Translating for RPGs

ronwisegamgee · July 17, 2017, 12:40:15 AM

Greetings, folks. I was wondering how to go about translating for game designers of RPGs, specifically English to Spanish. Are the words per cent ratios similar to those of freelance writers? For now, I'm simply reaching out to game designers to see if they would like their rule books translated in Spanish to help expand their customer base.

I'm mainly curious as to how to go about negotiating payment terms so that I get paid upon the delivery and approval of a product and how to help prevent being shafted by a client, such as being told that my work is not up to standard and am thus not paid but then the translated product is put up for sale regardless.

Lynn · July 17, 2017, 02:48:34 PM

Quote from: ronwisegamgee;976109Greetings, folks. I was wondering how to go about translating for game designers of RPGs, specifically English to Spanish. Are the words per cent ratios similar to those of freelance writers? For now, I'm simply reaching out to game designers to see if they would like their rule books translated in Spanish to help expand their customer base.

I'm mainly curious as to how to go about negotiating payment terms so that I get paid upon the delivery and approval of a product and how to help prevent being shafted by a client, such as being told that my work is not up to standard and am thus not paid but then the translated product is put up for sale regardless.

In 'traditional' translation, it is usually done on a 'per word' basis. I think the biggest challenge outside of large scale distribution RPGs, is there being enough $$$ in anyone's budget to pay for a translation, especially considering how low expectations are for authorship.

sincerely · July 21, 2017, 06:45:36 PM

Quote from: Lynn;976226In 'traditional' translation, it is usually done on a 'per word' basis. I think the biggest challenge outside of large scale distribution RPGs, is there being enough $$$ in anyone's budget to pay for a translation, especially considering how low expectations are for authorship.

Agreed. Unless you're translating for a large company, there's likely not much money to be had in translating TRPGs. That being said, I've personally found translation work to be very educational when it comes to my own language learning, as I'm not a native speaker.

Lynn · July 22, 2017, 12:36:20 PM

Quote from: sincerely;977204Agreed. Unless you're translating for a large company, there's likely not much money to be had in translating TRPGs. That being said, I've personally found translation work to be very educational when it comes to my own language learning, as I'm not a native speaker.

Ideally you also have someone who will check it to make sure not only is it grammatically correct, but that it makes sense to the target audience.

I have been involved in a lot of localization projects over the last, erg, 25 years. I don't know how many times I have gotten a translation to copyedit and wondered what the heck they are trying to say.