Getting started/journal

Due to innumerable cultural, social, and religious reasons, a video game which is considered completely acceptable in one place may be looked upon in another. This is one of the reasons why video game localization - as opposed to mere translation- is a must for games.

That said, one seemingly simple yet relatively deep and complicated question has always bothered me: when does localization go so far that it becomes censorship? And is that something one should accept?

I will show you a simple example, Yakuza 3 on PS3 shows well how thin the frontier between censorship and localization can be. The game was heavily criticized by gamers who suspect the localizerd edited or removed significant game elements.

This gets me wondering: how much of the cut content was actually "inappropriate for American audiences" as in "cultural differences would prevent full understanding and therefore only serve to confuse the player and impede their progress", as opposed to "Americans are generally far more religious and uptight than Japanese people, so we can't show them this kind of nudity and/or violence"? Gamers were most likely expecting something different after reading about the game in specialized media

Most of gamers are reasonable adults who just want to enjoy the game as it is, instead of playing an edited, censored version of it. So please, developers, think of gamers first when you are localizing your games.

Video game translation is an important process to bring games to new people, and shouldn't be taken that lightly.