

FLOR: It made me laugh so hard because there’s always someone willing to do it cheaper, but the result is going to be, like,very different from what you’re expecting, right?

ALEX: As a person who likes tattoos, this is pretty, pretty accurate as well.

FLOR: Yeah, same here.

LORE: There are some things that you just don’t skimp on your budget.

ALEX: No, no, no. Pay full price.

FLOR: Tattoos and localization, right?

ALEX: Tattoos and localization.

LORE: Definitely worth it.

FLOR: Well, this one… How active are you on social media?

ALEX: Well, yeah.

FLOR: I mean everyone is… Yeah. Sorry, Go ahead.

MIGUEL: Yeah. Yeah. In Instagram… I like Instagram, but I am more like a viewer than posting myself. I really like… People are really creative with their pictures and everything. It’s really amazing. I don’t have that eye for the photos. And maybe that’s why I feel a little bit intimidated when it comes to sharing material in Instagram. I feel more comfortable in LinkedIn or Twitter.

FLOR: Yeah, you get way too self-conscious for social media, right?

MIGUEL: Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

FLOR: Well, and this one.

LORE: That’s so true.

ALEX: Another thing that you don’t need to have it as an afterthought, right?

MIGUEL: Absolutely, absolutely. Yeah. This one is a classic, but it’s still very, very valid.

FLOR: Oh, yes, yes. And this one really cracked me up.

LORE: Oh, this one.

FLOR: Do you often play games or are you currently playing anything in particular? Do you have time to play games?

Miguel: I do. I do. I… I like playing… I like sports, so we’re still playing FIFA with my kids. That’s my favorite one. Actually, just today we were playing. We like playing… I like Real Madrid, so just today, it was the Champions League, Real Madrid versus Inter de Milán. And we were simulating the match before the real match.

LORE: Fun!

ALEX: How did that turn out, by the way?

MIGUEL: Real Madrid won 3-2.

FLOR: Wow! Congratulations.

LORE: In real life or in the game?

ALEX: In the game.

MIGUEL: In the game, it was 4-3. So almost.

ALEX: Almost. That was close, then.

MIGUEL: Yeah. Almost. Almost there. So yeah, I like playing. And of course, I play mobile games, because with the consoles, I have to sit down and put together a couple of hours and play. But with my phone, ten minutes here, there, and you just play. So yeah, I keep playing.

ALEX: Yeah. Mobile gaming is…

MIGUEL: It’s very convenient.

ALEX: Yes.

FLOR: Yeah. Especially when you’re super busy. You have like a ten-minute gap and you can turn your device…

ALEX: You get your fix.

FLOR: Yeah, exactly.

ALEX: And then you just continue. But I hope that you’re not like fighting bosses in this way, Miguel. For your sake.

MIGUEL: No, no, no. I’m lucky. I’m lucky. We have good bosses. I can’t complain.

FLOR: Yeah. You have a wonderful team.

ALEX: Yes. Yes, you do.

FLOR: Well, this meeting, this session has come to an end, because that was the end of the meme section. Thank you so much. Muchísimas gracias, Miguel.

ALEX: Gracias, Miguel.

FLOR: We really, really enjoyed having you today and to learn so much about you, and we always enjoy hearing you share your knowledge. So thank you very much. Thank you, everyone, for joining us today. Stay tuned for our next episode. and we will share the links somewhere around there for you to access YouTube and all the social networks. So stay tuned for more. See you around.

Episode Transcription

FLOR: Hi, everyone! Welcome to another episode of Open World. Today our special guest will be Francesca Sorrentino. But first, let’s check out the LocFact of the day.

LUCIO: Hi, guys!

LORE: Hey, everyone!

LUCIO: Welcome to another Open Word LocFact! I’m Lucio and today, Lore and I will be discussing one of the most controversial games released in 2020.

LORE: That’s right. Today we’re going to talk about the Cyberpunk 2077 lip-sync technology JALI.

JOHNNY: Wake the f— up, samurai! We have a city to burn.

LUCIO: Right! So, Lore, for those who are still a bit confused about what JALI is, could you provide a brief definition of this? What does JALI do exactly?

LORE: Well, to put it simply, JALI is a facial animation company that has developed a really advanced Artificial Intelligence Animation Tool capable of recognizing not only speech features that are characteristic of any language, but also recognizing and reproducing gestures and other extralinguistic features. It creates a really unique gaming experience that’s way more immersive than anything we’ve seen before.

LUCIO: Yeah, that’s incredible! So facial expressions and lip movements are not manually animated, but are actually created following real speech… I can’t imagine how much work has gone into this! Let’s see this in action, shall we?

JUDY: Slow, deep breaths. Your cortisol and adrenaline spiked, but the soft activated your hormone blockers. Nothing happened. Slow, deep breaths. Your cortisol and adrenaline spiked, but the soft activated your hormone blockers. Nothing happened.

LUCIO: Well, that’s amazing!

LORE: It is, and it must have been really quite demanding, to me. But that’s actually not the only unique aspect of Cyberpunk 2077.

LUCIO: No, it isn’t! We have to mention how JALI was used for each language the game is dubbed into. Cyberpunk 2077 can be just as immersive and enticing in one language as in any of the other 10! Here’s a brief example of this.

JUDY: Slow, deep breaths. [Speaking in different languages]

LORE: So cool! However, I couldn’t help but notice that even though the game is localized into European Spanish, several characters speak in a very marked Mexican dialect. Lucio, you’re a native Spanish speaker, so what do you think? Should this be considered an error or not?

LUCIO: Actually, I see this as proof of the enormous potential JALI software has. In the near future, we could even adjust our audio settings to a language AND a specific dialect.

LORE: Which sounds like something straight out of a sci-fi movie, and seems very promising for the future of the animation industry.

LUCIO: Well, folks, our LocFact time is up. What else do you think this technology can offer to the world of video games and how might the industry evolve in the years to come? Leave us your comments below, and see you on the next Open World LocFact!

LORE: Bye, everyone!

KEANU: You’re breathtaking!

FLOR: Hi, everyone! Welcome to a new episode of Open World. So today we have another amazing guest. She has been in the video game localization industry since 2010, covering various roles from marketing intern and translator for online games at Wooga and Bigpoint, to senior multi-lingual localization specialist at Electronic Arts, managing large multilingual titles such as FIFA, to program manager for the games department at Alpha CRC. Having experienced both the client and the service provider side of the industry, she recently decided to become a freelance translator and consultant, and is currently working as a conference manager for Game Global Summit, a conference dedicated to video game localization and QA. In November 2020, she will start teaching the Game Localization Masterclass for the Localization Institute. Wow! So our guest holds a B.A. in translation and an M.A. in conference interpreting, which she obtained in Italy, and has spent the last ten years living and working first in Germany and now in beautiful Barcelona, Spain. So, everyone, welcome Francesca Sorrentino. Hi, how are you?

FRANCESCA: Hi, everyone!

ALEX: Welcome, Francesca!

LORE: Welcome, Francesca! So happy to have you!

FRANCESCA: Thank you for having me.

FLOR: We’re super, super excited to have you here. And here today with us we have Alexis Biró, Loretta Mulberry, and Lucio Alcaide joining us in this new episode. So how’s everyone doing?

LORE: Fantastic.

ALEX: Very excited. Thank you, Flor. So I want to take the first question.

FLOR: Sure. Go ahead.

ALEX: If you guys don’t mind. I’m sorry. Francesca, what an introduction. So many cities, so many countries that you lived in, that you’ve worked in. The first question that pops to my mind is, has language ever been a barrier for you in all the roles, in all the places you’ve worked?

FRANCESCA: Not really, I have to say. I already knew my languages, basically, when I moved abroad…

ALEX: That’s so important.

FRANCESCA: I did study languages for as long as I can remember. So when I moved away from Italy, I didn’t really have to learn any language. I did struggle a bit at the beginning with German because I was, you know, I was trained to write and read. I wasn’t really trained to speak German.

ALEX: Right.

FRANCESCA: That was a bit hard. And I’m still not super confident in German. But I never had any particular issues, I would say.

