TI: Welcome to this interview, Mr. Armengod. We are grateful for the opportunity to interview you about your work in the field of localization and computer game translation.

Jose Armengod: Thank you.

TI: Let us start by having you tell us about yourself briefly.

Jose Armengod: Well... I'm a freelance translator, I was born in Cuba, and moved to France at the age of 8, where I grew up and lived for 25 years, I moved to the States 8 years ago, and really only started my translation business 3 years ago. Although I performed a lot of translations in my line of work (mostly real estate and customer service) it was never in any official capacity.

Jose Armengod: As for our current topic of video game translations, it has long be a passion of mine, starting in 1997 with the release of Ultima Online, and the discovery of the gigantic online community for that game. That's when I volunteered to help forums and news editor to report on the video game publishers and developers news from English into French. And that's the beginning of a long story... only very recently did I decide to take that hobby to a professional level and find a way into the video game industry as translator and localization expert.

TI: Let us step back a bit in your story. How were you introduced to Ultima online and were you familiar with the Ultima series of games and RPGs in general before then?

Jose Armengod: Absolutely... in fact I was introduced to RPGs at a very young age by a friend of mine who showed me an English version of AD&D. The interesting part is that this friend was British and, in addition to my studies in English (in Paris, in high school at the time), he was an invaluable help when it came to improving my English skills. As a matter of fact, RPGs are what got me interested in learning English, more so than traditional school (which is not very good to be honest) when I think about it. As for Ultima Online, I knew about the previous versions of the game (Ultima Underworld, etc ) but never played them.

TI: I take it that solving RPGs seemed more interesting to you than a traditional class setting with a teacher asking you to study pages 24-50 in the English text book, am I right?

Jose Armengod: EXACTLY! That's also one of the reason I want to specialize in game localization. Talking about imaginary worlds is more appealing that translating a medical research on the treatment of wounds, yuck (that's what I'm working on now)!

TI: RPGs tend to include a lot of text – compared to other types of computer games, they must be particularly challenging to understand and appreciate for someone whose first language isn’t English.

Jose Armengod: Yes, those Players Handbook for AD&D and Monsters Manual, were HUGE. But that also made them intriguing; I just needed to know what was written in there!

TI: I understand that you have been involved with French computer game forms, where you played a part in the appreciation of the games by the French community. Could you tell us a bit about that?

Jose Armengod: Well, I started as a player in Ultima Online and found it incredible being able to interact with people all around the world. I quickly realized that many members of the French community participated in the game (in guilds, groups etc). However, I realized just as quickly that many of them had absolutely no clue what was going on in the world of Ultima Online (quests, events, user interface, strategies). I was later approached by one of the editor of a really huge French forum dedicated to the game and was asked to help with the communication of news and reports concerning in-game events to the French audience. At first, I simply performed word-for-word translation of news released by the game publishers. However, it turned into something more elaborate as we started creating our own content in the forums for our readers

TI: I take it that the game itself did not exist in a French translation?

Jose Armengod: No, indeed it did not exist in French. Anyone had to install the U.S. client and log into U.S. servers. There was not even server localization; you can imagine in 1997 (when one was lucky to even have a 58K connection) how the terrible the lag was in there

Jose Armengod: So everything was in English, from the manuals to the user interface, well...everything.

TI: And French players were buying the game, joining the game and still didn't have much of an idea what was going on in the actual game universe?

Jose Armengod: Exactly, the only way to get the game was to actually order it from the States. Installation was easy enough that with rudimentary English. It isn’t too hard to understand things like “click here” (laugh). But, after that, everyone was on his or her own.

TI: Could you expand upon your earlier statement that your work on the French game information forums turned into "something more elaborate"?

Jose Armengod: The thing to understand is that gamers are very picky when it comes to their online characters. They want to get into the fine details on developing their characters to the extreme. That is when my translations were needed – for French readers to understand that English guide, that special quest, the steps to take to achieve that level, etc. So we created our own French guides on how to explore the game and advance faster your character that kind of thing. But there was also an aspect of striving to integrate the French community into a Game targeted at an American audience. Sometimes we had to adjust the cultural references and inside jokes so that the French audience would still be interested in the game.

TI: Did you ever assist with translations in-game?

