When Bethesda released the slaughter-some-Nazis shooter Wolfenstein 2: The New Colossus in 2017, thousands of copies featured an intentional, albeit surprising, omission: Hitler’s mustache. In most versions of the game, players came face to face with Adolf himself, but due to German laws, players from Munich to Hamburg played a game stripped of Nazi iconography — down to the führer’s facial hair.
This is one bristly example of localization, the process of adapting media to appeal to different global markets by modifying the art based on laws, social norms, and cultural preferences.
With this week’s special issue on Polygon, Culture Shock, we want to bring attention to the creativity, controversy, and commercial necessity of localization. And hopefully improve the conversation around the craft, too.
This week on Polygon, we’re looking at how cultural differences affect media in a special issue we’re calling Culture Shock.
Because localization isn’t just translation. Take for example the above paragraph. ChatGPT could translate those two sentences into dozens of languages within seconds. But AI would struggle to elegantly capture the meaning of the text plus the cacophony of all those concussive consonants that give it an intended feel. That takes artistry.
So if localization isn’t just translation, what is it?
The masters of localization consider every aspect of media — from what’s inside the software to the marketing on YouTube ads — so that the localized version of the game aligns with the preferences and peccadilloes of various carvings of the international audience. To be clear, when we discuss localizers, we’re talking about many different jobs. Any one project may have people who translate the script, consider local ratings board regulations, develop alternative marketing strategies, or handle the many other functions necessary in the localization process, some of which people refer to as culturalization or transcreation.
The people in all those roles decide what’s important to keep and what can be cut or reconsidered. And they do so considering the ever-evolving tastes of their target countries. For example, in the 1990s a U.S. localizer might have labeled a bowl of ramen as “chicken soup” and a plate of mochi as “cake,” while a modern localizer would expect English-speaking audiences to be familiar with Japanese foods available in the frozen food aisle of most grocery stores.
Despite the occasional controversy, localization has been a boon for the entertainment industry. It’s afforded AAA game publishers the massive audiences required to float their bloated business models, and offered smaller developers fresh pools of potential players. It’s allowed for exponential growth of the global anime audience. Shows like Squid Game have become hits in the U.S., while leagues like the NFL have traveled to Germany and Brazil. Ironically, despite its exponential significance, the shape-shifting nature of localization is so effective that most people forget it’s even there.
So why talk about localization if, at best, it fades into the background?
True, the changes are often subtle and only visible to the most dedicated multilingual fans. Maybe a tweak is made to obey a nation’s laws or avoid cultural taboos, or it’s something more esoteric, like meeting the geographical limitations of music licensing agreements.
But all these changes, taken cumulatively, result in different experiences between the players of localized games and viewers of localized shows and films. Because just as the copy of Wolfenstein 2 released in Germany wasn’t quite the same game as the one released in the U.S., the same applies to hundreds of other games that developers release each year. It’s easy to forget that what you’re playing in English isn’t precisely the same game being experienced in China, the United Arab Emirates, or anywhere else in the world.
By being mindful of localization, audiences around the world can be more thoughtful when playing, watching, and chatting about the things they love — and the ones they hate. When you remember to consider the localization of a video game, you can view the experience from a unique and rich perspective.
Before you work through the many wonderful stories in Culture Shock, I’d like to leave you with my favorite recent example of a game that captures the agony and ecstasy of the localization process.
The Japan-based Ryu Ga Gotoku team developed last year’s Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth, a game about, in part, the Japanese tourist experience in Hawaii. But the game was also designed and localized to appeal to a Western audience. And yet, what Western fans love about the Like a Dragon series is its immersion in Japanese culture.
So when an American plays Infinite Wealth, they’re experiencing a game set in America through the eyes of Japanese artists trying to appeal to a Western audience that loves Japanese culture, which itself is interpreted through the eyes of a localization team. The people responsible for localization must decide what, within the original version, should be kept to meet the tastes of Western fans of the series, not put off newcomers, and excise references that won’t make sense to anyone who hasn’t spent a bulk of their time riding the JR lines.
Or, to put it succinctly for the linguists in the audience: Localization, at its best, isn’t just removing or adding material. It’s bringing worlds together.