ALEX: So again, so many cities, so many countries. Language, check. Now, hobbies, customs, anything that you took with you from any of those places?

FRANCESCA: Well, I lived in Germany for a long time, so at least in my short life, I was there for seven years. And, you know, it did change me a bit because you come from the south of Europe and you move to Germany, and you have to get used to many different things. And I have become very punctual, so…

ALEX: The German like punctuality.

FLOR: Not sure why.

FRANCESCA: I’m almost never late and I also got really organized. But that’s also because I worked as a project manager for a long time. But I like to think that Germany had a big part in it.

ALEX: Thank you, Francesca.

FRANCESCA: In Spain I did something that was totally unexpected, and I became a morning person, which is totally unusual here. Nothing really happens before 10 a.m. But I wake up almost every day at 6 a.m., and I like to live the old lady life, as I call it.

ALEX: You are you on your world.

FLOR: I love it. I love it.

ALEX: But I’m getting there, too. I mean, I think that you arrive to a portion of your life where you become a morning person, you cherish those hours alone, right?

FRANCESCA: Yes.

FLOR: Yeah. Especially when you have so many things to do, it’s like you need to find spaces to do you, you know, to pick up hobbies, to walk around the city, to read a book, even. For me, I try to wake up pretty early to do stuff that are not work related, you know?

FRANCESCA: Yeah, although I have clients in China now, so they tend to get into my morning routine.

FLOR: Oh, yeah.

LORE: Those time zones are always gonna throw you for a loop. Well, I have one too, speaking of your organization skills, they definitely would have come in handy here. I see that you’ve worked quite a lot with translation and localization budget management throughout the years. So what would you say is the biggest variable in predicting and maintaining a budget for a large-scale project?

FRANCESCA: That feels like, I don’t know, like an interview question. I think the… But the work interview question, not a fun interview like we’re doing.

LORE: I’ll make it fun later, I promise.

FRANCESCA: I think the most important thing is you want to get your resources right in terms of number of resources. So you don’t want to have surprises there, because that’s gonna be a problem for your budget, if you don’t have enough resources, a problem for your timeline. So you want to make sure that, in all places, translation, project management, QA, you’ll have the right amount of resources.

LORE: That makes a lot of sense. I’m not a super numbers-oriented person, so it makes sense to think of it as resources and not just numbers on a page. Thank you.

FLOR: Oh, I think Lucio is muted. There you go.

LUCIO: Yes. I’m not muted now. So, Francesca, back in 2011, which feels like a lifetime ago, you were a translator for the Battlestar Galactica online game into Italian. I personally love the 2004 reboot, and I’m wondering how close you normally get as a translator to the source material on any games based off an existing story. And would you binge all those Battlestar Galactica, which is a lot, or is that excessive?

FRANCESCA: Well, that that varies a lot depending on which company you are working for and the kind of budget you have, or the kind of timelines you have. In that particular case with Battlestar Galactica, what we did, we watched everything that was available online for free. And I think it was probably two seasons back then. I remember I was trying to order some DVDs. I can’t remember what happened with that. I think we probably didn’t get them because we were, like, probably ten languages, and it would have been a bit of an expense. What I remember… But we didn’t get a lot of material directly from, let’s say, the creators of Battlestar Galactica or the franchise. We had to do a bit of work on our end to get the reference material. What I remember was really fun and really weird at the same time was that we would be sitting at the office like this and watching TV, like, watching the show, you know? Instead of typing. So that was weird. That felt really, you know, we’re doing something wrong and forbidden.

ALEX: A hard day’s work.

FRANCESCA: Exactly.You know, that’s the kind of things that, you know, when you tell your parents, they still don’t believe I’m actually working. And they’re like, “You’re always on holiday.”

FLOR: Yeah, it’s crazy that, whenever I say to my friends or to my family, “I have to try this new game for my work,” and it’s like, “Are you kidding? I need to do that, too.” Some of them, like, are super…

ALEX: “That’s not work.”

FLOR: Yeah. Some of them are super excited, some others don’t understand it.

ALEX: Yeah.

FLOR: And I have a question, another question.

LUCIO: Well, thank you. And…

FLOR: Oh, yeah. Sorry. Go ahead.

LUCIO: No, that’s all right.

FLOR: All right. So, I have another question and it’s related also to your experience, because I know that you’ve been around for quite a long time now in the localization industry and in the video game industry, as well. So is there anything that has changed since you started working in this industry?

FRANCESCA: Based on my very personal experience, you know, I’ve been around for what feels like a long time, but the localization industry started probably, I don’t know, 15 years before I started. I think it feels like there are more processes now and more rules, more standardization. So at the beginning, companies wouldn’t have their own CAT tool, for example. Or they would still be trying to develop their own CAT tool, instead of buying something off the market. And now there are so many tools on the market and they are so customizable, it doesn’t really make sense to develop your own.

FLOR: Yeah, makes sense. And is there any CAT tool that you prefer using?

FRANCESCA: I’m an old lady, so, again…

FLOR: Oh, please. I mean, we all have…

FRANCESCA: We’ve already established that. So I think the tool that works best right now for video games is memoQ. But I started with memoQ just a couple of years ago, three years ago. So my tool has always been Trados.

FLOR: Oh, yeah.

FRANCESCA: And that’s all I use, you know, that I know how to use. And when I have to play around, it’s my tool. And everything Trados-related. So, yeah, not very cool, but…

FLOR: Oh, but I think like everyone… I’m speaking for myself here too, but I also started with Trados. And once I started working with memoQ, it was like,” Yeah, I get it.” It makes sense that everyone is loving this tool, but I have fond memories of Trados as well.

FRANCESCA: I always say, I’m an “SDLder.”

FLOR: When you know, you know. Right?

LORE: Yeah. For me too. In school, Trados is the first one that you start hearing about in theory, and then it’s the first one we started playing around with in the lab. And then eventually we started doing the rest. And you get into memoQ and some of these other ones and you think, “It’s maybe a little less intimidating actually.” But they are all absolutely great. Trados definitely being the first one most people look at. So I have a slightly different question. I swear it’s less interviewee than my first one.

FRANCESCA: It’s okay, you can hit me with as many questions as you want.

LORE: Keeping you on your toes. So you have so much experience working in different countries and with different languages, which doesn’t just make you like super cool and enviable in my eyes, but it also makes you a really valuable member of any international team. So how important is it to learn about other cultures that are outside of your specific language pairs in order to work with these team members and clients from other countries all over the world?

FRANCESCA: I think it’s very important, especially when you are a project manager or a team manager. And it’s very important in order to manage expectations, first of all, take some of the pressure off and prevent conflicts. So there are, and I think it’s an industry-wide thing, so there are many misunderstandings and many conflicts that happen just because we don’t know things. Not because we’re bad people or we want to harm someone else. It’s just, we don’t know. And it’s really important to understand, for example, how Japanese people work, which is, you know, it’s probably the most different thing that I can think of compared to what we do here in Europe. And… And, yeah, have an understanding of culture means that there are things that you can’t really control in a way that you would control a project when you are a project manager. So for me it has been super important, and it has been important for me as a manager to actually make an effort and show that I had an understanding for their different cultures.

FLOR: That makes a lot of sense. And so how many languages do you actually speak? Because I’ve seen quite a few language pairs listed on your various sources.

FRANCESCA: Well, I speak… Italian is my first language, I grew up in Italy and I studied there. I speak English, Spanish, and German. And over the years, I’ve had various other attempts at learning more languages. So one of them was Japanese, Portuguese, French. But they’re still there, just started. I didn’t continue with them.

LORE: Oh, you are just so cool.

FRANCESCA: Well, that’s what we do over here in Europe. Every country is so tiny, you have to learn your neighbors’ language.

FLOR: Oh, yeah.

ALEX: Yeah, it makes sense. I’m not sure if everyone, like, studied all of the languages that you did, but it makes total sense. Of course.

LORE: Yeah.You still need to get some credit there.

