GDC 2007: The daily (localization) travails of Square Enix

If you’ve always thought that working on the Square Enix staff would make your life perfect, then here’s a bit of an eye-opener, courtesy of Square Enix’s Richard Mark Honeywood.

Having worked as a translator, localization director, and programmer for the Japanese game-makers, Honeywood gave everyone who attended this year’s Game Developers Conference an insider’s view of the daily travails that the localization staff has to go through in order to deliver quality games to their international fans.

The first and main problem that they often have to deal with is the sheer complexity of many Square Enix games. According to Honeywood, making such complex titles takes a lot of time, of which there never seems to be enough of. Add that to the fact that the members of the localization team are “either artists or perfectionists,” and you’ve got a time management issue to deal with.

Then there’s the issue of money, or the lack of it. In order to conserve funds, members of the localization team will sometimes provide voices for minor roles (like, you know… slimes…), or head for Austria instead of Tokyo in bids to save money on airfare on lodging.

Honeywood also laments the fact that they don’t have enough translators who can work with the Japanese script and translate it directly into FIGS (French, Italian, German, Spanish). This causes delays because the script has to be translated into English, before it can be translated into FIGS. They also have to deal with the language on the menus of the games, since there are times when the Japanese term on the menu is too long to be translated into English. In this case, Final Fantasy VIII was cited, where the Japanese words had to be replaced by icons.

Other issues were mentioned during Honeywood’s talk, all of which would have been enough to faze ordinary mortals. However, one good thing that can be derived from all this is that it gets one to appreciate their games even more. After all, thinking about how much work, time, and love was put into making the game a possibility is enough to make one feel all warm and fuzzy.

If you’ve always thought that working on the Square Enix staff would make your life perfect, then here’s a bit of an eye-opener, courtesy of Square Enix’s Richard Mark Honeywood.

Having worked as a translator, localization director, and programmer for the Japanese game-makers, Honeywood gave everyone who attended this year’s Game Developers Conference an insider’s view of the daily travails that the localization staff has to go through in order to deliver quality games to their international fans.

The first and main problem that they often have to deal with is the sheer complexity of many Square Enix games. According to Honeywood, making such complex titles takes a lot of time, of which there never seems to be enough of. Add that to the fact that the members of the localization team are “either artists or perfectionists,” and you’ve got a time management issue to deal with.

Then there’s the issue of money, or the lack of it. In order to conserve funds, members of the localization team will sometimes provide voices for minor roles (like, you know… slimes…), or head for Austria instead of Tokyo in bids to save money on airfare on lodging.

Honeywood also laments the fact that they don’t have enough translators who can work with the Japanese script and translate it directly into FIGS (French, Italian, German, Spanish). This causes delays because the script has to be translated into English, before it can be translated into FIGS. They also have to deal with the language on the menus of the games, since there are times when the Japanese term on the menu is too long to be translated into English. In this case, Final Fantasy VIII was cited, where the Japanese words had to be replaced by icons.

Other issues were mentioned during Honeywood’s talk, all of which would have been enough to faze ordinary mortals. However, one good thing that can be derived from all this is that it gets one to appreciate their games even more. After all, thinking about how much work, time, and love was put into making the game a possibility is enough to make one feel all warm and fuzzy.