GAME LOCALIZATION:

THE SCRIPT TRANSLATION

OF CASUAL GAMES ON FACEBOOK
Yu-Ling Chung
(National Taiwan University of Science and Technology, Taiwan)

Abstract
Despite the global economic crisis, the games industry has attracted increasing attention
because it is one of the few industries that has kept expanding. The decline in people’s
spending on travelling has led to home-based activities becoming more popular. In these
circumstances, the gaming industry as one of the major components of the stay-at-home
economy has become increasingly lucrative. These days the upsurge in mobile gadgets and
social networking media has also contributed to the prevalence of online casual games.
Since most digital games, in contrast to physical media games, are developed in Japanese
and English, game localization is essential for other language gamers. Game localization is
different from typical translation work because of its extra audiovisual (software) and tech-
nical (hardware) requirements. Traditional norms regarding translation practice may not
be sufficient in relation to game localization. Game localizers seem to have increasing op-
portunities to create new translation norms. However, according to the case study in this
research, gamers expect game script translations to be faithful to the source texts. Tradi-
tional translation norms still govern the practice of game localization.
This paper analyses the contextual aspect of digital games by exploring the evolution and
current situation of the global gaming industry, especially dominant online games in Asia.
Given the upsurge in social networking media and their applied games, this article uses a
case study of casual games on Facebook. Examples are presented to illustrate the chal-
lenges game localizers face.

1. Introduction

Since the mid-1990s the personal computer, together with computer games and
the Internet, have expanded rapidly worldwide. The origin of the videogame can be
traced back to a computer laboratory at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology
in 1962 (Allan 2001: 2/7) 1. After half a century, the present gaming industry is
viewed as “an attractive and lucrative form of creative expression” and “as diverse
and sophisticated as the movie industry” in the current era of globalization (Mc-
Carthy et al. 2005: 6, 10). The global market for video and computer game hardware
and software stands at about US$10 billion annually and has risen continuously for

1
The MIT LINC (Laboratory INstrument Computer) is considered to be the first personal com-
puter, a computer designed for use by one person. MIT demonstrated a prototype of LINC designed
by Wesley A. Clark and Charles E. Molnar in March 1962.

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66 YU-LING CHUNG

several years (Castronova 2008: 21). Much of the growth of the computer and video
game industry can be attributed to the availability of international versions of the
games (Chandler 2004: 2). However, ‘localization’ as a profession and industry did
not exist twenty years ago (Dunne 2006: 1).
Compared to computer games and video games, online games have become a
fast-growing industry because of the increasing numbers of users who now have ac-
cess to the Internet 2. In Taiwan, PC games and online games used to be the main-
stay. However, recently portable games and web games have become increasingly
popular because of the fast development of mobile gadgets, such as smart phones
and tablet PCs (III 2011: 99). Games hosted by social networking websites 3 are as
prevalent as web games these days. Web games and social network service games
(SNS games) are expected to replace those massive multi-player online games
(MMOG), considering their lower threshold for gamers, such as shorter gaming time
and simpler game rules (III 2011: 91). In this study, web games and SNS games are
counted as online games considering the mediation of the Internet. Games on Face-
book with the feature of both web games and portable games are also categorized as
online games.
According to the Taiwan Network Information Center (TWNIC) 4, among Tai-
wanese netizens, 14.4 million rely on broadband connections, up 3.4% year on year,
with a penetration rate of 70.6%. In addition to broadband, 35.9% go online by wire-
less means and 18.9% utilize mobile communications. The recent popularity of
smart handheld devices such as smart phones, e-readers, and tablet PCs, has
helped connect more people to the Internet. The expansion of the Internet popula-
tion is expected to stimulate more innovative online services, with the popularity of
social networking media such as Facebook and Wretch 5 in Taiwan, changing the
traditional way of using the Internet. Since 2008 Facebook has initiated third-party
applications including games and quizzes, which have led games companies to in-
vest more in social games.
Unlike video games on a PC or console games on a TV, casual games are played
through the mediation of social networking media. A casual game is a video game
targeted at or used by a mass audience of gamers. Casual games can have any type
of gameplay, and fit in any genre. They are typically distinguished by their simple
rules and lack of commitment required in contrast to more complex hardcore games.
People can play casual games with the convenience of mobile entertainment serv-
ices, so casual games are also called mobile games, wireless games, or web games. A
famous example of casual games is ‘Farmville’ on Facebook and its Chinese version
is a big success in Taiwan. These casual game players are believed to have short at-
tention spans, so games companies constantly refresh their line-up of such activities
(Dumenco 2010). Some studies (e.g. Slutsky 2011) claim that social media in general