ALEX: I don’t think that all Europeans do that, to be honest. But, Francesca, we’ve already established that you have so much experience at your young age. So what’s your advice? I mean, if you had an advice to someone who is starting in video game localization. We talked about, I don’t know, programs or how was it when you started? Someone wants to start now, what would your advice be?

FRANCESCA: My advice would be not to get stuck in a role or be looking for just one kind of job. I think the easiest way in, so far, has been as a translator. But there are so many translators right now and it’s become so competitive. So you might want to try to go in from a different kind of door. So as a tester, obviously, in most cases, you don’t even need specific qualifications to work as a tester. As a project manager, for me, it is the most interesting way to start. Well, not a way to start, because it can be harsh to start as a project manager if you haven’t done translation or testing before because you don’t really understand all the processes or what happens really with the content. But as a project manager, I think, it’s where you have the most chances to grow into other roles.

ALEX: Right.

FRANCESCA: And I think it’s also very interesting, if you have a technical profile, if you’re an engineer or, you know, you have studied something that is not necessarily languages, it’s also a way to get in, because there’s a lot of technical work and engineering work that is done also on a localization level.

ALEX: Right. And now, on that same note, someone who is starting, someone who doesn’t have to, like, just stay on one role and everything, which side is best, more fun or whatever? Working with an LSP or with a client? The client side or the LSP side of the industry? I might be putting you between a rock and a hard place right now. I understand.

FRANCESCA: Well, I’ve been asked this question a lot, especially because I went from clients to LSP. And that’s something that not many people will try to do.

FLOR: Yeah, yeah. It goes the other way around, right?

FRANCESCA: But I think they’re both fun in different ways. So on the LSP side, there is so much more that is happening, and you get to deal with so many different clients and so many different realities. So you… It’s fun that way and you grow faster because you are exposed to so many different things and you have to solve problems faster and in a more efficient way. On the client side, it’s fun because you get all the perks. And I think it’s a bit more relaxed. Not that it’s not stressful because, of course, when you’re in crunch time and you have to ship a game, it gets stressful. But at least you don’t have the feeling that there are so many competitors, and that you have to, you know, and that you have to deal with that. When you are on the clients side, it’s just you and everyone is part of the same team, and you don’t really realize what is happening outside and you don’t really compete with the rest of the companies if you are in the localization part of it.

ALEX: Right. Well, thank you, Francesca. It makes a lot of sense. And I think that you already had that reply down, like… Like you said, you might have had this question before.

FLOR: Very diplomatic.

ALEX: Yes, very diplomatic. You really had that one perfectly.

FRANCESCA: That’s really what I think.

LORE: You’re hired.

ALEX: Lucio, I think that you have something on your mind.

LUCIO: Yes. Another question for you, Francesca. We all love something about our jobs, and that usually helps us go through the most stressful situations. I personally love getting to work with professionals from all over the world and, if there’s a chance, be acquainted with the ones I contact every day, which, in the global situation, feels a bit more friendly and familiar. What do you enjoy the most of your job and why?

FRANCESCA: Yeah. So for me it’s kind of the same. So I like it that I get to deal with people from all over the world and different profiles, and what I like, especially when… Well, it happens in every job, really. I like it when I can learn from someone who is more senior. So I like it when I have to deal with… And this probably sounds weird and very nerdy, but I like it when I have to deal with, you know, with senior management and, you know, and the challenging clients. And I really like it at Game Global, for example, where I have to interact with the advisory board, and they are all senior managers of different companies, both clients and LSP sides. And for me it’s like, it’s just amazing that I get to talk to them, and they have time for me and they can sort my doubts and I can learn from them every day.

LUCIO: Thank you.

ALEX: That was an excellent reply, by the way.

FRANCESCA: That’s what happens when you go to the LSP side.

ALEX: Right, yes. That’s the experience talking.

FLOR: I have another question for you, if you don’t mind. So we know that you’re an expert on sport video game localization since you worked at Electronic Arts. Could you tell us more about your experience in that field? Have you ever experienced any challenges for being a woman in that particular industry, since we all know what’s going on around E-Sports lately? We wanted to know what was your experience from that industry, you know?

FRANCESCA: Well, so I’m gonna start from the bottom. That’s the easy answer. So it was never a challenge for me, you know, being a woman in that industry. I think I’m probably lucky, and I understand that other women have had different experiences, but… so for me, being a woman would even make it easier in some aspects because you kind of get a free pass on a few things, like, “Look, I don’t understand this. Can you please explain it to me?” And it’s… And people would always really… they were very, very helpful and they would, you know, they would solve all of my doubts. I think it’s… it’s challenging, it was challenging for me to start with sports games because they had… they have a different set of assets, basically, and different sets of rules that you have to follow. There’s a lot more that you have to pay attention to in terms of rights and, you know, real life things, because the players are actually people and they have contracts and there are rights and copyrights on everything. So that was interesting. And for me, the biggest challenge at the beginning was the audio part. You know, the audio localization. That was completely different from what I had known before. And when you… With FIFA, for example, and similar games or some not football related, there’s a lot of ad-libbing, so there is no script to actually be translated, and translators have to create their own lines from scratch. And that took me a bit to really understand in order to be able to manage the translation part of it or the transcreation part of it. And that would actually be the part where I would have the most questions, and I would be like, “I really need to understand all the details of this. Please, please, please, explain this to me.” And I would talk to audio engineers and the producers of the game to get all the information I needed.

FLOR: And that’s what I mainly love about our industry, even though, yes, there are some stories that are sketchy and there are many things that I would personally love to change, but still it’s like a big community and everyone is so willing to share their knowledge, and they are super helpful and try for you to understand, because they are very conscious that they went through the same process and it’s a learning curve. And it’s really nice to hear that experience. And I believe, Ale, you have the last question and then we’re going to go to the fun part.

ALEX: Let’s end with a high note here. You have a masterclass.

FLOR: Yes.

ALEX: A localization masterclass, nonetheless. By the way, we will be taking our seats at your masterclass. But what can you tell us about it? Are there any requirements to be a part of this localization masterclass for our audience and for any future classes that you might have?

FRANCESCA: Right. So the localization masterclass, the game localization masterclass was something that the Localization Institute had been wanting to do for a long time, and I was really happy when they offered it to me. It’s a really, you know, it’s a really nice thing for me that also, you know, to see my achievements recognized that way. I think there are… there are really no specific requirements in order to attend. But what I would like to say is that we’re not gonna go through the basics of localization or translation for video games. So I think it’s better if you start with some sort of knowledge about it. And I think the main… audience that I have in mind is more a sort of project management level, so people who have worked at least on localization before, or people who have worked on videogames before, and not only the game localization. So I think it’s better if you have some knowledge of it, because we’re not gonna go through the basics.

ALEX: The basics. Right.

FLOR: Amazing. And how long did it take you to plan the whole masterclass? I bet it was hard work, wasn’t it?

FRANCESCA: It is. And I’m still in the process.

FLOR: Yeah, it’s gonna be a month from now, right?

FRANCESCA: Exactly. So I started in August planning for it. And, yes, the content is there, and… I know what everything is gonna be about, but of course, I need to create the presentation, polish it, and I’m also keeping an eye on who the attendees are and what kind of questions they have. So there are some topics that can still be added if I see that they’re particularly interesting for the attendees.

FLOR: Oh, yeah. Well, we recommend everyone listening and watching this show to go and check out the masterclass, because it’s going to be on the 23rd of November. Correct me if I’m wrong.

FRANCESCA: Yes, we’re starting on the 23rd, and we’ll have four classes.

FLOR: Wonderful. So the Localization Institute, you can Google that information. And we will leave all the details of Francesca in the comments, in case you want to check that out. But we’re super… Yes, somewhere over there. But yeah, everyone should check it out because she’s amazing. She has all this knowledge and she’s actually sharing it with everyone through the Localization Institute. So we really, really recommend it. So now we’re going to go to the fun part, if you don’t mind.

LORE: Oh, so sweet!

FLOR: Yes. I know that we asked you for some homework. Thank you so much for taking the time to send us this picture. And in this section, we usually start with memes, but since we know that you’re a pet lover, we wanted to learn a bit more about your fluffy friends. So who is this?

