Work

Translated from English or created in Spanish? The reception of audio description for video games

Year: 2025

Type: article

Abstract: Video gaming has gained immense popularity as a form of entertainment all around the world. However, most games are not fully accessible for players with visual disabilities. Audio description (AD) translates visual elements into spoken words, thus making games accessible to players with vision loss. The TransAD4games project aims to explore the creation and translation of audio descriptions for video games to improve game accessibility across languages and cultures. This article presents part of the research findings from the TransAD4games, reporting the outcomes of a reception study on players’ preferences and opinion about AD for the game Before I Forget (3-Fold Games, 2020) translated from English into Spanish and AD created from scratch in Spanish. Results show that while players preferred the original Spanish AD created from scratch, they also appreciated the translated version, suggesting that translating AD is a viable and acceptable option to improve visual game accessibility.

Source: Translation Spaces

DOI: 10.1075/ts.24037.man

Authors: Carme Mangiron, Xiaochun Zhang

Institutions: Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, University of Auckland, University College Dublin, University College London

Language: English

Topic: Subtitles and Audiovisual Media

Subfield: Language and Linguistics

Field: Arts and Humanities

Domain: Social Sciences

SDG: Reduced inequalities

Open Access status: green

Funders: University of Bristol, Generalitat de Catalunya