Deadlines are a Lie - Interview with Daedalic's Localization Managers
Back in early 2019, From the Void founder Marc Eybert-Guillon started working with German indie game publisher Daedalic Entertainment on translating their Darkest Dungeon-like Iratus: Lord of the Dead into French. A year later, this freelance relationship broadened with the birth of FtV.
Since then, our team has worked on a bunch of Daedalic titles including Inkulinati (Best Indie Game at the Gamescom Awards), Children of Silentown, Magin, Capes and more…
Today, we catch up with Maria Lesk and Ben Kuhn, the dynamic duo steering the localization ship at the German studio, to ask them questions about their careers and the localization industry at large.
Could you introduce yourselves and your journeys up to now?
Hullo, I’m Ben. I successfully acquired a Master’s of Arts in English and Philosophy and always liked telling and writing stories. Never was really sure what to make of that, but I also love video games. So -ironically- I misinterpreted a job opening as a Scripter at Daedalic, got told my portfolio was cool, but not actually in any relation to what a scripter does, and when they asked me if I could do anything else, I just answered “Well, I can translate?”.
That was 11 years ago… and here we are. Now I’m bouncing around localization management, voice direction, narrative design, script doctoring and other enjoyable things!
Hey hey, I’m Maria, officially carrying the title of Localization Director because I’ve been doing this job for seven years now, most of this time by my lonesome. I also acquired a Master’s of Arts in English and American Studies, as well as in Media and Communication before joining Daedalic in early 2013. I started out in Customer Support, building that branch from scratch, then took over localization and dual-wielded these two departments until my maternity leave in 2020. After my return, I was luckily joined by the aforementioned Ben and now we are focusing on loca management, our own translation work and script doctoring.
How has the loc industry evolved over time?
I think one of the biggest general shifts is that what we do is finally seen and acknowledged as art - that video games have largely transcended their stigma of being a time waster for nerds and weirdos and instead dwarf most other media and are their own vessel for great stories, captivating visuals and soundscapes all woven together in an interactive experience.
This goes hand in hand with huge leaps in language availability, accessiblity and the corresponding joy and drive to create more. It’s amazing to see how indie games thrive all over the world. In bleak fairness, there is also a sort of over-saturation and many great titles wither on the vine since no one knows they even exist.
Conversely, it’s horrifying to see the degree of industrialization across the, well, industry and how mask-off the exploitation of the people who make it all possible has become, all for short-term gains and with a disgusting disregard for creativity, innovation and integrity.
Daedalic Entertainment found early success with a string of 2D Point’n’click games, most notably the Deponia series
A burning question for those looking for direct clients:
How do you pick what providers you work with?
If we’re approached - which is mostly how we pick up new folks - we do tend to react positively the more ‘human’ someone is. Like, tell us what games you love or loved working on, why you found us or want to work with us. What title piqued your interest and why.
The less corporate or soulless someone is, the more likely we answer and at the very least add someone to our database for later contact when we need help, essentially. And yeah, we can tell when you fake it, haha.
We also like to make sure our ethics align with the people we want to work with. So, especially if it’s a LSP, we request credits of everyone involved in the project. It’s a must-have for us and not following that request is a reason to turn someone down.
Do you prefer working with freelancers or LSPs?
How do you pick providers for a given project?
We have been working with freelancers since the beginning of Daedalic. Some people from back then still stuck with us and they used to get every single one of our projects. We love having these established and long-term connections, and communication directly with the respective people, even though the workload was multiplied extensively when we expanded on our language list. That is why we love having access to freelance collectives. If it means writing only one and not 12 emails and still using freelancers, it’s the best of both worlds!
When Daedalic started being a publisher as well, projects started piling up, so most of our usual freelancers couldn’t handle everything simultaneously and we started reaching out to other freelancers and LSPs. Sometimes, we definitely chose wrong and learned a lesson, other times we added some fantastic people to our roster, which are here to stay.
From all these established relationships, our linguists can call dibs on upcoming projects and we listen to their wishes. Other times we choose linguists based on what their specific experiences are, their genre preferences or their availability. Should we choose giving an entire project to a LSP (which is rather rare, but still happens), it’s usually related to an extensive language list, combined with a small word count and a limited timeframe (to minimize the workload on our end), or because our regular teams are busy with other projects and we have to prioritize their time.
So when a new project comes in and we have decided on a language list, we both sit down and hand-pick providers for every single language from our usual teams, weighing in the availability, the scope, the preferences and the general fit. Then, we inform the people of our plans, hope they agree to them and go from there.
Pictured above: Iratus looking for new freelancers for his evil localization agency…
You like to use different providers across a single project.
Can you talk about the reasoning behind splitting the work?