2
If categorized by the platform used for gaming, there can be PC games, online games, con-
sole/TV/video games, arcade games, and portable/handheld/mobile games.
3
See a list of social networking websites at.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_social_network-
ing_websites.
4
See http://www.twnic.net.tw/index2.php.
5
See http://www.digitalbuzzblog.com/infographic-asia-pacific-social-media-statistics-stats-facts/.

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GAME LOCALIZATION: THE SCRIPT TRANSLATION OF CASUAL GAMES ON FACEBOOK 67

waste everyone’s time. However, due to the prevalence of social networking media,
people’s habits of using the Internet have changed and more business types of
games such as online gambling are appearing. Among them, games on social net-
working media are one outstanding example. Whether people use Twitter, Facebook
or Google+, these social networking media all benefit from their users’ social net-
working to spread further. Although still in the preliminary stages, games on these
social networking media are growing rapidly and even occupying part of the market
share of PC games and online games, considering the prevalence of mobile devices
and a long mobile tradition in Asia. Without time and space limitations, there will
be more players of social networking games than PC game and online game players.
China and the Far East region currently provide the largest market for mobile
entertainment services (Holden 2008). With the prevalence of the stay-at-home
economy and lucrative profits gained even during the global economic crisis, it
seems that the gaming industry has opened new dimensions for translation practi-
tioners and scholars. The new area of game localization offers translators opportuni-
ties to break existing translation norms. Game localizers seem to be in a beneficial
position to change the translators’ traditional status of being second in importance
to the original writers.

2. The gaming industry

Data show that the scale of the global gaming market reached US$16.5 billion in
2001, ahead of the movie industry that was worth US$16 billion 6. In 2008, the out-
put value of the global gaming industry was up to US$35 billion and has now be-
come the biggest entertainment business 7. There are different categories of games,
such as arcade games, consoles/TV/video games, PC games, handheld/mobile/
portable games and computer/Internet/online games. Along with the emergence of
new generation consoles, such as PS3, Xbox360, and Wii and the tendency of cross-
network integration between TV games, computer games and mobile games, the
output value of the global gaming industry will become even bigger and attract
more people to be gamers in the near future. The gaming industry is going to thrive,
in terms of state involvement in countries such as South Korea and China (Staff
2008; Chung & Yuan 2009) and the increase in entertainment possibilities and
modes. The online gaming industry is also predicted to grow annually by more than
10 percent in the period from 2010 to 2016 (KG 2012).
So far consoles are the mainstay in the global gaming market, which accounts for
around 70% of the global gaming industry 8. According to the IDC forecasts 9, the con-

6
Statistics retrieved from the website ‘The Entertainment Software Association’ (ESA):
http://www.theesa.com/.
7
Statistics retrieved from the website ‘Juniper Research’: http://www.juniperresearch.com/
index.php.
8
Statistics retrieved from http://mic.iii.org.tw/english/.
9
http://www.marketresearch.com/IDC-v2477/Worldwide-Connected-Video-Game-Entertainment-
6973769/.

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68 YU-LING CHUNG

nected video game and en-

tertainment console market
will continue to grow
through 2016, especially in
North America. However,
Chart 1 shows that con-
sole/TV/video games are not
so popular in Asia because
consoles are relatively more
expensive than computer/In-
ternet/online games. Online
Chart 1. Global market of consoles in 2004 games are particularly pop-
ular in Asia. Strong eco-
nomic growth and the need for information suggest that the Internet should grow ex-
ponentially in Asia 10, and this has led to the prevalence of computers and easy access
to the Internet, where online games among other ‘digital game’ 11 types and genres are
becoming particularly popular. Moreover, China and the Far East region currently pro-
vide the largest market for mobile entertainment services (including mobile music, games
and TV) and contribute approximately 41% of global revenue 12. Despite rapid growth
in developing markets, the Asia Pacific region is forecast to retain its leadership in 2012,
when it will still contribute 33% of global revenue 13. The current situation of the on-
line gaming market is presented in Charts 2, 3 and 4 14, which focus respectively on the
market scale of global, regional, and Taiwanese online gaming.
Chart 2 shows that the
revenue of the global online
gaming market has kept in-
creasing even during the fi-
nancial slowdown. In 2011,
the share of paying casual
and social gamers compared
to all gamers worldwide was
the highest in Asia, followed
by emerging markets and
the USA (KG 2012).
It is interesting to note
Chart 2. The scale of global online gaming market in Chart 3 that the geo-
graphical distribution of
consoles and online games in the world is significantly different. North America has
the biggest market share of consoles in the world but the smallest share (after 2008)

