Mapping the production stage of a video game localization project with actor-network theory
Year: 2025
Type: article
Abstract: The video game localization industry has undergone rapid development and expansion, entailing newly emerging roles, and technologies. Academia has strived to keep up; however, due to industry restrictions, researchers and institutions lack an in-depth understanding of what occurs within the production stage of a project, and how the various professionals interact. This research delineates and contextualizes the roles and responsibilities of those involved in the production stage of localization projects. Actor-network theory (ANT) is utilized to map and trace the actions and relationships, between the human and non-human actors involved in a Chinese-to-English video game localization project. This involved observing four professional translation teams working on the same text and has enabled a clear delineation of the complex roles and responsibilities of the linguists and project managers. Furthermore, it highlights how different roles require different skillsets.
Source: Digital Translation
DOI: 10.1075/dt.25004.rob
Author: Dariush Robertson
Institutions: Leiden University, Newcastle University
Language: English
Subfield: Language and Linguistics
Field: Arts and Humanities
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: hybrid
OpenAlex ID: W4415304364