To tie in with what we said above, when we split a project we already considered individual requests and availability. Sometimes a freelance collective cannot offer all the languages we need, other times we’ve had framework agreements with partners for a specific language. We like to bring back people with whom we haven’t worked in a while. We also like to bring in new people from time to time, mostly for individual languages. It’s worth noting that it’s often really not a matter of efficiency, but related to the fact that we’re just fond of the people we work with.
While we could definitely profit from having to communicate with only one manager on the provider’s side who handles all languages, it would rob us of the advantages of having hand-picked providers for individual languages.
How does game loc differ from other translation markets?
Must game translators ‘have a particular set of skills’?
Any translator worth their salt probably should, whether translating manuals or movies, books, and games. The ‘particular’ part for games kicks in when considering their nature as an interactive medium with so many moving parts that still need to convey a unified intent.
While relating to, or even liking the source material of what you’re translating, and understanding characters, subtext and messages demands a lot of skill, video games demand more simply by being games. They’re drama, mechanics, manual and interactive engagement all at once and across a galaxy of genres of all these disciplines.
Generally liking games, loving to play them, maybe even specializing in a certain genre hones this particular set of skills automatically.
How do you tackle QA & cultural accuracy for languages and cultures you’re no experts in yourselves?
A –maybe deceptively– easy one: we first and foremost trust the people running translation and LQA for us to keep these aspects in mind. We trust that everyone we are working with has the best intentions and wants the product to sound cool and be enjoyable in their own language. That passion may differ from person to person and some people are more creative and attentive when it comes to these cultural aspects, but it’s never something we specifically ask for, rather natively expect from a localization expert, since it comes with the job description.
Sometimes, especially after recruiting someone new, we opt for a sanity check with a second opinion from one of our regular trusted people. Here, personal opinions and tastes can sometimes clash, making it hard to distinguish if something is incorrect or rather a case of different (writing) styles. Fan feedback or reviews can cause the same dilemma: while incredibly helpful when errors and oversights are discovered (everybody makes mistakes), they can also cause discussions over minor stylistic things, different opinions on accuracy and grammar rules. We always listen to feedback (and have removed LSPs from our roster when it was overwhelmingly unanimous), but mostly we have to trust the person we chose and credited for this particular job.
When it comes to quality assurance, we are extremely loud about LQA. We stress everywhere how important this step is, that it is mandatory, needs enough time, needs care by the dev teams and needs to be repeated regularly (especially before release or in Early Access).
Loc is often considered late and lacks proper resources.
How do you tackle this as in-house loc managers?
As soon as Daedalic signs a new project, we set up a loca onboarding call with the dev team or the respective localization representative on their team. We have a long document they are supposed to read before that meeting covering localization basics, common mistakes, some guidelines, some tips and several templates. During the call, we discuss this, figure out the team’s existing loca savviness, go over potential problems that could arise in that particular project and keep stressing that we are always at their side for questions and help. We’re available for them in a Discord channel and ideally they make use of that offer.
Along the way, we keep checking in and repeat calls if necessary. Even all of this can sadly never guarantee that the team truly understands what localization means, how long it takes, how much work and care it involves, how important LQA really is… Sometimes it’s still learning by doing for them, no matter how much we brief, prepare and repeat. This mostly applies for rookie teams and/or solo devs. If the team is already experienced, there’s a chance for smooth sailing.
You hint at a lack of dev knowledge regarding localization.
What difficulties do you encounter as a result of this?
Some teams do not have a dedicated loca person, and it shows. The responsibility for this topic gets thrown around a lot and no one picks it up. Other times, the person we are communicating with gatekeeps information, so while we are confident that the one particular person understood our requests, that information never reaches the developers or rest of the team, which leads to mistakes being repeated over and over again. This is something out of our control, which makes it even more frustrating.
Other times, teams simply did not code with localization in mind, especially when it comes to a bigger language list. They hard-coded some texts, have no useful technical pipeline set up, run into problems with their ID system, etc. Especially when we come into a project relatively late, this is something we cannot even begin to change.
Since localization always happens near the end of the development period, the pre-release panic is already setting in with the dev teams, which sometimes leads to mistakes, miscommunication or slip-ups.
Among the more harmless ones is making people understand that having too many stragglers between translation cycles can cascade into a real problem. Most devs don’t grasp that the volume of a translation is often not the issue with their short-notice requests, but linguist availability and maintaining a sensible workflow and timeline.
Guiding teams through this requires an absurd amount of patience and on the other hand lots of trust that our localization partners can handle every bit of insanity we throw at them.
What are a good loc manager’s most important traits?
(Pretending you’re not talking about yourselves…)
Inversely, what should a loc manager avoid?