FRANCESCA: Right. So this is one of my parents’ dogs living in Tuscany, living a very nice life in Italy. I love her because she’s so fluffy and she’s so sweet. And she always knows when someone is taking a picture of her, and she’s posing for the camera.

FLOR: Yes. And we have proof of that, because check this out.

LORE: Oh, my God! The glasses!

ALEX: She was reading!

FLOR: Yes, she’s an intellectual girl.

FRANCESCA: Look at the paws. It’s like…

ALEX: Right.

FRANCESCA: She’s unbelievable. She’s just like a Little Bear

FLOR: She’s super cute. I bet you miss her.

FRANCESCA: Yeah. That’s the reason why I go home every now and then.

FLOR: Lucky you.

FRANCESCA: My parents don’t like to hear that.

LORE: “Move over, Mom and Dad.”

FLOR: All about the pets, right? So what’s going on here? A little bit of boxing?

ALEX: This is violence.

FRANCESCA: Yeah. This cat bullying the big dog.

FLOR: Look at the size of the dog.

FRANCESCA: Exactly. So the dog is quite big, but he’s like a scaredy cat. And so he’s the kind of dog who gets scared when he barks too much.

FLOR: Aww!

FRANCESCA: Yeah. He’s also very, very cute and such a good boy. And the cat is a troublemaker. He’s so cheeky. Yeah. He’s punching the big dog.

FLOR: And he knows he’s got the power in there.

FRANCESCA: Of course.

FLOR: Like, you won’t do anything to him. They’re so cute.

FRANCESCA: And he has a little door that he can run away through. So you don’t need to open the door for him. He has the little… I don’t know what you call it in English.

ALEX: He’s an independent cat.

FLOR: Yeah. Walk-through door.

FRANCESCA: Exactly. Whenever he gets in trouble, he can just go through it.

LORE: Smart cat.

FLOR: He gets away with murder, right? So now we’re gonna go through some of your favorite memes, because, yes, we always like to end in a high note and end with a laugh together. So that’s one, of course, you had. It’s Will Ferrell, of course.

ALEX: Curly-haired Will Ferrell, nonetheless.

LORE: That’s a classic look.

FLOR: Yes. There’s like something with curls. We started with the fluffiness and we’re still…

LORE: Just the vibe of the day is fluffy.

FLOR: Oh, yeah, apparently. I love this one.

LORE: Oh, my God!

FLOR: Do you…? Yeah, go ahead.

FRANCESCA: My sister sent it to me a couple of months ago. So the story behind here is that I’m a trained yoga teacher as well.

FLOR: Really? How? Because you have so much time on your hands.

ALEX: Is there anything you don’t do, Francesca?

FLOR: You’re amazing.

ALEX: You’re amazing!

FRANCESCA: Well, I think yoga is important if you want to keep saying, you know, like, with all the stress that we go through, even when we’re locked at home, I think yoga is a good way to deal with it. And Jägermeister was the old way… my old way…

FLOR: How you would bend over.

FRANCESCA: …of dealing with it when I was in Germany.

ALEX: I’ve never had Jägermeister, guys, never in my life.

FLOR: Really? I’m not a big fan.

ALEX: Am I missing out?

FRANCESCA: No. In hindsight, don’t go there.

ALEX: Yeah.

FLOR: You’re too old to go for Jägermeister.

FRANCESCA: Yes. Start with yoga.

ALEX: Yes.

FLOR: And how many times a week do you practice? Or do you get a chance to practice every single day?

FRANCESCA: I try at least two or three times a week. Especially when you’re a teacher, you’re supposed to do it every day. It’s not always possible.

FLOR: Yeah, that’s why I’m asking, because I know that you’re super busy, and still you get to manage to do yoga and, like, that’s amazing.

LORE: Hurry up, rush, and then calm down and be super chill while you do your yoga.

FRANCESCA: Exactly.

FLOR: And this one, we’re going to need a translator.

ALEX: Yes. Can you localize this?

FLOR: Yes, please.

FRANCESCA: This is not actually a meme, it’s a real ad.

FLOR: Advertising?

FRANCESCA: Advertising that I saw when I was living in Germany. So Astra is a well-known beer brand in Hamburg, so in the north of Germany. What it says is, “Astra now also for windows.”

FLOR: The German lifestyle.

FRANCESCA: And, you know, I’m not as much a game geek, I’m more of a language geek, and when I come across something like this or photosynthesis, I’m like… I’m just… I find it so funny and so silly, but…

LORE: Well, we’ll allow it.

FLOR: Yeah, whatever makes you laugh. I mean, we also are language geeks, so we appreciate the gesture. Because we know that many of our guests are not going to be as language geeks as we are, so thank you for this. And another one. I love this one.

LORE: I just watched this episode very recently, too, and I was dying laughing. This is perfect.

ALEX: I mean, about The Simpsons. Is it everywhere in the world that you have this one channel that just binges The Simpsons? Like, you put on that channel and you have The Simpsons. I mean, in Argentina, we have this. In the US, probably. But Francesca, do you have somewhere like a go-to channel, or do you go to the internet for your Simpsons fix?

FRANCESCA: I do use the Internet now. I haven’t owned a TV in a very long time.

FLOR: Same here. Go, girl.

LORE: Am I the only person who’s totally addicted to TV in this group?

FLOR: You know? I mean, I personally haven’t had a TV in a long time, too. Like, it’s gonna be almost three years now. And I miss it when playing games because, I mean, I know that whenever we’re back to normal and if I want to have some of my friends over and play games on my couch, I’m gonna need a big television in front of us because the screen won’t cut it. But for now, I mean, I don’t miss it at all.

ALEX: Yeah.

LORE: You guys are so cool.

FLOR: Thank you for joining us, because we really, I mean, I personally enjoyed this interview a lot. I’m not sure about you, guys, but I’m sure that you feel the same. Thank you so much.

LORE: Absolutely!

ALEX: Francesca, you’re amazing. I mean, I didn’t know that you were a yoga master.

FLOR: We learned a lot today, actually.

FRANCESCA: Well, let’s have another interview next week so you can tell me again how amazing I am. I don’t get to hear that a lot.

FLOR: Whenever you need it, girl. Whenever you need a pick-me-up, we are here to cheer you.

LORE: Serving ego boosts any time.

FLOR: Anytime. Well, thank you so much for your time.

FRANCESCA: Thanks for having me.

FLOR: And, well, stay safe. I hope that you enjoy the warm weather over there in Barcelona. And I hope to see you at the masterclass or at pretty much any other event happening over the internet, and hopefully see you soon in person.

FRANCESCA: In person, yes. The place where I usually meet Flor is in Cologne, Germany.

FLOR: Yeah, we’ve met a couple of times now over the years, over Gamescom, over GDC and Game Connection, so I really miss that. So I hope I can see you again soon, Francesca.

FRANCESCA: Yeah, me too. Thanks a lot, guys.

LORE: Thank you so much.

ALEX: Thank you, Francesca.

FLOR: Big kiss and hug. Take care.

ALEX: Bye!

LUCIO: Bye-bye!

FLOR: Have a nice weekend!

Episode Transcription

ALEX: Hi, everybody! Welcome to another episode of Open World. Today we will be interviewing Yuhei Nasu, from Bonus Stage. But before we go to the interview, let’s check out the LocFact of today.

LORE: Hi, guys! Welcome to a new Open Word LocFact!

FLOR: Hi, everyone!

LORE: This time we are going to be talking about one of the most famous franchises of all time: Pokémon!

SINGER: Pokémon! Gotta catch them all! It’s you and me I know it’s my destiny!

FLOR: More specifically, we’ll be discussing how Pokémon are named in different languages.

LORE: Exactly. Did you know that not every country knows these cute and incredible little creatures by the same names? So where do their names come from, and what can they tell us about each creature?

FLOR: Well, there are a few exceptions, though, such as Pikachu, which is the most iconic Pokémon, as everyone knows, whose name has never been transcreated even though it might sound weird in some languages.

PIKACHU: I’ve been so lonely!

