This month anydooR Inc. participated in an international translation conference organized by Univesita Autonoma Bacelona. This academic conference gathers translators, professors, as well as video game and virtual reality industry professionals, discussing infinite possibilities and challenges translators, developers, localization managers and others involved in the localization process are facing.
Conference was opened by the
keynote by Ian Hamilton, accessibility consultant who shared his incredible
work practices and aim to enable and improve gaming and virtual reality
experience for users with disabilities. Afterwards we listened to panel sessions
about games for health, education and cultural elements in game localization. We
were excited to hear a presentation about cultural content transfer and
Japanese dating sims, as Conyac translates many Japanese dating simulation
games and we used the same topic for the case study within our presentation the
following day.
We wrapped up the day over comfortable and
delicious dinner at Mama Café in Raval. It was a perfect opportunity to talk to
all participants and exchange contacts for potential future translation
projects.
2nd day’s opening keynote was presented by Kate Edwards, IGDA Executive Director, an incredible geographer and cartographer that continued her career path in biggest technology and gaming industry. Fortune Magazine selected her as one of “The 10 Most Powerful Women in Gaming”. After her comprehensive presentation it was time for our panel about localizing Japanese games. We presented industry perspective together with Jan Büchner from Square Enix and Mariona Pera from Pokémon Company.
Una Softic presented anydooR with speech about “Overcoming cultural differences by crowdsourcing translations to gamers”. Since most of the audience was professional translators, this topic intrigued a flaming debate about validity and justification of hiring non-professional translators. Audience reactions and feedback were very valuable to us and we are staying in touch with many attendees, planning future collaborations and bringing Conyac beyond the level of excellence.
The day continued with talks about industry perspective, especially game subtitling, future of the industry and mobile apps. We also listened to academic views of research methodology and localization into regional varieties and minority languages (especially Catalan).
Main organizers Carme Mangiron and Pilar Orero from UAB
ensured a beautiful atmosphere in which attendees could share knowledge,
experience in a very direct and collegial way. Conyac team was very grateful and proud for the opportunity to participate at this wonderful conference.
You can find full program at the following website.