10
http://www.isoc.org/inet96/proceedings/h1/h1_1.htm.
11
The term ‘digital games’ means virtual games, in contrast to games on physical media.
12
See http://juniperresearch.com/viewpressrelease.php?pr=83.
13
Statistics retrieved from http://www.juniperresearch.com/news.php.
14
Charts 2, 3, and 4 are created based on the statistics taken from MIC website.

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GAME LOCALIZATION: THE SCRIPT TRANSLATION OF CASUAL GAMES ON FACEBOOK 69

Chart 3. The scale of regional online gaming

in the global online gaming market. On the contrary, Asia occupies the biggest on-
line game market but has the smallest console market share.

3. Online gaming in Taiwan

Online gaming revenue in Taiwan also continues to increase, with increasing

numbers of local game companies expanding their operations to China. Chart 4
shows the scale and increasing trend of the online gaming market in Taiwan.

Chart 4. The scale of online gaming market in Taiwan

Online gaming has become popular in Taiwan, especially among heavy Internet-
using students. Taiwan has played a leading role in the global online gaming mar-
ket since an operational shift happened around 2000: game companies in Taiwan

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70 YU-LING CHUNG

encountered difficulties in trying to cross the skills barrier to develop

consoles/TV/video games and break the monopoly held by Japanese and American
products in the market. This setback forced game companies in Taiwan to take an-
other path to develop online games and make online gaming popular in Taiwan
(Chang & Chiu 2010).

4. Globalization and game localization

Taiwan has one of the most advanced telecommunications networks in Asia 15.
The popularity of the Internet in Taiwan is only behind South Korea, Japan and
Hong Kong in Asia 16. For a young generation who grew up with computers, the In-
ternet plays an essential part in their lives. That is to say, for young people in Tai-
wan, especially those with technical backgrounds, in terms of their formal technical
training backgrounds, computers are their learning tools and even channels to the
outside world. This generation has been called ‘the net generation or E-generation’,
a demarcation of a social group (Tapscott 1998). In 1998, the net generation or the
E-generation was most numerous in North America, but there were similar pat-
terns, albeit less pronounced, occurring in Europe and the Pacific Rim, which in-
cluded Taiwan (ibid.: 1998). By the end of 2011, Internet users had become ex-
tremely numerous in Asia 17. In March 2011, the Internet population in Taiwan
included more than 17 million Internet users (70.1%) and over 5.6 million (75.5%)
households with Internet access. Among them, those aged between 15 and 19 are
the highest percentage of Internet users (99.5%). More than 90% of Internet users
are in the age group between 12 and 34 years old, according to the latest statistic of-
fered by TWNIC. They are the net generation in Taiwan. The availability of PCs in
Taiwan, including the prevalence of home computers, high-speed Internet, and
cyber cafés, was expected to foster the increase.
The impact of these digital games has become ever greater to modern people,
with digital games no longer merely seen as “the preserve of the young and nerdy”
(Castronova 2008: 21). With the feature of offering interactive entertainment, digi-
tal games also attract older people, and the market potential is promising given the
resilience of the stay-at-home economy. Game culture, as a socio-cultural phenome-
non, is often defined via descriptions of gamers across cultures and has thus become
an important area deserving further investigation (Shaw 2010: 404). So far the
biggest producers of digital games are from the United States and Japan (such as
Sony, Nintendo and Microsoft), with the language used in digital game play either
English or Japanese.
As Cronin (1998: 143) points out, the globalization of English has reduced the
status of other languages, especially in telecommunications. Along with the emer-
gence of personal computers since the 1990s, English has also become the lingua

15
See http://www.internetworldstats.com/asia2.htm.
16
Statistics retrieved from TWNIC. http://www.twnic.net.tw/index2.php.
17
See http://www.internetworldstats.com/stats.htm.