LORE: Right. So let’s get into it. Our first case is the legendary bird trio Articuno, Zapdos and Moltres. Their English names clearly show a combination of Spanish numbers, well, to those who know the Spanish numbers, “uno” (one), “dos” (two) and “tres” (three), but since the game is originally in Japanese, what are their original names?

FLOR: Well, their Japanese names are Freezer (フリーザー), as you can see in the screen, Thunder (サンダー) and Fire (ファイヤー). Quite straightforward names, right? And in German, these powerful bird Pokémon are called Arktos (and in German, “Arktis” is “Arctic”), Zapdos and Lavados. In German, as I said, “Arktis” means “Arctic” and Lavados comes from “lava,” of course. Other than that, the names have remained quite similar to English and have been adapted to rhyme to “tos-dos-dos.”

LORE: Right. Lickitung is another Pokémon that has a peculiar name in German: it’s Shlurp. This is the German onomatopoeia of a lick, which makes the creature’s name a clear definition of what it actually does. Another case of onomatopoeia in Pokémon names is Golduck’s French equivalent: Akwakwak. This is a really adorable name since it’s more or less how a child would pronounce a duck’s quack. So cute!

FLOR: Yeah, it is so cute. But these names are really creative and easy for children to remember, so I wonder if that’s the main reason behind their etymology. But enough with old school generation. What about Gen 8 Pokémon? Corviknight is as awesome as it is scary. Here on the screen, you can see how Corviknight is called in Japanese. Which is pronounced as, and I’m sorry if I’m pronouncing it wrong, “amaga” and literally means “armor.”

LORE: Right. In English, “corvi” comes from “corvus,” a big variety of crow, and “knight,” which makes complete sense since this fearful crow Pokémon possesses steel body, feathers and a steel peck, which make up its armor. In German, it’s called “Krarmor.” The “Kr” stands for “Krähe”— “Es tut mir leid” [I’m sorry, in German]. I’m not a German speaker. Please, please, please correct us on this. Somebody comment and tell us how to pronounce this correctly next time. A small sized body crow variety and, well, the “armor” part of it is obvious.

FLOR: As many of you may know, there are more than 800 Pokémon now. We could go on for days with these names, but I think you’ve got the idea. There’s a lot of transcreation going on behind these adorable creatures.

LORE: Absolutely. So thank you so much for joining us today. Add a comment about what other Pokémon names are unique in your languages so we can keep up the conversation about this iconic franchise. And see you next time on another Open World LocFact! Bye!

FLOR: See you next time!

SINGER: Gotta catch them all! Pokémon!

FLOR: Hi, everyone! Welcome to the new episode of Open World. Today here with us, we have Yuhei Nasu. Hi, Yuhei! How are you?

ALEX: Hey, Yuhei!

YUHEI: I’m very good. Thank you for having me.

FLOR: Welcome. So we wanted to introduce you to this amazing guest that we have today here with us. Yuhei is a veteran of the game localization industry with 12 years of experience under his belt, most recently as a localization producer for EA. Born in Japan and raised in England, Germany and the US, Yuhei returned to Japan in 2006 to pursue a career in localization. Yuhei has had a healthy obsession with videogames since he received his first Game Boy at the age of five, and when he’s not gaming, Yuhei spends his time on music and skateboarding. So, hi, Yuhei. Welcome. How are you today?

YUHEI: Hello. I’m very good and thank you for the introduction.

FLOR: Oh, please. We are super excited to have you. And well, first of all, I wanted to start like, well, I wanted to learn how does a localization producer day look like? I mean, what does it take to be a localization producer? And if there were any tools or specific skills that you had to learn to master this role.

YUHEI: Right. Very good question. The day of a localization producer really depends on which part of the localization process or the game development process the project is in at that moment, because the localization producer is involved in almost every step of the dev cycle. So, for example, you know, early on in the game development cycle, the developer might come to us for consultation regarding some of the game content. So, for example, you know, if there’s some kind of artwork that they want to check would be culturally suitable for Japan, they would check with us. Or even, you know, it might be a question regarding the Japanese ratings board, if any content is suitable for, you know, the rating that they want, they would come to us. We’re also involved in the translation and review process quite heavily. And we’re also… we also supervise audio recording sessions. So it can be quite a busy day, taking into account that we’re not always necessarily working on one project at a time. At times, it can be hectic, but it’s always a fun day, which is most important to me.

FLOR: Oh, yeah. Definitely.

YUHEI: Yeah. In terms of the skill sets necessary for a localization producer, I would say that communication skills is quite crucial, whether it be verbal or through text, because we… basically, most of our work involves communicating with multiple teams, whether it be the devs, the testing team, the audio recording studio, the ratings board. We communicate with a lot of teams. So it’s crucial that, when we do communicate, we communicate the necessary information in one go. This is especially the case if you’re working with someone in a different time zone, because one bad email could be night and day, quite literally, because you could lose one entire day.

ALEX: One entire day.

FLOR: Oh, yeah. Just in a question of minutes, you lose an entire day.

YUHEI: Yeah, exactly. Especially, you know, if, for example, the time difference is 12 hours, you barely have any overlap. So maybe you send an email at the end of your day, the reply comes in your morning. If the email was perfect, that’s fine, right? Because you gave the necessary info and you would receive the required feedback. But if that email is bad, you have to wait an additional 12 hours to follow up on that email. So I think, yeah, communication skills is key. It’s one of the big things that I learned in my 13 years as a localization producer.

FLOR: Right. Well, thank you so much for that insight. And I wanted to follow up on the rating system, because I’m familiar with that, but I’m pretty sure that many of the people that are gonna be watching this are not familiar with the rating system that you have in place in Japan. So would you mind explaining that in more detail?

YUHEI: Sure. So the Japanese rating system is an organization called CERO. It’s spelled C-E-R-O. And whenever you release a game on a console in Japan, this CERO rating is required. And so the challenge, I think, for indie devs or actually any triple-A, maybe, devs that want to release their games in Japan, I think the challenge is that CERO only operates in Japanese, so it can be a big challenge to really communicate with them in the first place. So I think that’s a big hurdle that, you know, the devs have to overcome when they want to get a rating in Japan. Yeah. What else? Yeah. And compared to ratings boards like ESRB, maybe, the Japanese ratings board is known to be a little more strict. “A little more” might be an understatement. It’s quite a bit more strict than what you would see in the West, you know? Without going into too much detail, the Japanese… In Japan, we tend to be more strict in regards to gore. So, you know, games like The Last of Us, you know, it can be quite gory.

FLOR: Yeah. For sure.

YUHEI: In some cases, a lot of softening. Softening is when you take out certain content that wouldn’t be accepted by the Japanese rating board. This softening is required for a lot of games that release in Japan.

FLOR: Yeah. And I was wondering, how do the players react to that in Japan? Are they used to it? Because I know that, as you mentioned, that there’s a board that actually evaluates and assesses the content of each game. But how do players react to that softening?

YUHEI: So I think a handful of players understand that something was done to their game. As in, like, some content was taken out because it had to comply with the ratings board. So obviously, you know, for a game like maybe Doom or something like that, the violence is, you know, a pretty big part of that game. So, once you tone that down, I understand that some users aren’t happy with, you know, that they would rather buy the Western version.

FLOR: Yeah, it’s funny that you brought up Doom because it’s basically the essence of it, you know?

ALEX: Violence.

YUHEI: Exactly. And in some cases, you know, for example, Mortal Kombat, that’s a game that cannot be released in Japan because, if you soften that game, you don’t have a game.

FLOR: Exactly.

ALEX: You have players doing friendships all the time.

FLOR: Yeah. No more fatality for you.

ALEX: No. No more fatality.

YUHEI: Yeah. So it’s a shame because there’s a lot of games that I personally love, Dead Space being one of them. And, you know.

ALEX: That’s a franchise that needs to come back.

YUHEI: Yeah, definitely. I’d love to see a Dead Space sequel. But, yeah, it’s a shame that we don’t see these games released in Japan just because of the gore. Which is quite unusual, seeing that a lot of anime in Japan is very gory.

FLOR: Yeah, exactly.

