How long does it usually take to localize a game?
This changes literally with every game. I think you mean just the translation and editing portion, not the QA, packaging, marketing, rating, mastering, etc. so I’ll just boil it down to that. Even then, that’s still a huge question.
For translation, a fast translator will do about 100-120k per month. Average would probably be about 80-90k, maybe? You usually try to do editing at the same time, or you give the translator a bit of a head start. Editing varies a lot depending on who is translating, the complexity of the project, and all that fun stuff. I’d talk about my own experiences as a lead editor, but unfortunately that’s behind NDA. I’ve done some extensive editing, just not as lead editor of an entire game that we’ve released.
First, it depends on how quickly you have to get the project done. It’s preferable to have one translator and one editor so that everything stays consistent in terms of style. Translators have different levels of experience or may interpret things differently or even translate phrases differently, and editors all have their unique styles. Ys: Memories of Celceta had one translator and one editor, and took about 3.5-4 months of work in total, I think. It was a very smooth, easy project because the translator was very good at reconstructing what he was translating from Japanese to English. Corpse Party and Corpse Party: Book of Shadows actually had one person who served as both translator and editor, and that’s because he’s exceptionally good at that very same thing. Rune Factory 4, on the other hand, had…four different translators and three editors, I think? And then there was a lot of editing during QA once we had the text within the context of the game as well.
By reconstructing a translation from Japanese to English, I mean they know what they’re reading in Japanese and can very easily think of a natural way to say something similar in English. That takes a massive amount of skill. You can be fluent in both Japanese and English, no discernible accent in either language whatsoever, and you might still somehow be thinking structurally in Japanese as you translate, making for some very awkward sentences. Yes, they know what it’s saying, but to someone who only knows English looking at it for the first time, it’s very confusing. I’ve had some projects that were like the Ys, where it was incredibly fast to read through because it felt fluent right from the raw translation, and others where I was marking every other line and then talking back and forth with the translator trying to find out the exact meaning they wanted to portray.
Another factor is, like mentioned before, the complexity of the project. I edited only a small portion of AKIBA’S TRIP: Undead & Undressed, which were the NPCs and sidequest dialogue. How the NPCs spoke was very natural for me since most speak in a modern, casual manner. What they were saying, however, took a lot of research. The game was pumped with references even in the Japanese, so it often took me talking back and forth with one of our Japanese translators and asking him what pop culture references a certain scene was talking about, because the English was so awkward that it was so obviously a reference to something. Other times it was easier— I could just take the Japanese, pop it into google, and a billion images or links would come up so I’d confirm if I was correct with the translator and then move on. I did about 6000 lines in two weeks, when it really should’ve taken a little over a week, because I spent so much time researching all the references in the game.
Actually, here’s an interesting story about that from this week. The text for the NPCs are jumbled everywhere, meaning you don’t know who’s talking, how many people are speaking if there’s more than one, what they’re talking about or if they’re only talking about one thing or multiple things, or why they’re saying what they’re saying because who they’re talking to or about could be 1000 lines down. I had at one point edited three different lines in three different places that were one-liners and meant absolutely nothing to me. One was a pigeon noise, another was an insult, and another was someone using a pick-up line. While testing Akiba this week, I came across those three lines in the same scene— you battled three people in an arena who were part of “Team: Self Destruct!” (I had no idea what that meant either as I edited and it was also in a different spot, so I left it as-is). Once I had all three lines, their names (one of their names was Soda Can? What?) I messaged my co-worker with the Japanese lines, their names and their team name and said, “What is going on here?” Turns these three guys were a parody of a certain political party in Japan and their lines were sort of the internet’s way of identifying them for their idiocy. The kanji in the team name could also spell out their political party. It was something our audience wouldn’t get, and was impossible to edit until seeing the context. So even after translation and editing are ‘done’ on paper, it’s so, so, SO important to play the game for context. It helps you rewrite jokes like that so that they actually make sense.
I know I went on a bit of a tangent, but it’s really hard to give one answer for a question like this. In fact, it’s much easier to ask how long a specific location took, rather than how long localization takes as a whole. It really does change dramatically with every project!