Contrary to some beliefs, you don’t need to speak a lot of languages for a job in localization, although a background in linguistics or cultural studies can help in understanding how languages actually work. Most of the daily work is similar to general project management though, so it’s good to have whatever that job requires: being both very organized and also extremely adaptive, good communication skills, patience, patience and patience. The will to educate dev teams about localization kind of comes with the job, because this part of game development is often not entirely understood, so an inherent will to speak up for the loc community is always a plus.
You should avoid believing in deadlines, they are a lie. Or in word counts, which are honestly both the most important and most incorrect imaginary asset you’ll be working with.
What are your most memorable projects and why?
Ben:
Bounty Train – the kit arrived in utterly broken English which I had to fix. It was sort of a nightmare. However, despite that and Wikipedia pages worth of entries about various trains and their specs, there was so much nerdy love and joy for the subject matter in this goofy kit that it ended up being kind of meditative to work on. I remember it fondly, and that’s the weirdest thing.
Potion Tycoon – managing that kit was like wrestling a greased pig. I honestly believe it is cursed. Things have mellowed out somewhat along the way, but this one will stay with me for a while…
Magin – well organized, and as one of the rare opportunities these days to actually get into the trenches, I enjoyed it a lot, as it was also well-written and fun to translate.
Magin - narrative-driven adventure combined with deck-building card battles
Maria:
Magin – I need to highlight this as well, because it’s been a dream working with someone on the dev side with a background in LQA and who knows exactly what we need and really went the extra mile. Also, I got to translate a big chunk of it and it was incredibly fun and rewarding for me.
Barotrauma – a game with a huge word count, a big language list, a long Early Access period, lots and lots of changed texts during each update... Could have been a nightmare, but turned out to be a great tale of how all sides can come together to establish and improve workflows into a well-oiled machine, making this beast a not-so-scary and very enjoyable experience.
And of course, I have plenty of localization war stories that I am only ready to share over a beer or six.
Maria and Marc exchanging localization war stories at Gamescom 2023
What major issues is the game loc industry facing?
How should the various actors approach them?
Well, the grim specter of AI is always floating right behind us, ain’t it? It’s hard to think of another impactful one, since it reflects the perpetual issues at large so well, I reckon - devaluing and (literally) dehumanizing the work we do and championing more output for less pay while increasing corporate control, now with one more tool in the box.
The push for AI happens under the guise of ‘assistance’ and ‘developer empowerment’, cutting costs for a service that is deliberately depicted as something secondary and not worth much budget. Accordingly, I don’t think we can expect the actors on that end to act any differently than they already do, not without pressure or publicly shaming them into submission for what they try to pull off there.
On the developer side, the approach should be caution and above all integrity and staying informed about what a good, personalized localization can provide and add to a project.
And we should do our best to be accessible, inform people and let the results speak for themselves. Otherwise, our best course would probably be resistance, revealing this nonsense for what it is, and at the same time using / reclaiming AI for what it can be to us: a tool. I believe with the right intent, it can help a great deal in optimizing one’s work, but it’s not a replacement or a crutch.
You support FtV’s commitments, notably crediting.
How has Daedalic’s approach to this evolved?
Have you had issues with some providers?
Do you have established company codes / guidelines?
We for sure have projects from the past where localization isn’t properly credited. While I do remember that we have always asked for credits from our providers, back then we weren’t as attentive when someone didn’t reply in time or delivered an incomplete list. That’s something we changed some years ago, especially with an LSP we have been using. We definitely had moments where requesting the credits was met with a “it’s against company policy” reply. We have addressed this issue with that particular LSP and resolved it. We’ve had a similar situation with another big agency that refused to give names for one specific language, but luckily the project manager we were working with was on our side and pressed his colleagues until they handed over the list. We definitely make it clear that we will have to stop working with them if they refuse to credit.
From Lucile Danilov’s reporting on lack of crediting in GOTY nominees at the Game Awards
Any advice for people trying to enter the game loc industry?
Man, we lucked into it, so we don’t really feel fit to give advice. But in line with what's been said here, if you have the skills and if whoever you approach can see that you’d love doing this, you’ll probably get a foot in the door.
If you’re going for management, if you can, follow the old adage: “It’s dangerous to go alone” – so try to never be alone in your department.
Having someone who’s got your back when the number of projects and tasks gets overwhelming, and generally to share the weight of this world of languages you’re carrying, is priceless.
Anything else you would like to share?
Thank you for letting us talk about loca stuff, we really appreciate it.
For the lovely folks out there: Stay healthy, hydrate, be kind and don’t give up!
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This article was not made under any financial incentive
However Daedalic Entertainment & From the Void have an established business relationship