O meta da localização de jogos: Mapeamento de trabalhos em nível de pós-graduação

Abstract

This research aims to gather, analyze and map several graduate-level works in the area of game localization. Game localization is a topic that, despite its great and constant expansion, is still growing in Master’s and Doctoral research, although there are already several articles and books on the subject. The objective of this research was to observe which themes are most recurrent among researchers and if the researchers are concerned about teaching of localization to translation students. Through qualitative analysis, 16 graduate-level works were gathered from the platforms Catálogo de Teses, Biblioteca Digital de Teses e Dissertações, and Bibliography of Interpretation and Translation. We intended to let the data speak for itself, but the initial research question of this Doctoral dissertation was to observe whether the issue of training in localization practices is discussed and how such training might be portrayed or proposed within these researches. This curiosity is fostered by the popularity of the topic, since Brazil is a country that stands out with a large number of players, even if most of them are not necessarily proficient in English, which is usually the original language of the games, and, therefore, localization of these games acts as a factor that contributes to the accessibility of the games. The quantitative and qualitative analyses were implemented from bibliometrics and scientometrics to bring together the concepts, views, and approaches in this literature review that has no delimitation of country or year. The quantitative analysis was carried out with the help of VOSviewer software to generate scientometric maps based on the overall number of publications on the subject. The results have shown that from 16 studies only one emphasizes on teaching of localization in universities, by presenting a proposal for a localization teaching plan that could be used for translation major students, master students or specific courses. Two studies proposed methods or activities that could be included in the teaching of localization, one presenting a manual for specific terminology and the other presenting a model for translation evaluation. However, the education of translators was not the main focus. It is possible to notice that the thesis and dissertations share interests. The studies here investigated are mainly descriptive and analyze and/or compare translations of games. Humor and trading card games are also studied, which shows that the field is not only focused on digital games. In a certain matter, it is possible to identify the marketing tendencies that are present in localization.