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GAME LOCALIZATION: THE SCRIPT TRANSLATION OF CASUAL GAMES ON FACEBOOK 71

franca used online. There are eleven countries with video and computer game rev-
enues over $1 billion 18, and English is a major option in the language settings of
computer games and video games. Gamers who are not competent in English have
to rely on translation to understand the latest information and know-how about
gaming products. In the case of online gaming in Taiwan, this is where translators
have an opportunity to become influential in online communities, with both their
voluntary or contracted game translations. Consequently, it may be assumed that
game localization is indispensable for local gamers from non-speaking English coun-
tries. However, the major consideration of local game agencies is that of budgets
and the market. They do not consider localizing a game product if their budget is in-
sufficient or the market is not big enough. Nevertheless, in order to bridge the lan-
guage gap for gamers and to appeal to an ever greater number of consumers, game
localization has become a necessity.
The difficulties that local game agencies encounter in game localization include
budget restrictions and the limitation of the traditional Chinese online games mar-
ket, when compared to the English and Japanese online gaming market. According
to a local game agency, due to budgetary concerns, game companies often decide
whether to localize a game or not according to the sales of the game in different
areas (Ken 2008). Although the online gaming market in China is promising, it is
not mature yet. In addition, the problem of copyright infringement is also a concern,
especially for PC games. Software piracy is a big problem for PC game companies to
counter because their revenues mostly come from product sales (Fu 2010). However,
with the recent prevalence of online gaming operating through the Internet, the
issue of copyright infringement has become less important because of its online pay-
ment mechanism. Gamers usually pay monthly to be members, or they have to buy
reward point cards or extra items to keep playing online games (Fu 2003: 122-129).
Other factors may also influence local game companies’ decisions in game localiza-
tion. For those games which include a lot of conversation or specific terminology (including
slang, jokes and dialects) and complicated plots such as role- playing games (RPG), the
need for game localization is essential to help gamers get involved in the setting and
story of the game, something that will cost the game company a significant amount of
money (Ken 2008). However, there are different attitudes from gamers about this is-
sue. On the evidence of one online gaming forum in Taiwan 19, some gamers prefer not
to have a game localized due to the fear of mistranslation, which will influence their
gaming experiences. They would rather spend time polishing their English or Japan-
ese language proficiency to better understand the story or plot of the game. Moreover,
game localization has something to do with the change of the source code of a game. Not
many game companies are willing to offer their source code to local agencies for game
localization. Another concern is that Chinese characters are very different from al-
phabetical English and localization may not be compatible with the image composition
of the game (Sam 2008). Experienced game localizers have pointed out that game lo-
calization not only involves script (or text) translation but also technical problems such

18
See http://vgsales.wikia.com/wiki/Video_game_industry#cite_note-14.
19
See http://gnn.gamer.com.tw/.

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72 Yu-ling Chung

as the code shifts, debug-

ging and testing. It usually
takes a team several months
to finish such a game local-
ization task. They also have
to pay attention to the time-
span of the game, otherwise
when the localization is fin-
ished the game will no longer
be popular on the market
(Sam 2008). However, it is
difficult for game producers
to accurately know in ad-
vance whether or not a game
will be popular. This has
many repercussions on the
Chart 5. The operating model of online game business localization phase.
Charts 5 and 6 below
provide a general outlook
about the operating situa-
tion of an online game com-
pany and their procedures
for designing and producing
a game. In general, there are
four major parts in the op-
eration of an online game
company. Game localization
only plays a minor role in
the ‘development’ part of
the whole procedure and
has to interact with many
other parts to facilitate the
operation of an online game
company. However, game
localization is indispensa-
ble for local game companies
Chart 6. The process of designing and producing a game
to expand because it can at-
tract more local people to become gamers. A localized game is much more attractive to
local gamers than a foreign game. Chart 6 clarifies why it usually takes a team sever-
al months to finish a game localization task. There are many tasks that need to be ful-
filled besides the textual part of the script translation and the technical part of the in-
terface translation.
According to Charts 5 and 6 20, game localization only plays a small part in the

20
Charts 5 and 6 are created according to the data retrieved from Sam (2008).

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GAME LOCALIZATION: THE SCRIPT TRANSLATION OF CASUAL GAMES ON FACEBOOK 73

procedure undertaken to design and produce an online game. These online games
usually go on the market with a charging mechanism. However, for those free-of-
charge casual games on Facebook, the game companies tend to be smaller and have
a comparatively limited budget for game localization procedures. The output value
or turnover of such social network service game companies cannot compare with
computer game or video game companies because their revenues largely rely on so-
cial network gamers who buy virtual coins such as Facebook credits and virtual
items to keep playing games (Liu 2011).

