"Each generation of AI has been vastly more expensive than the previous one, and each new AI customer makes the AI companies lose more money." Not a very fun nor optimistic read, but a very well documented piece on what AI will do to the economy as a whole. ⬇️ pluralistic.net/2025/09/27/e...

Fall is officially here, and so is @tinybuildgames.bsky.social's autumn sale! 🍂 Lots games we lovingly localized are discounted: 🪲 @splashteam.bsky.social 🟢 @despotsgames.bsky.social ⚔️ @vointhegame.bsky.social 🦆 @duckside.bsky.social ... And many more 🤍💫 store.steampowered.com/developer/ti...

"The trend of fewer and fewer powerful people and companies owning more and more things [...] is no good for anyone." This sale is a serious hit to our already swaying industry. Our thoughts are with EA's workers. Article by @rcmacleod.bsky.social ⬇️ aftermath.site/the-ea-sale-...

For #InternationalTranslationDay here's a roundup of some of my favorite articles/podcasts/etc. on video game localization from the past year or so, starting with this one:

From the Void is one to follow if you're looking to learn more about the issues facing video game localizers, like a lack of crediting:

Happy #InternationalTranslationDay to all! I edited for an AI translated game with cute anthropomorphic animals. The sentence "The kids loved playing with his tail." was translated word for word into German. "Schwanz" (tail) also means penis. Get a human translator before disaster strikes.

Happy #InternationalTranslationDay! 🪶 To every translator fighting for credits, legitimacy or against AI right now: remember 𝘆𝗼𝘂 𝗮𝗿𝗲 𝗮𝗻 𝗮𝗿𝘁𝗶𝘀𝘁. Caring for the words of others while making sure everyone can enjoy & understand them fully is art, and it's beautiful. Your craft is beautiful 🤍

Traductrice en grève ! Bonne Saint-Jérôme, les collègues ✊

Aujourd'hui, c'est la Saint-Jérôme, saint patron des traducteurices. Et ils sont un paquet à être en grève aujourd'hui pour protester contre la dégradation de nos conditions de travail, mais aussi contre l'usage de l'IA. C'est l'occasion de partager ce billet : clement-martin.fr/fr/posts/et-...

"Art is a conversation." 💯💯💯

We'll be at the Paris Games Week (for the first time!) next month 🍂 Indie devs, let us know where to find you! We'd love to come discover your games and chat about localization ✨ #ParisGamesWeek

The team over at @yazagames.com made a really special game with Inkulinati, that we absolutely loved localizing 🤍 Stay tuned for their next project 👀

The @indiefanfest.bsky.social is starting and if you're into co-op survival horror games... Watch out for 𝗦𝘁𝗼𝗿𝗲𝗯𝗼𝘂𝗻𝗱! We're happy to say we've fully localized this unique game with all our creepiness into no less than 13 languages 😱 Play the demo 🤍➡️ store.steampowered.com/app/4011020/...

Just one hour to go! The inaugural Indie Fan Fest kicks off at 9am PT / 12pm ET / 6pm CEST, delivering over an hour of amazing games worthy of your wishlists. Watch it here: ▶️ www.twitch.tv/indiefanfest ▶️ www.youtube.com/@IndieFanFest

'Our goal was to capture the sheer variety and texture that was in the Japanese script, but in a way that sounded like it was written in English to begin with—not like it was “translated.”' An absolute MARVEL of an article by @timeextension.com on FFIX's loc 🤍 www.timeextension.com/features/int...

A translator's ultimate goal

Just a reminder, but ChatGBT is NOT a search engine. It's a statistics based random word generator. The results you get are not guaranteed to be accurate. Please don't use it. (Same with Google's generated results.)

Thanks for watching the Six One Indie Showcase 📺 Head to sixoneindie.com/showcase for interviews, hands-on impressions, and the post-show podcast. Plus! Hit up the Steam event with 150+ additional indies: bit.ly/sixonefall Grab discounts, play demos, and most importantly: WISHLIST.

Catching up on @gdocexpo.com's Indie Games Showcase and... Wow. The level of inventiveness is through the roof 🤯 Make yourself a favor and go watch it! We've wishlisted everything, want to play AND localize everything. Long live indie games 🤍💫 www.youtube.com/watch?v=MdR1...

So Sony just fired someone for a videogame related joke about Kirk's killer and Luigi Mangione, Microsoft is investigating some of their employees' posts regarding recent events & Blizzard has a list of people supposedly "trashing" Kirk. Everything's fine. www.gamedeveloper.com/business/son...

It's today! 🥳 The stellar turn-based tactical game ARC SEED by @massivegalaxy.bsky.social releases in 1.0, localized into Japanese & Simplified Chinese by our meca pilots from the Void 💫🤍 Have a look! ➡️ store.steampowered.com/app/2332970/...

Dear #gamedev community, given the multiple examples of bad game localization that arose lately, we'd like to recommend this piece by @jentranslations.bsky.social. If you're planning to localize your #indiegame, you should absolutely give it a read 📖 Please & thank you! 👉 igda.org/news-archive...

Children everywhere made Disney successful, most of whom don't speak English. For a little extra cash, you can get a localization that these kids will continue to quote for the rest of their lives. It's better for the artistry, it's better for business. It's better. Schleimig, jedoch vitaminreich.

May it be music, art, writing, localization or any other creative field: no one wants your AI slop.

Not sure if #screenshotsaturday is still a thing here, but ARC SEED by @massivegalaxy.bsky.social is coming next week 💫 Therefore, please enjoy these pretty screenshots of this turn-based tactical deckbuilding game in which you can actually pilot a mech! 🤖 ➡️ store.steampowered.com/app/2332970/...