Jose Armengod: The thing with Ultima Online is that players created their virtual villages, and many like to just hang around these villages talking. So you'd meet them and talk to them in taverns and things like that. That's when I discover many were having troubles understanding this or that. So I helped and people remembered my in-game name and sent me tells and so on...but no I never had any official translator hat

TI: You mentioned earlier that you had translation challenges which involved jokes. Now, we all know jokes are one of the most notoriously difficult things to translate. Do you recall a specific instance in Ultima Online where you encountered particularly difficult challenges in this regard?

Jose Armengod: Oh wow…that was long ago. But actually I DO remember something. It was a line of text about a quest. One of the main heroes said " I feel bad" and we spent like 3 hours yelling at each other (other forums admins and editors) trying to figure out if the guy was actually sick and just being sarcastic. I forgot the entire context, but I remember that it was a really funny and confusing situation when thinking back on it.

TI: I understand you also worked with independent game developers?

Jose Armengod: Yes. My work in that area is related to the game series Fallout. Fallout I and II were incredibly popular games among RPGers. During the 10-year period after these games first came out, the Fallout license was left for dead (until Bethesda came along and revived the whole thing). But, in the meantime, many indie companies and amateur programmers tried to release "their" sequel of that game. Most of them got shot down by copyright lawyers (laugh). In any case, I worked for one of them, a Russian company that was actually working on an ONLINE version of Fallout. And so that's how I got involved in actual game localization, and learned first-hand the technical challenge that it involves.

TI: Could you elaborate on these challenges, in terms of what sets them apart from translation-related challenges in other fields?

Jose Armengod: My job was to translate online help menu files (HTML) and interface menus to French, respecting the original formatting which was in Russian! French and Cyrillic symbols are two VERY different worlds, so I had to adjust my words in order for them to fit into the original "boxes" available. That's one of the challenges in the field of localization (and, I would say, the hardest): conforming to the original formatting. If the programmers didn't consider globalization when they first designed their game, it can be a complete nightmare.

TI: I am sure another one of these localization challenges involves cultural references. Could you give me an example of a cultural reference which was difficult and/or impossible to reproduce in your translation?.

Jose Armengod: Russians are rougher and more “straight-to-the-point” than French people when it comes to language (or so I noticed from that documents I had, not making any generalizations here). So I had to adapt the language to appeal to a French audience in order for them to relate to the heroes in the game. Of course, cultural references can also be associated with legal issues; what one is allowed to talk about or not, adult themes not being considered appropriate, too much violence in the descriptions, etc). On top of that, there are, of course, issues surrounding graphical adaptations (the “look” of the hero for instance) and game soundtrack (I soon came to realize that Russian Hard Rock was not very popular in France). I was not involved in all of these localization aspects, but I talked to the guys handling it so I could relate – as well as be happy that I didn’t have to deal with some of their challenges (laugh).

TI: Were there any specific cultural references that you had a problem with?

Jose Armengod: Well, there was an ENTIRE quest that was dropped from the localized version (not by me, but by the lead designer). It involved the rape of a young person, (Fallout is a VERY nasty world) and for the non-Russian version he scratched it (although we translated this text anyway, just in case he would change his mind). Also, on a lighter note, most bottles in the game were Vodka. We changed them into wine and whisky instead (laugh).

TI: Did you have to cooperate extensively with other members of the development team? Such as with programmers when working on the source code?

Jose Armengod: Absolutely... it was all through a private forum though, no direct communication. But I was definitely in constant communication with others guys to know what they were working on and how far they had gotten. And we would all adapt or even help when necessary to try to get everyone on the “same page” and on-schedule. However, the programmers would work on their own schedules…and then VERY late in the process they would hand their finished (hopefully not too buggy) client to us translators. So that was kind of irritating.

TI: Translation typically deals with the challenge of semantic integrity – i.e. that the original meaning of the text is lost to some degree. What form does this challenge take in the context of computer game and video game translation? Did you ever feel like the translation couldn't do the game justice?

Jose Armengod: Well game dialogue is generally based on contemporary expressions and mostly-short affirmations – and so it is pretty easy to translate. I have yet to find a game that is so literarily rich that the translation would harm it, the same way a translation might possibly harm an English author (or a Spanish one – I recently read a translation of Don Quixote in French and it was pathetic). But this may well change in the future. The main problem for linguist in game localization is what actually make games fun... and that is INTERACTION! But while it might be fun in the game, it's a nightmare for a translator. What I mean is that when you translate a text, whatever it is, there's usually a context that comes with it; a background, an introduction, so you can translate the perfect word in its context. Not so in gaming, you are usually handed phrases …and if you have no clue what's that phrase is referring to, it can be quite challenging.

