8:45am – 9:30am • Wednesday, June 6, 2018 Room: Meeting Rooms 4-6-8
Over the past few years, in game localization we have worked hard to make sure that the players get to live a full game experience, one that is adapted to a player’s culture and the aspects that surround them. We have gone to great lengths to make sure that localized versions of videogames are culturally correct; we have even coined a term: “culturalization.” And this amazing achievement has come to a reality as we have strived to create the best localization possible. In the attempt to make sure that videogames reach everyone and that everyone feels reflected in them, we have seen developers start making an effort to include all sorts of characters and using a more inclusive language to reflect the reality of the society we live in. This is something that should be taken into account when dealing with localization, since we should still try to provide the same gameplay experience as the original game, therefore we feel that solutions should be found to include this gender-inclusive language in our translations. It isn’t an easy task, but it doesn’t seem impossible. While we do not possess the answers on how to achieve this, we hope we will be able to stir some thoughtful debate about this topic and that we will be able to achieve this gender-inclusion together as language professionals.