Our story will show two things: firstly, it will teach you how you should definitely not organise your projects. Secondly, it will show you that even in a worst-case scenario, determined translators can work miracles with the tools given. Our talk will focus on work-arounds for problems caused by concatenated strings, proprietary file formats, length restrictions, hardcoded dialogue boxes, contradictory instructions, incompetent project managers and way-too-complicated chains of command.
Find out why the translator even learnt PHP (a programming language) to solve the problems introduced, how the parties implemented the lessons learnt in subsequent projects and how, against all odds, the game became one of the biggest franchises on the Dutch game market.
Meet Loek van Kooten, a 39-year-old JPN/ENG>DUT translator from the Netherlands with an MA in Japanology. Loek has been playing computer games daily since he was ten, from first-person shooters like Quake to MMORPGs such as Guild Wars 2. He still plays for several hours a day, to ensure that he stays up to date with new developments in the ever-changing gaming world.
Frustrated by the fact that so many Dutch games were terribly localized by people who had no idea about gaming terminology, he gave up his IT/legal/technical translation career to dedicate his time to giving Dutch gamers what they deserve: well-localized games that read like an original. And this has brought him considerable success.
Game companies including Electronic Arts, SEGA, Microsoft Game Studios, Nordic Games, Codemasters and NCSoft all make use of Loek’s services to give their games that extra touch needed to appeal to the Dutch game market. Hence his motto: don’t localize. Loekalize.
