For new game standards: a localização de games no brasil sob a perspectiva do analista e do usuário

Abstract

The game industry is one of the most profitable markets worldwide; it overcomes even the cinema industry. To maintain its growth, the game industry still needs to pursue its full expansion, investing in locales other than that to which games were originally projected. This research reviews studies that point to potential standards to the game localization process, and aims at contributing to the translation studies and market of games with statistics of game users’ preferences and perceptions in Brazil. Standards do already exist that can be introduced into the game localization process, and most importantly, users are interested in buying localized products, that is, products (seemingly) developed specially for them. To achieve the objectives, analyses were carried out focusing on the content and form of official and non- official subtitles available to AAA games in Brazil. The results show that such subtitles do not follow most of the standards established for audiovisual translation of TV, DVD and cinema material, from which game localization could benefit substantially. A questionnaire was applied to identify the Brazilian users demographics, localization preferences, and perceptions of the quality of some of the subtitles previously analyzed. Among the contributions of this research is the fact that it shows to translators/localizers and researchers that both the market and academia still have challenges ahead if they are to approach game localization adequately and accurately despite the reduced space and value the industry has granted them so far.