5. Game localization

Due to the increasing popularity and demand for entertaining game products,
game localization has been noticed by translation scholars. It is different from tradi-
tional text translation and features the combined elements of audiovisual transla-
tion and software localization (Mangiron & O’Hagan 2006). Game localization is dif-
ferent from textual translation in terms of its multimedia features and can be
counted as a type of audiovisual translation.
If we consider the subtitling feature of audiovisual translation, there are four
main sets of elements that need to be paid attention to: verbal auditory elements,
such as dialogue and background voices; non-verbal auditory elements, such as
music and sound effects; verbal visual elements, such as captions; non-verbal visual
channels, such as image composition and body language (Baker 2001; Gambier
2006). In other words, subtitling should be a combination of all these semiotic ele-
ments. Script translation in games as a type of subtitling is under similar linguistic,
textual and technical constraints, whereas it plays a supporting role in the whole
game-playing experience. There is a widespread belief that the best subtitles are the
ones that are not noticed (Díaz Cintas 2010: 346). Likewise, in order not to distract
the gamer too much, the more invisible the script, the better the translation.
Audiovisual translation is generally viewed as ‘constrained translation’ and oper-
ates under the reduction and condensation principle. However, is this also the case
with casual games on Facebook? This study explores what function script transla-
tion plays for Facebook users and how they evaluate the translation used in these
games. The term ‘localization competence’ can be examined to see how scholars de-
fine a competent localizer, which partly reflects the requirements of ‘adequate’ local-
ization. According to Folaron (2006: 213-216), localization competences should in-
clude three aspects: management, technology and language-culture. Generally, the
management and technology parts include understanding the structure, scope,
media, tools and knowledge of localization, especially focusing on its procedures and
formats. The language-culture understanding that a competent localizer should
have includes the linguistic and cultural adaptation of the game content in diverse
geographical areas. Due to the functional feature of game localization, the end users
from different areas may have different expectations and comments about games.
The language-culture aspect of game localization will be investigated in the follow-
ing case study.

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74 YU-LING CHUNG

6. Case study: two casual games on Facebook

The casual games on Facebook have helped increase the number of Facebook
users since 2008, even in the face of an already existing highly competitive social
networking media market in Taiwan 21. Facebook users have increased because of
the strong networking among its members. In social networking websites, people
are already willing to pay to upgrade or buy virtual game applications. Concerning
casual games on Facebook, players are more willing to pay to buy virtual gifts for
friends to increase interaction and maintain friendships. This kind of gift-giving be-
haviour has become a part of these casual games on Facebook, increasing the at-
tractiveness of games and the continued adherence over time of Facebook members.
Such networking, which is different from that of other Facebook games, is based
on associates rather than anonymous game players. The networking on Facebook’s
causal games is stronger and produces greater adherence because it is built on both
physical and virtual relationships with people playing casual games on Facebook,
not only for the games as such but also in order to interrelate with friends. In this
project, we use two casual games on Facebook for our case study so as to explore
how script translation functions for gamers.

6.1. Methodology
In order to investigate the current situation of game localization in Taiwan, an
empirical study has been conducted to understand how game localization works from
a game player’s perspective. Moreover, this study is a project of the university stu-
dents’ graduation monograph that I supervised and which was conducted in two
phases. The first phase was conducted by disseminating questionnaires to Facebook
game players, to examine their opinions and comments about script translation in
Facebook games, focusing on two Facebook casual games, Ravenwood Fair and Resort
World. The quality of the examined script translations was decided on the grounds of
style, completeness and accuracy. Other issues are also included in the questionnaire
and follow-up interviews, such as the matching degree of the image and Chinese char-
acters, and the role of script translation during actual game-playing experiences.
In the first phase, three problematic types of script translation from English to
Chinese were singled out: unclear translation, such as a mixture of Chinese and
English; lack of fluent translation, such as translationese (翻譯腔) 22, namely awk-
wardness or ungrammaticality of translation, and mistranslation or inaccurate
translation. Fifteen examples of improper translation 23 were retrieved from the two
casual games on Facebook and illustrated in the online questionnaire. The gamers
were asked to evaluate the seriousness of each type of improper translation and to