YUHEI: Like, compared to cartoons or even movies, they’re very gory and graphic. So, yeah, it’s… I can’t say I understand the decision fully, but, yeah, it’s there and we have to follow it, so… Yeah.

FLOR: Do you ever see this changing or those rules to be less strict in the near future?

YUHEI: In the near future… I can’t say I do, unfortunately. CERO has been around for a long time and… you know. Yeah, and I’ve worked with them a lot, too. And I understand, you know, some of the decisions they make, because, yes, some content should not be played by, you know, younger audiences.

FLOR: Oh, yeah, definitely.

YUHEI: So I completely agree with them on some of it.

FLOR: Yeah, there’s a thin line of looking after the players and the young audience and actually censoring or maybe losing the whole essence of a game.

YUHEI: Exactly. Yes.

FLOR: Thank you so much for your insight on that.

YUHEI: No problem.

FLOR: I took over because I was so interested in what you were saying.

LORE: Fascinating.

ALEX: Yeah, we didn’t prepare any questions about that. But yeah, I’m glad that you took that away.

YUHEI: Yeah, no. Surprise me.

ALEX: Well, here’s another surprise for you. No. I want to know…. Well, you worked for EA, right? But now you have your own company, you have your own baby. So can you please tell me what it’s like to run your own company? How was that change for you, right? If you’re still there like an octopus managing many different things. And how was that process? I mean, was it something that you just jumped for it, or did you have it in your mind for a while? Can you please elaborate a little bit on that?

YUHEI: Of course. So I was in EA Japan for 12 years, and then unfortunately, in 2019, EA Japan closed its doors. And, yeah, so it was… I started Bonus Stage basically the day after EA Japan closed down.

FLOR: Wow!

ALEX: You didn’t lose any time.

YUHEI: No, I didn’t wanna lose time. I just wanted to go for it straight away. So I pretty much dove into it headfirst into the deep end. And of course, there’s a lot of challenges with running a company, you know. So it’s very different from my experience at EAJ. But, at the same time, you know, the 12 years of experience I had at EA really helped me start the localization company because, you know, I’ve gone through the entire localization process while I was at EA. So as well as running the company, because we’re such a small team, I still am the localization producer as well. So sometimes juggling that can be a challenge for sure, because, you know, back when I was, you know, didn’t have my company, I didn’t really have to worry about taxes or, you know, the boring side of running a company. But that is a big, big part of what you have to do when you run a company. You have to, you know, worry about taxes and, you know, bookkeeping and accounting and everything like that. So, yeah, and it’s like juggling a few things.

FLOR: Yeah, and at the same time, taking care of your team, right? It’s not just you anymore.

YUHEI: That’s a huge difference for sure.

ALEX: But now, you started your own company the day after you left EA. EA closed down, right? You didn’t left. EA left you.

LORE: Oh!

ALEX: So how did you get into EA like 30-something years ago. How was the backstory of it?

YUHEI: Right. That is a very interesting story, actually.

FLOR: We’re all about interesting stories.

YUHEI: I was always into games. Like you mentioned in my profile, I got my first Game Boy when I was five.

ALEX: And your healthy obsession.

YUHEI: My healthy obsession with games. So I loved games all my life, basically, but I never really considered making it my career. So I like music almost as equally as I like games. So I used to work at a music venue as a… just at the bar, making, you know, serving beer to the customers and things like that. And this is when my mom contacted me saying she’d found an ad…

ALEX: Go, Mom.

YUHEI: Yeah, my… Thank you, Mom, if you’re watching.

LORE: Oh!

YUHEI: And the ad was about…

ALEX: Hi, Yuhei’s mom!

YUHEI: Hi, Mom! And the ad was for a position at EA, and it required some linguistic skills. And since I was bilingual, she thought, you know, it would be a good fit for me. So… Yeah, that’s when I just thought I should go for this, because working at a music venue, you really don’t make much money.

ALEX: Right.

FLOR: Unfortunately.

YUHEI: Unfortunately. So I took the opportunity. I wanted to test my linguistic skills as well. So yeah, I joined EA as a translator in the beginning.And then, you know, a position for assistant localization producer opened, so I applied. And that’s basically, you know, then the dominos started falling in and here I am now.

ALEX: That’s amazing.

FLOR: How old were you when your mom showed you this ad?

YUHEI: Uh, I think I was 21.

FLOR: Oh, you were just a baby.

YUHEI: It was a very long time ago. I think I was 21. Yeah, it was a long time ago.

ALEX: That’s the coolest story ever.

LORE: You were right, that’s a good story.

ALEX: “How did you start working at EA? Thanks to my mom.” It’s amazing!

FLOR: Yeah, she saw video games, like, bilingual skills, and she was like, “Yeah, this is for Yuhei.”

ALEX: “This is for my kid.”

YUHEI: Yeah. I’m not sure why I didn’t think of that earlier, and I had to rely on my mom to come up with that for me.

ALEX: You’re not alone, man. I mean, plenty of us didn’t think about pursuing a career in the localization industry or in the video game industry until we were much older than 21. Well, not much.

FLOR: Yeah, but it’s amazing that your mom saw that there was potential in the video game industry. It wasn’t just a hobby or a healthy obsession, right?

YUHEI: Yeah. Yeah. I think she saw me playing the Nintendo 64 for like six, eight hours a day, and she must have thought, “This is the job for you.”

FLOR: This needs to pay off.

LORE: Did she ever play any games with you or did she when you were younger?

YUHEI: Oh, she actually, she used to play Animal Crossing on the Nintendo 64.

LORE: Love it.

YUHEI: That’s an old game.

ALEX: Lore is a huge Animal Crossing fan.

LORE: Yes, I spent a lot of the, again, early stages of lockdown playing that one.

YUHEI: The Switch version?

LORE: Yeah, when it just came out on the Switch. Absolutely.

YUHEI: Yeah. Can’t buy a Switch anymore. In Japan, at least.

FLOR: Oh, really?

YUHEI: Yeah, it sold out. Yeah.

FLOR: Well, thank you for, well, that story. We loved it. I mean… What’s the name of your mom, by the way? Because she’s amazing.

YUHEI: My mom’s name is Taiko.

ALEX: Taiko.

LORE: We love you.

FLOR: Hi, Tiko. Thank you for…

ALEX: Thank you, Taiko, for what you did way back then.

FLOR: …bringing Yuhei to the industry.

YUHEI: That’s an unexpected cameo.

FLOR: But a cute one, though.

LORE: We’ll be interviewing her next week.

YUHEI: Oh, great. Great. She’ll love that.

LORE: Well, I wanted to take it back a little bit to the culture discussion that we were having earlier, because I have heard from a few different people in the localization industry that it’s often easier to localize games from Japanese into English rather than from English into Japanese, since the English speaking world just kind of eats up the entire Japanese esthetic and culture. So what do you think it is about Japanese gaming or Japanese entertainment in general that appeals so strongly to English speaking audiences?

YUHEI: I think the major difference is the exposure the Western audience has to Japanese material when they were young. I lived in the U.K. when I was very small. I went to the UK when I was four and I stayed there seven years, so I experienced this firsthand as well. But in Europe, there aren’t many domestic animations, so a lot of what comes into Europe is exports from the US or Japan. For example, Power Rangers was huge when I was a kid, and that is a Japanese export.

LORE: Same.

YUHEI: And Dragon Ball, of course, and animes like that. Oh, you wore a T-shirt. Okay.

FLOR: We’re big fans of Dragon Ball as well. We grew up with Dragon Ball.

ALEX: Yes, that’s right.

YUHEI: And yeah, I heard from my friends in Italy and France, you know, they told me that Dragon Ball was on TV, you know, on Saturday mornings. So I think, compared to, you know, Japanese people, I think the Western audience had a lot of opportunities to be exposed to this new culture, which is Japanese culture, when they were small. So, you know, now they’re grown up and, you know, if a game contains very Japanese things like, for example, you know, Persona 5, that’s a very Japanese game. That’s a very Japanese game because… And they’re not even, you know, they don’t try to domesticate the content. They don’t hide the fact that everyone is Japanese and they go to this Japanese school and they live in Shibuya.