Between Metroid Prime 4 releasing December 4th, Hades II releasing September 25th, a new Fire Emblem, a new Resident Evil and all the rest... Today was a lot for our little hearts 🥲 BRING ALL THE GAMES 🤍

I would also like to add, from experience, that light novels are not a small amount of work to translate at all.

Before laughing, have you ever had your garden ransacked by wild rabbits?? #WildWoods #IndieGames #Daedalic

Repeat after us: 𝘁𝗿𝗮𝗻𝘀𝗹𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗴𝗮𝗺𝗲𝘀 𝗶𝘀𝗻'𝘁 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝘀𝗮𝗺𝗲 𝗮𝘀 𝘁𝗿𝗮𝗻𝘀𝗹𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗻𝗼𝘃𝗲𝗹𝘀. • Nothing is linear • You often get the texts in disarray • Different UIs, menus, dialog styles mean different contexts • Also no one can translate more than 2-3k words a day without sacrificing quality, proofreading & LQA.

This #WishlistWednesday, let's talk about games that handle their localization with care and respect for a change: please have a look at Hozy 🤍 Clean, paint, and decorate abandoned homes in this incredibly cosy game, that we're happy to be localizing into no less than 8 languages 💫

A necessary reminder: How could Team Cherry afford to spend 7 years making Silksong? Hollow Knight sold a lot of copies, yes, but it certainly didn’t hurt that they didn’t have to carve out $31 million a year to pay the boss. Full article by @mittovac.bsky.social ⬇️ fromthevoid.net/blog/ai-in-g...

It's such a deeply depressing reflection of our industry that shows that NO GAME, no matter how it's made, is immune to localization being treated as an afterthought despite the fact that it impacts the experience of literal millions of players.

I'm playing & loving Silksong, but there's no excuse for a game of this caliber, legacy, hype & passion to have localized versions in such a state. @teamcherry.bsky.social, you worked hard to make the 7-year wait worth it for players. A shame that care doesn't extend to international audiences.

Localization 101: someone being able to speak a language doesn't automatically become a translator. Localization 201: dear @teamcherry.bsky.social, if you decide to hire a fan for your game, show respect to your players by at least adding a 𝙥𝙧𝙤𝙛𝙚𝙨𝙨𝙞𝙤𝙣𝙖𝙡 proofreader to the mix 🤍💫

I'm looking for stories about how AI is killing creative work, and I'd love to hear from you—artists, writers, illustrators, actors, designers, editors, voice actors and narrators—if your job or practice has been hit. This is going to be a big one. [email protected]

The debate about Silksong's Chinese localization has the merit of showing devs and publishers that the quality of your localization 𝗱𝗼𝗲𝘀 𝗺𝗮𝘁𝘁𝗲𝗿 to players. Even if we'd have prefered it didn't turn into the witch hunt it seems to have become...

Happy Silksong day, everyone! Hoping some AAA studios learn a thing or two about letting their team work for the actual amount of time needed. To quote @mittovac.bsky.social: "HK sold a lot of copies, yes, but it didn’t hurt that they didn’t have to carve out $31 million a year to pay the boss".

We know Silksong is coming tomorrow BUT have a look at this indie gem for us ✨ ARC SEED is a turn-based tactical game made by @massivegalaxy.bsky.social 🌌 The 1.0 is coming soon, and you can play in Japanese & Chinese thanks to our mech pilots from the Void! store.steampowered.com/app/2332970/...

This is what Palworld's Communications Director had to say on the matter. As of the time of posting, they have yet to follow-up on those questions. (Source: www.linkedin.com/feed/update/...)

Does it look like "Good enough" translation to you?

𝐏𝐚𝐥𝐰𝐨𝐫𝐥𝐝 𝐢𝐬 𝐛𝐞𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐥𝐨𝐜𝐚𝐥𝐢𝐳𝐞𝐝 𝐛𝐲 𝐀𝐈, 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐢𝐭 𝐢𝐬 𝐚𝐛𝐬𝐨𝐥𝐮𝐭𝐞𝐥𝐲 𝐡𝐨𝐫𝐫𝐢𝐛𝐥𝐞. Pocketpair decided to go AI. To no professional's surprise, the result is terrible. English to Vietnamese game localizer Phú Trần made these slides to show how bad it is. How many more fiascos before we can stop this AI nonsense?

To ease us into September, @redhookstudios.bsky.social blessed us with a new Kingdoms adventure module: Curse of the Court 🩸 Available in 12 languages thanks to our heroes from the Void 💫 (Also: the game is 63% off right now! store.steampowered.com/app/1940340/...)

"But I am a hater, and I will not be polite. The machine is disgusting and we should break it." An excellent addition to the article we posted yesterday (fromthevoid.net/blog/ai-in-g...) from @anthonymoser.com. Thank you for not being polite 🤍

👏👏👏 I wanted to select a quote, but there are just too many good ones. Just read the whole thing, I promise it's worth your time.

Without knowing them personally, I feel very seen by the people at ftv and wish I had experienced this kind of fighting spirit in the translation industry back in the day. Shovels be damned, translation is a craft, a science and an art. And it should be way more respected

This is a truly great read. And a great counterpiece to that other one. "Today’s corporate cynicism seeks to eliminate the human element altogether to cut on time, expenses, and alongside it, anything and everything that slowly managed to convince all of us that games could be art back in the day."

“it certainly didn’t hurt that they didn’t have to carve out $31 million a year to pay the boss” that’s some serious punchline

I live in a world where I have to tell people that maybe letting folks create things is a good thing and just because we can fuck that up doesn't mean we should.

my favourite tradition: Marc's pieces after Gamescom