21
According to a study conducted by MIC in 2011, the most popular social networking sites in
Taiwan include Facebook, Wretch, Yahoo, and Plurk.
See http://mic.iii.org.tw/aisp/pressroom/press01_pop.asp?sno=264&cred=2011/4/26&type1=2.
22
Translationese is literal translation that does not produce the appropriate sense, usually due
to interference if the target language is not the translator’s language of habitual use, or to auto-
matic acceptance of dictionary meanings (Newmark 1988: 285).
23
Please refer to Appendix 1, 2, 3 for such examples.

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GAME LOCALIZATION: THE SCRIPT TRANSLATION OF CASUAL GAMES ON FACEBOOK 75

describe and explain the impact of each type of improper translation on their gam-
ing experiences. After probing the results of the questionnaire responses, the second
phase was conducted using follow-up interviews with ten Facebook game players
who had previously filled in the questionnaire and provided more generous re-
sponses to the open questions, in order to further understand their opinions and
comments about the script translation of casual games on Facebook.

6.2. Theoretical framework

Gutt (2000: 202) divides translation theories into two paradigms: approaches to
translating and accounts of the phenomenon of translation. This case study takes the
second path, aiming to offer accounts about the game localization phenomenon in Tai-
wan and to clarify what its nature and characteristics are. Moreover, this case study is
based on the assumption of the skopos (‘purpose’) theory initiated by Reiss and Ver-
meer in the 1970s (Nord 2010). It highlights the purpose of translation and is usually
associated with functional approaches to translation. The function of translation de-
pends on the knowledge, expectations, values and norms of the target readers who are
in turn influenced by the situation and culture they are in.  Game players, as end
users, are thus justified in deciding the function and purpose of a game (script) trans-
lation. Target readers (game players) are authorized to decide what an ‘adequate’
translation is. In the case of game localization, it is the game players or end users who
are correspondingly entitled to evaluate the quality of game translation from their
gaming experiences. By probing their responses about gaming on Facebook, their de-
scriptions about how game localization influences their gaming experiences becomes
the yardstick for deciding on the purpose and the function of game (script) translation.

7. Discussion

After conducting an online questionnaire for two months in 2011, 109 valid ques-
tionnaire responses were received. Concerning the background of the subjects, most
were university or college students (62.4%), aged around 18 to 22 years old (55.1%).
60.5% of the participants were female players and 39.5% male players. Before filling
in the questionnaire, they had to have played one of the casual games on Facebook
for more than two months (52.3%), with their gaming frequency being at least every
two or three days (64.2%).
Concerning problematic script translation on Facebook’s casual games, three
types were categorized: inaccurate translation, non-fluent translation, and unclear
translation. Although they have a different wording, these three types of problem-
atic translation coincidentally match the general principles of translation ‘xin da ya’
(信達雅), namely accuracy, fluency and elegance, offered by Chinese scholar Yan Fu
(嚴復) 24. These three principles can be understood as the translation norms in Chi-

24
Chinese scholar Yan Fu (1853-1921) stated in his preface to Evolution and Ethics (1898) that
“there are three difficulties in translation: faithfulness, understandability, and elegance”. Since the
publication of that work, ‘faithfulness, understandability (or naturalness), and elegance’ has been
attributed to Yan Fu as a standard for any adequate translation in Chinese communities.