ALEX: Shibuya, yeah.

YUHEI: Shibuya, yeah. And so I think the Western audience, they can take that in more than a Japanese person can with Western content because they’ve been exposed to these kinds of Japanese culture since they were young. Now, on the flip side, not a lot of cartoons make it over to Japan, so everything, almost everything is foreign to a Japanese audience, mostly because there’s so much domestic content, games, anime, movies. So, you know, they didn’t really grow up watching anything outside Japanese things. So I think that’s the major difference.

LORE: That’s interesting. I guess it makes a lot of sense when you put it like that. I mean, you’re naming shows and things, and I’m like, “Oh yeah, that was from my childhood. Oh, yeah! I remember that!” So yeah, I guess it really was… having that Japanese entertainment was a big part of our childhoods here in the U.S. And we do still love it as adults.

YUHEI: Yeah, that’s a big… that’s a big thing.

LORE: So thank you. And thank you to Japan for all the awesome games and shows.

ALEX: Yes. Yes, because it might be like, “Oh, yeah, this was whatever I did, whatever I watched when I was a kid,” but it was the same thing that we watched as kids as well. So your export quality is top notch, Yuhei. Thank you very much. Thank you.

YUHEI: Well, yeah. I’m not sure if I can take credit for all of that.

LORE: Take it! Yuhei is personally responsible for all the good games and shows coming from Japan. You heard it here first.

ALEX: Well, he has been for quite a while right now, for all of his work at EA and now at his own company. So yeah, man, take it.

YUHEI: Yeah, I’ll take what I can. Thank you very much. I’m responsible for everything.

LORE: Well done.

FLOR: But yeah, we wanted to know, what do you think are the main challenges? Because we already talked about going from Japanese into English. So what are the main challenges for indie devs to go from English into Japanese and to localize their game? Are there any specific adaptations? I mean, you talked about the rating system and all, but from your experience, have you seen any specific mistakes or common mistakes throughout the years that people make when they develop their games? Not thinking about, of course, the target audience.

YUHEI: Right. So yeah, a common challenge is dialect, you know? Obviously, English has so many dialects, you know, and each of them are specific to that region, and that specific dialect has its own specific slang. So it’s really difficult for a translator to be able to understand all these different English dialects and slang terminology. So, yeah. You know, for example, if a character has a, you know, a very heavy Cockney accent, let’s say the character’s from, you know, London or something, a lot of the things that he’s saying the translator will miss because they haven’t grown up around, you know, this kind of English. A lot of times, people who study to become translators, they, you know, read the English from books, they hear the English from tapes. Obviously, no one is gonna start swearing in a textbook or on the tape. But, you know, a game isn’t a textbook. The characters speak like normal people. And normal people, you know, they swear and they don’t use clean English. So, yeah, one challenge I faced is just searching for translators that can understand this kind of language. I’d like to think that we have a strength there because, you know, everyone on the team, very diverse backgrounds. I grew up in London and moved to Germany, then Illinois. So if you’re wondering…

ALEX: Very diverse.

LORE: That’s quite a shift.

YUHEI: So you might be thinking my accent is hard to put a finger on. That’s because it’s American Midwestern British, I would say.

LORE: Midwest!

YUHEI: Midwest. Oh, really?

LORE: Yeah. I’m in Wisconsin right now.

YUHEI: Oh, nice.

LORE: Nice. That just came out by accident. I’m sorry.

YUHEI: So, yeah. Finding a translator that can do that is very challenging. So having a team that is diverse, you know? My team has people from the States, England, Ireland, New Zealand. So in terms of slang and dialects, we have quite a few of the bases covered, I would say.

FLOR: That’s amazing.

YUHEI: Yeah. And on the topic of dialects, it’s always challenging to translate a dialect when the devs want the dialect to be portrayed in Japanese. So let’s say a character speaks in a Scottish accent, and the devs want us to portray that in Japanese. There is no Scottish Japanese accent. So what do we do?

ALEX: How do you translate it?

YUHEI: Yeah. So, you know, does it simply mean, you know, Scotland is the northern region of England… Not England, the UK. The northern region of the UK. So do we just pick a dialect that is the northern region of Japan? And of course, it’s not that simple.

FLOR: Not at all.

YUHEI: No. So, you know, in our case, what we do is we try and figure out why the devs chose this particular dialect for this character. The Scottish accent, it’s usually seen as, you know, a little rough. You know, obviously, it’s an archetype. It’s not true, not every Scottish person is rough. But when you think about why the devs chose it, you can kind of see the characteristic they were trying to go for. So we try and focus on that characteristic as opposed to the actual dialect, because translating that dialect directly is impossible. So just focus on the character and make that come through in the translation. And then, I think, you know, we can translate it the way that devs wanted.

FLOR: And that takes us back to communication. Communication is key to fully understand the backstory of each character and then try to portray it the best you can for the target audience to get the same feel, you know?

YUHEI: Right. So it’s always a discussion with the devs, because in the end we need to, you know, deliver what’s best for the players, yes, but we also need to deliver the message that the devs were going for. So it’s… Yeah. We always ask questions to the devs, and they always give us really good answers and information. So, you know, based on that information, we try to translate and localize the content the best we can.

LORE: Well, that was a nicely diplomatic answer at the end there. “We always get good answers back.”

YUHEI: Always. Always. 100% of the time.

LORE: Love it.

ALEX: Yuhei, you might have given a bit of something away for what I mean to ask next. But as you know, many indie devs usually want to get their games known worldwide, right? But they just don’t know where to start when it comes to localization, right? So what sort of advice could you give indie devs when it comes to localization?

YUHEI: Yeah. The main advice I would give to indie developers is negotiation. Indie devs, you know, compared to triple-A or double-A companies, they have a limit on the budget, more often than not. So I think some indie devs might stop there. They might just say, “We don’t have money to localize it, so we can’t.” But that’s a shame because you could be missing out on a very big market and a very big player base. So I would have to say, you know, just negotiate with the localization team you wanna work with, you know? Let’s say you don’t have a budget, then maybe you have something else to offer. Let’s say, for example, we localize your game, so maybe you can put our logo on the splash screen or something like that, you know? That could be a win-win scenario without involving money. So I would say just ask for a quote and see if it fits your budget. And if it doesn’t, just negotiate, you know, because there’s really… you won’t lose anything from negotiating. So.

ALEX: Right.

YUHEI: So that would be one advice.

ALEX: Communication, again. Talk.

YUHEI: Communication, yes.

LORE: Time and time again.

YUHEI: Yeah, sorry. I’ll stop talking about communication now.

ALEX: No, please.

LORE: That would be against our rule of communication, communication.

ALEX: No, but you’re shedding so much light into something that it sounds like it should be just common change, right? But it doesn’t…. It’s not that common, I mean.

FLOR: Yeah, if it was, we wouldn’t be having this conversation, because sometimes indie devs, for example, are super… maybe there’s just a one team person or maybe two or three, if they’re lucky, and they don’t even know where to start. And sometimes it’s good to share these stories for them to know that there are other ways.

LORE: Yeah, don’t just rule it out.

YUHEI: I would say, like, if you Google “localization,” you know, a lot of companies come up. And as an indie dev, you might be intimidated by that because, you know, obviously the ones that come up on the top, they’ve handled all these triple-A games, you know? Maybe they worked with NASA or something like that. So it’s easy to get intimidated by that. And, of course, if you ask for a quote, it might be on the high end. But I think it’s important to search outside of, you know, the big names as well, because there are a lot of small indie studios that would be willing to negotiate a little more than the, you know, the more bigger companies would. So a good starting point, I think, would be to join, just join an indie community. There’s a very good one in Japan called Asobu. They have a huge presence on Discord as well. And it’s just a group of indie devs coming together, talking about their own games, asking for help. So just, yeah, just join a group and then make connections. And then you’d be surprised like how many people, how many, you know, localization studios there might be.

FLOR: Yeah, that’s great advice. Thank you.

ALEX: That’s great advice, Yuhei. Thanks.