TI: Do you see differences in the challenges when contrasting offline (single-player) games with online games? I assume the communication between gamers would be of particular concern in the latter case. How would you suggest this problem be approached?

Jose Armengod: Hmm well... both platforms have their own set of challenges. In short, an offline game will require more time polishing it as the final product will leave little to no room for improvement, so it requires an extra effort, unlike online games which are patched every months (every week during release) so the development team have more time and it's more "relaxed"... I use “relaxed” here very lightly as there's nothing relaxing working in gaming during release. Nowadays, with globalization, some game translation challenges are become less of a problem than they used to be. Everything is localized, servers, customer service, development teams...so the end -user actually deals with someone in their native tongue from the beginning. I suppose some games may want to establish in-game interpreters but as games being more and more fully localized this is becoming less and less of an issue and pretty much irrelevant as far as the budget goes.

TI: How are RPGs of today in terms of teaching people languages? Do you think that increased translation and localization of games, servers, manuals and support forums does, in fact, lead to non-English speakers having less of an urge to learn English? To summarize my question: would it be correct so say that the increased translation of games is in fact detrimental to language learning?

Jose Armengod: This is really a great observation and quite the irony actually when it comes to localization of online games. People are becoming less interested in understanding foreign players…less prone to open communication with "strangers". They tend to stay with their "own". This is very true in online gaming. The VERY first thing you observe in forums is messages of someone looking for guilds and groups speaking their language only. Another example is the online version of Fallout, where the Russian players specifically ban non-Russian speakers from entering their territory

Jose Armengod: So I suppose there's a lesson to be learned here, and I sometimes wonder if by localization we are doing the world a favor. I suppose translators, like we all do, follow the trend of “making everything easier for everyone". But the negative and positive aspects of this development are hard for me to predict.

TI: How do you expect the industry of video game translation to change? Do you expect automated machine translation to play a significant role in this development?

Jose Armengod: It will never happen, not as long as feelings are involved. A machine will never be able to distinguish the right interpretation of one word, in correlation to its context and source material. Nor will it be able to take into account things like sarcasm, mockery, casual talk, business talk, vulgar, educated etc…too much to compute and too many variables involved. I do however enjoy the fact that Machine Translation are becoming more powerful every day and play an invaluable role in assisting translators by providing a foundation. In French we say "La nature a horreur du vide" (nature hates emptiness). Well, never is this statement more true than when put in the context of machine translator: from the perspective of human translators it fills an empty space, and the translator can now start cleaning up from there. So I suppose the same applies for the video game industry, the machine translation will always be one of the many tools available but that's it, a tool. However, it is important to note that we are ONLY talking here about the linguistic part of the translation in the localization process. There are many other aspects involved in the localization process, such as locales, formatting etc...all of which is ALREADY fully automated by software and included in the developing process even more so with the introduction of Windows Vista development kits which include hardcoded tools for localization. From my observations and discussions with programmers I learned that many tasks that previously had programmed manually are now automated in Vista. So in this regard I believe there have been some drastic changes in the gaming industry as far as localization is concerned.

TI: What are your dreams for the future when it comes to your translation career?

Jose Armengod: Well, my dream career would be to work for a localization company and for that I'm reading, reading and reading some more to be able to become 100% versatile and capable of handling any element involved in the localization process so that one day I can lead that department myself within that company.

TI: You currently started working for Language Swappers translation agency. Are you hoping this will improve your career in the world of localization?

Jose Armengod: Yes, I believe Language Swappers offers great solutions for localization so working for Language Swappers is a great path and a fantastic step for any translator looking to further develop his or her skills when it comes to the localization process, as well as to add great credentials to their profile.

TI: Mr. Armengod, this interview is on the way to its conclusion and we have already taken up enough of your time. Anything else you would like to add before we “sign off”?

Jose Armengod: Well, as a side note I truly appreciate what your site is doing with these kinds of interviews. It’s great to hear about other translators, as we freelancers tend to stay in our little corner away from the buzz of a regular office. It can be a little lonely sometimes so this is great and helps put a face on our colleagues in the translation industry.

TI: Thank you Mr. Armengod for this opportunity to dissect the mind of a computer game localization expert!

Jose Armengod: And I would like to thank you for giving me the opportunity to discuss this passion with you!

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