Translation Strategies In Game Localization

With the booming of the game industry,game localization becomes an emerging research topic in the academic world.Previous studies on game localization are narrowly confined to the linguistic level and have failed to assess the translation in a cultural context.The translation team of Cultist Simulator,a narrative card game,rewrites the in-game texts and creates a unique semi-classical style,which was wellreceived by Chinese players.The present study intends to investigate the translation of Cultist Simulator from the perspective of rewriting theory,i.e.,in what ways the influence of ideology,poetics and patronage is manifested in the translation and what translation strategies are used,so as to better understand why it has attracted so many players in China.The findings of the study are as follows:Rewriting is influenced by political,religious,and social ideology.Therefore,translators adopt the strategy of alternative,free translation and transliteration.In terms of poetics,the influence is manifested in the choice of words,modified sentence structure and discourse.Translators borrow the cultural references in the target market for rewriting,including retro-flexion,fourcharacter idioms,allusion,addition,epizeuxis,quantifier,sayings,respectful expression,modal participle,antithesis,comparison,repetitive structure and change of linguistic style.As for patronage,Weather Factory influence the translation by designing cards with UI specialists.It also involves in providing economic support to translators and develops the marketing strategies with the distributor.The results suggest that in order to facilitate a warm reception of the game in target market,cultural factors should be taken into account and more thought given to the dominant ideology and poetics in the target culture.