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76 YU-LING CHUNG

nese communities: a translation should follow the principle of being faithful, fluent,
precise and concise. This perception also reflects the game players’ expectations of
script translation. Although this study is based on skopos theory, which emphasizes
the function and purpose of script translation decided by game players, one question
that arises is whether these game players’ attitudes towards game translation will
match their perceptions about general translation. Concerning the most and least
serious problems of game translation to Facebook game players, the result of the
questionnaire shows that mistranslation (translation errors) is the most serious
(48.6%), with fluency (14.7%) the least serious. In other words, Facebook gamers
firstly require accuracy, secondly clarity, and thirdly fluent script translation.
This suggests that script translation plays a supportive role in gamers’ gaming
experiences. Quite a few interviewees expect script translation to be concise and to
the point, in order not to additionally hinder their gaming. The results of the ques-
tionnaire show that most gamers (72.5%) roughly read the script translation and rel-
atively fewer gamers (39.5%) think script translation is important. 46.8% of gamers
choose to play the original version of a game rather than the translated version with
a poor translation. Some interviewees said that they merely browsed keywords in the
translated script and still got sufficient information or they understood the plot of
the game by just watching the image, with the translated text not really mattering.
This makes sense because gamers only retrieve essential information while gaming.
Gamers do not have much time to spend on carefully reading the translated script.
Their attention is more focused on gaming than on reading. As a result, some inter-
viewees think that script translation should firstly be concise (clarity), secondly cor-
rect, and then fluent. It is interesting that fluency is the least serious problem in
script translation both in the questionnaire and in the interview results.
The mixture of simplified Chinese and traditional Chinese wording in game
translation causes trouble for gamers. A non-unified script translation style takes
gamers extra time to understand. Such style and fluency problems raise doubts
about whether the translation of these casual games on Facebook have been well ed-
ited or proofread, or whether they have received enough emphasis from game com-
panies during the planning, designing, and production procedure of their online ca-
sual games. It is also noted that script translation on Facebook tends to be poorly
produced, judging from the common practice of the mixture of both source and tar-
get language or the partial completion of the verbal parts on the screen. The rea-
sons behind these phenomena might be the limited or even lack of budget assigned
to the game localization process, or the fact that this task was possibly undertaken
by volunteers, or because machine translation was used. This causes problems for
the development of game localization.
According to some interviewees in this study, problematic game translation does not
trouble them too much when game playing. Other motivations, such as social network-
ing and associating with friends, are more attractive to them. This may partly explain
why some gamers do not mind the quality of game translations and continue playing
these online casual games even if they are poorly translated. However, these Facebook
game players’ concerns about game translation, according to their feedback on the
questionnaires and interviews, reflect their concepts of ‘an adequate translation’. These

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gamers think that mistranslation, fluency, and word comprehension are the most sig-
nificant translation problems. Although this study was conducted in accordance with
the skopos theory, which emphasizes user perspectives on the purpose and assessment
of script translation, the feedback about what ‘an adequate script translation’ is actu-
ally reflects the receivers’ perceptions of what good translation is, as represented in
their demand for accuracy, fluency, and clarity of translation. This is an interesting
point worthy of further discussion: why did Facebook game players say that they did
not mind the quality of script translation but at the same time assumed and expected
an adequate script translation to fit the principle of ‘accuracy, fluency, and clarity’?

8. Conclusion and implications

Our case study has highlighted the fact that many game players pay little atten-
tion to script translation, especially when playing casual games on Facebook, play-
ing them mainly to kill time and not expecting too much from the game translation.
Moreover, these casual games on Facebook are mostly free of charge, so gamers feel
they are not supposed to ask too much from them, especially when compared to
other paid digital games. This discovery echoes other people’s opinions about audio-
visual translation: it is better to be invisible and not intervene in the viewer’s or
user’s experiences. Other reasons for the relatively low expectations of users con-
cerning quality translations might be that these casual games on Facebook tend to
be simpler in plot as compared to other complicated computer games, video games
and console games. Players comprehend the plot of these casual games on Facebook
by focusing more on images than text, only roughly reading the script translation on
these online casual games. This suggests that script translation is little more than a
supplement to a game. This finding goes against the hypothesis that game localizers
have more room to manipulate and even change the norms of conventional textual
translation. Game localization is different from typical translation work because of
its extra audiovisual (software) and technical (hardware) requirements. Traditional
norms regarding translation practice may not be sufficient in relation to game local-
ization. Game localizers hence have more opportunities to break old norms for tex-
tual translation such as ‘xin da ya’ and to make new norms for the genre of game lo-
calization, considering that they have to combine audiovisual translation and
software localization elements apart from script translation. But the result of this
study shows that script translation appears to be less noticed than textual transla-
tion in this case. It turns out that translators as a minority in society are not pow-
erful enough to fight general perceptions or expectations towards translation and
translators, even in the relatively new area of game localization.
Although the elements mentioned above are just a few examples that influence
the decision and willingness of game companies and local agencies in conducting
game localization, it is enough for outsiders to glimpse the complexity of the issue of
game localization in Taiwan. Online gaming has become a major form of entertain-
ment to local young people, and the potential market has attracted interest and con-
cern from areas ranging from entrepreneurs to local governments. The translating

