To bring Japanese games like Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door and The Legend of Zelda: Kingdom Tears to the United States and the rest of the world, Nintendo uses internal and external translation teams to fully localize each game . But you’d never know that from the game’s credits, which don’t include the names of outside translators. Now, a handful of outside translators are speaking out about not being recognized for their contributions to some of Nintendo’s most popular games.
An anonymous former Nintendo employee who currently works as a translator for Nintendo through an outside company called Localsoft detailed the cumbersome terms external translators have to deal with via GameDeveloper.com. In addition to not receiving any credit in the game itself, the translators must sign a 10-year nondisclosure agreement that prevents them from telling anyone that they worked on the game or even putting it on their resume.
One anonymous translator wrote: “I feel like I would benefit a lot from being able to show that I’m working on this title when servicing new clients. Not to mention, I actually spend a fair amount of my time almost exclusively working for them job. “It’s nearly impossible for a translator to rebel against this structure. Anyone who tries will be blacklisted before getting anywhere. In this field, taking a break every year can cost you a few months.” Work. No one cares what we think because there is literally nothing we can do about it, even if we are willing to give up our livelihoods for the greater good.
Nintendo excluding external translators from their legal credit appears to be the company’s stance on the issue. As mentioned above, the vast majority of translators are unwilling to risk their livelihoods by criticizing Nintendo’s practices. But the only way to fix this is if public pressure is enough to convince Nintendo to change this policy. Otherwise, the status quo will remain unchanged.