LORE: It really is such a nice community, too. So like you said, reaching out I think is a really good idea.

YUHEI: Yeah, it is. Yeah.

LORE: So in addition to gaming, we know you also dabble in music and skateboarding. Is it snowboarding as well or just skateboarding?

YUHEI: Oh, it’s just skateboarding.

LORE: And skateboarding. Which are, I mean, both just very classic cool guy attributes that I’m totally digging. And we know that you’ve assembled a team at Bonus Stage that have backgrounds in music and other arts as well, in addition to their gaming background. So as somebody with negative musical talent myself, I’m wondering… Admittedly. Does the music in games tend to work regardless of the international audience, or is that something that you find really benefits from the localization treatment, you know, specializing it for a certain linguistic group in every game?

YUHEI: Let me first clarify that I got into music and skateboarding for the pure reason of looking cool.

LORE: Yeah. Makes sense.

FLOR: Don’t we all?

YUHEI: Um… So, sorry, your question was music and video games?

LORE: Yeah. So the music in games, when you’re localizing these games, you know, music is often such a big part of the games that we play. And so, is that something that generally translates well when you’re localizing a game to an international audience?

YUHEI: Yeah. I mean, Japan tends to follow the trend of the US in terms of musical, you know, what’s big right now. So… For example, I’m gonna sound out of touch with guys. You know, obviously dubstep was very big a few years ago. Maybe not a few years ago, maybe quite a while ago. And then, you know, a few months later, it’s big in Japan as well. So, you know, back when dubstep was big, a lot of video games were incorporating dubstep into their soundtrack. So the Japanese audience, you know, they didn’t really have any trouble getting into that either, because we tend to like a similar genre to what everyone in the US likes.

LORE: That’s nice, then. You kind of… You don’t have to completely come up with a new soundtrack every time you’re localizing a game.

YUHEI: That would be a whole new additional step to the localization process if we had to re-write the music. It might be fun, though.

LORE: Could be just for some games. Maybe not every game.

YUHEI: Yeah, not every game, please.

ALEX: Please. It’s too much work.

LORE: I won’t make you do it.

FLOR: Yeah. And now that you said “fun,” we’re gonna go to the fun part of our interview. Even though I had a great time during this session.

YUHEI: Yeah, me too.

FLOR: We asked you to share with us a set of memes, your favorite memes. So I’m gonna share my screen now. Yes. So, well, thank you so much, Yuhei, for sharing your memes. So this is the first one.

YUHEI: Oh, I love memes.

ALEX: “Nope.”

FLOR: “No, no. I didn’t get anything.”

ALEX: The guy was loaded.

YUHEI: This is a true story. My friends do this to me all the time.

FLOR: Oh, really?

YUHEI: My “friends” do this to me.

ALEX: Yeah. With friends like that, you don’t need enemies.

YUHEI: Exactly.

FLOR: I know, right? And what are you playing with your friends right now?

YUHEI: I’m playing Apex Legends, like everyone else in Japan. Even if I wanted to play anything else, my friends are playing Apex, so I don’t really have much of a choice.

LORE: It’s Apex or Apex.

YUHEI: Apex or Apex, yeah. I mean, any time I play Apex… By the way, I’m terrible at Apex.

ALEX: Oh, I suck at Apex.

YUHEI: It’s such a difficult game. But every time I go into a game, I end up running around with two scopes and no gun while my friends are just decked out in the best gear, so…

FLOR: So everyone can tell whenever you got something from the vault.

YUHEI: Yeah, exactly. And I have to keep reminding them that this is a team game, you now? So maybe help me?

ALEX: By the way, who… what character do you pick, usually?

YUHEI: Bangalore, because I don’t have… Anyone else is locked. You know, the new legends? I don’t have them unlocked, so I usually stick to Bangalore because she’s one of the closest characters to like, you know, a common FPS, you know, where the abilities are, you know, relatively simple compared to the other legends. So I tend to stick with her because she’s the only one I can use.

LORE: It narrows down the options, as well.

ALEX: Yeah.

FLOR: So the next one.

YUHEI: Oh, I love this one. “Donuts are great.”

LORE: I did always want to eat the food watching this show, though. Like, for some reason, the food always looked so good.

FLOR: Every single time.

YUHEI: Japanese sweets, maybe? They look good, don’t they? Yeah.

FLOR: Well, it happened to me a lot with Dragon Ball as well. Every single time that they are eating, it’s like, “I’m hungry.”

YUHEI: Oh, Dragon Ball, yeah.

FLOR: Having those huge feasts.

YUHEI: The huge, like, the dinosaur tails.

ALEX: The dinosaur tail. Yeah.

FLOR: And that brings us to the next one.

LORE: Oh! I love it!

ALEX: Yep!

YUHEI: I had to ask Alex to sneak this one in because it’s not related to games and it’s not related to localization. But I like Dragon Ball, so.

ALEX: I believe that Goku has a free pass.

LORE: Yeah. Always. Always. And I had to sneak one for the sake of it, because when I saw that you’re a big fan of Dragon Ball, I had to include this one as well.

ALEX: I wasn’t expecting this one!

FLOR: I know. Surprise factor.

YUHEI: Poor Yamcha.

ALEX: Wait, that’s the pronunciation in Japanese? Like the proper one?

YUHEI: Well, the proper one would be “Yamucha.” What is it in your region?

ALEX: No, “Yamcha.” But I thought I heard something… I thought I heard “Yamca”?

YUHEI: No, that might be somewhere different. It’s “Yamucha” in Japan. And “Yamucha” actually means a Chinese dish or a Chinese buffet. Dragon Ball names. Dragon ball names are all based on food or clothing items.

FLOR: That’s why I love them so much.

ALEX: “Gohan” is “rice” or something like that?

LORE: We’re gonna have to have a separate talk about this, ’cause I was not aware and I would like to get educated on this.

YUHEI: Oh, I would love to talk about Dragon Ball for another 3 hours or something.

FLOR: Yeah.

YUHEI: “Gohan” literally…

LORE: Next week.

YUHEI: Next week, let’s do that.

LORE: I’d happily interview your mom.

YUHEI: Oh, yeah. I forgot my mom. Yeah.

FLOR: Yeah. After her session, we’ll have our Dragon Ball session.

YUHEI: Okay. Okay.

ALEX: But I wanna know what Gohan… if I got Gohan right.

YUHEI: Gohan is right. And that literally means “food.” Well, not “food,” but “dinner.”

FLOR: Oh! I love it. I love it. When I thought I couldn’t love Dragon Ball any more, like, you come and share this information and it’s like, of course their names are related to food.

YUHEI: The names are fascinating. Yes.

FLOR: Well, that’s the end. Oh, and Mr. Business came to say hi!

YUHEI: Hello.

LORE: He’s trying to put his paw in my coffee, so now he gets to sit on my lap and time out.

FLOR: Perfect timing.

ALEX: Time out.

FLOR: Look at his face, he’s all grumpy. “I need my coffee.”

ALEX: “I want coffee.”

LORE: This poor, abused cat. I’m so sorry you had to see this here at the end of the session.

FLOR: Well, Yuhei, it was lovely to have you with us today.

YUHEI: Oh, my pleasure. Thank you so much.

FLOR: And, well, we hope to continue discussing Goku or any other characters or Gohan. Or even the names, I would love to learn more about that. And as you said, I could be talking for hours about Dragon Ball. So, hopefully, we can meet again and… meet in person, maybe? Next year.

YUHEI: Yeah, that would be wonderful.

ALEX: That would be amazing.

FLOR: Absolutely.

YUHEI: I’ll bring my mom.

LORE: We love her already.

FLOR: Yeah. We already love her, and say hi and thank her for bringing you to the localization industry. And, well, we hope you have a lovely weekend, because we’re recording this on a Friday. So thank you for staying up this late for us.

YUHEI: Oh, no problem. No problem. Thank you so much.

FLOR: It was amazing to have you. So stay safe. And thank you, everyone, for watching. Stay tuned for the next episode.

YUHEI: Thank you, everyone!

FLOR: Bye!

ALEX: See you next time!