Aspectos culturais, mercadológicos e econômicos na tradução e localização de jogos: que relações estabelecem os teóricos?

Abstract

The gaming industry has grown to the point of becoming the most significant segment of entertainment today (Divers, 2023). In this context, localization was the activity responsible for allowing the proper commercialization of games globally, a practice that demands their adaptation to each locale's linguistic, technical, cultural, and legal specificities (Bernal-Merino, 2014). In a descriptive study on video game translation and localization within the scope of Translation Studies, we used bibliometric techniques and an inductive method to construct and analyze a corpus containing works that address the issue of culture and cultural adaptation in game localization. This analysis revealed: 1 – prevalence of the concepts of “culturalization”; “cultural adaptation” and “transcreation”; 2 – inconsistent use of concepts, contributing to a lack of clarity; 3 – superficial treatment of culture, submitting cultural concerns to marketing logic. Finally, we selected examples taken from three games localized for pt-BR and, based on the discussion about the translation choices, we propose a translation practice that considers, in addition to concerns about the reproduction of the original experience and the commercial success of video games, the social responsibility of translators towards the Other and the target culture, in order to avoid the spread of prejudices and the maintenance of an unfair state of things. Finally, we advocate that culture, as a manifestation and pillar of the human condition, calls for a collective sense of care for one another, considering the inclusion of all and the appreciation of the most diverse human attributes.