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task for game products is different from conventional textual translation. It takes a
team to carry out this kind of task, with the cost to local game companies being
much larger than outsourcing traditional translators. Game localization needs peo-
ple who are good at both gaming and translating, a complicated task involving file
format, technical coding and decoding, language proficiency, and cultural sensitivity
knowledge. As Folaron (2006: 197-198) states, it is the marriage of language and
technology that creates localization. New technologies have influenced the conven-
tional processes of linguistic-cultural transfer in translation and caused the
processes and products of translation and localization to be redefined (ibid: 197-
198). Conventional translation processes transferring linguistic and cultural content
also need to accommodate technological transfers (ibid.: 201).
Script translation is only a part of game localization, with this case study merely
demonstrating some of its problems. We find that Facebook gamers think the pur-
pose of script translation is to convey accurate information to them so that they un-
derstand the meaning and can play the game smoothly. Apart from the linguistic
aspect, more research should be conducted into further investigating the cultural
and social dimensions of game localization.
With the proliferation of mobile devices and games, time spent on online casual
games has gone up, whilst the average age of players has gone down. Online casual
games have been growing thanks to the explosion of mobile technologies, largely
smart phones, and social networks, primarily Facebook (Slutsky 2011). To be more
specific, a 2012 study indicates that there are almost nine out of ten smart phone
users in Japan, followed by Korea (80%), Hong Kong (76%), China (75%), Malaysia
(75%) and Taiwan (72%) 25. As smart phones continue to increase in Asia Pacific, mo-
bile Internet usage is also increasing, especially for social networking, and online
gaming as well. The first reason why these online casual games have become so at-
tractive to today’s consumers may be that they can get in and out in a few minutes,
making it appealing to busy people who are running around with their mobile de-
vices. Casual games give gamers the satisfaction of completing a level without in-
vesting a significant time commitment (Slutsky 2011). This may partly explain why
some players do not expect too much from script translation and can tolerate bad
quality ones. Secondly, many of the translations of these casual games, especially on-
line games, are offered for free, so gamers tolerate the poor game translation for the
sake of having fun and killing time. The social experience is a more important aspect
of such games. Thirdly, the additional business value of social networking offers
more attractions to gamers apart from just playing them, and also justifies gamers’
playing behaviour. Most people come into gaming through their networks and learn
to be gamers within specific social contexts (Taylor 2008: 53). Game technologies are
constructed within a framework that includes various entertainment and media de-
vices (ibid.: 57). The scale of the entertainment economy in modern society seems
very promising for the gaming industry, with game localization playing an essential
role. Game localization relates not only to linguistic but also to cultural issues. To at-
tract gamers from different cultures and societies, game localizers have to cross the

25
See http://www.marketing-interactive.com/news/33668.

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cultural barrier other than script translation by integrating new game interface de-
sign, offering new missions to cater for gamers’ different using habits (Ken 2008).
Along with the information revolution and the emergence of new translating
tasks, translators are expected to exert a bigger influence and to play more impor-
tant roles than the generally perceived role as inferior to original writers. However,
if gamers do not demand quality script translation, it will become a vicious circle:
gamers’ attitudes will make game companies and agencies believe that they do not
have to pay attention to the quality of script translation because the gamers do not
care. Consequently, this will not improve the quality of script translation.
In times of change, what translators can do is to equip themselves and catch up
with the evolution in the new technologies, which will create new opportunities and
new forms of translation tasks for them. The complexity of game localization in-
volves user interface issues, such as program development and design, and cultural
issues such as the norm for the target market, and technical issues such as voice-
over, file format and source code tracking. Game localizers in the future may need
to adopt new strategies to cope with any possible transformation that occurs in their
working environment, conditions, and resources. In other words, not only will they
need to demonstrate high language competence but also to keep abreast of the new
ongoing technological events. Awareness of the existing translation norms is essen-
tial for game localizers, but they may also have opportunities to create new norms
in the future. Thus, they will not miss out on any possible working opportunities
and will be well prepared for future challenges.

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Appendix

1. An example of inaccurate translation (mistranslation) and unclear translation

(a mixture of traditional Chinese and simplified Chinese translation)

2. An example of inaccurate translation (mistranslation)

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3. An example of awkward or ungrammatical translation (translationese),

namely not fluent translation.

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