I was listening to an interview with a senior EU translator several years back, and he said that these days, he normally does the first pass with Google Translate, then manually cleans things up. My guess is that to some extent, most human translations likely incorporate some AI translation already.
Correct. But the AI bro here think AI translation is the final work, while translator that use google translate still required the language knowledge to proofread.
Pure machine translation would indeed be sloppy, but games have (unfortunately) done it before. An automated 1st pass with a last check from a human contractor seems reasonable for a studio about to fold.
AI Bro is pretty specific. To me, its evangelists worshipping nebulous ideas and figures like Altman or maybe Musk, looking down on others for not “understanding” how amazing their vision of AI is, all in on the enshittification and impracticality, all in on the raging hype.
It feels very much like crypto fanaticism.
Even if we interpret OP as cynically as possible (lazy AI-only translation when they have another option)… that’s bad, but not “AI Bro” to me.
If it saves your company from bankruptcy, then why not do it? The developers even said it got a little out of control.
Sure, you can call me an “AI Bro” lol. But I’m just being real. Using AI or finding another job? Use AI all day and make better choices with the next title.
“Save” is a bit stretch, if they officially released a halfassed translation(which AI translation without went through a layer of human emotion is), you will be damn sure the reception is gonna be negative, which would negatively impact the sales and also reputation they have.
My SO did translation as a contractor for a little while, and that’s what they did too. Run it through a translator, and fix whatever it messes up. A lot of the output is totally fine, but not all of it, so you need someone experienced with both languages to make sure the result is good.
There shouldn’t be any problem in using AI to translate something, translation is more or less static. Its no different than someone using a calculator for mathematics equations.
Localizers will still need to check the AI output for contextual accuracy, but they will be able to complete this faster as they can essentially skip a step.
My only issue with translation currently is that localizers often go too far with the liberties they take. Its necessary to ensure people from another culture can understand what is happening. For example, in a language that has no word for “rye bread” or a saying like “you are what you eat” specifically, the localizer may substitute the closest word or phrase that conveys a meaning as close as possible to the original. What is not okay is completely altering large portions of the work because of the localizer’s personal opinion. And unfortunately, because this is entirely on the localizer, no amount of AI can help prevent that. Unless translation AI can be so good that it can even understand context from the various bits of text needing to be translated. Then the developers can just use it themselves. But AI has a while to go before it gets to that point.
a member of my extended family spent a decade or so as an interpreter. when they got their certification, the little ceremony we attended had a panel of level 5 interpreters (the highest score you can get on the test they were taking) interpret a speech from one of the more popular interpreters in the local union. i doubt one of them used the same word at the same time. when we did the national anthem, because of course we did, there were two scripts because two languages. i hate saying it, but it really kind of depends what you’re translating/interpreting, but usually translations can be fluid.
Quality not withstanding you’ve got to pay for access to the model or electricity to run your own local model, pay people to run the lines into the model and stitch them back into the game and pay people who speak the language to proof read the outputs to ensure it’s not giving you gibberish.
And if you’ve got voice lines now that’s a whole other can of worms of paying for TTS ai models, paying for audio mixing specialists, inserting the lines into the game, paying to once again have a speaker of the language QA test the output.
The electric costs aren't nearly as high as people think. For huge datacenters, yes, but that's because they're processing requests for hundreds or thousands of users simultaneously. For a studio using it to translate lines for a single game, they could easily get away with doing it locally, and effectively for free. You can train your own local model on a consumer-grade PC without any issue, and it'll still run just as fast as the big server farm-powered models.
My roommate has been playing with a bunch of different local AI models on his own PC for a couple years now. There's been no discernable change to our electric bill. His PC draws more power playing an anime waifu gacha game than it does training/generating AI.
I think about the creativity that goes behind translations like Ace Attorney, and lament that people are skipping past the nuance. Ex:
The name “Naruhodo Ryuichi” means nothing to me. However, their invented name “Phoenix Wright” evokes a popular image on its own. Same for a great many of their pun names. There are many detective games I’ve played from a Japanese theme where I actually couldn’t put clues together because I couldn’t remember “Udo Rayoge” was a noodle shop owner and “Ero Gotaro” was the police deputy that was taking bribes and was murdered - because those names form no connections in my mind.
Maya Fey eats burgers. Before translation, it was ramen; but at time of release, Americans associated ramen with being extremely cheap and low-nutrition (thanks to Cup Noodles). Changing it to burgers accomplished the intended character theme of being junk-foody and gluttonous.
Quite often, linguistics have some effect on the visual clues of the game (and Danganronpa mysteries just as much so), which means they often have to go very creative with something like a torn letter or a message written in blood.
I got laid off 3 months after I launched a modern website to replace my former company’s old platform that none of their other developers wanted to work with.
I did exactly what they told me, something they wanted for years and years, and then I got laid off as a thanks instead of a bonus.
lol
Though I ended up getting a job that pays 30% more so I guess it ended up okay.
Somewhat typical for type of work that has a clear end in sight. And they typically never tell about the project-based plans in mind. Sorry you had to go through this.
Had something like that when I automated stuff for a small company.
It wasn’t a clear end in sight, there was still lots of content and systems that needed to be ported over to the new system, a new payment system to be integrated, and other new features they needed. They had two developers who were familiar with the new website, me and another dev. I did kind of suspect that something like this was possible, but I didn’t think they would be dumb enough to actually do it. It turns out, they were dumb enough to do it.
They were just really cheap, and I was most likely their highest paid developer on my team, and myself and another dev were replaced by friends of manager that laid me off.
After that manager laid me off, I asked for a reference or a letter of recommendation, and was ghosted entirely. It happens.
Apex legends? The fully online battle Royale style competitive shooter? Can anyone tell me why a game like this needs a “character writer” anyway? I’ve never played it so maybe there’s some grand story I don’t know about, but to me this sounds like writing a character for Counter Strike which I think we all agree would be completely pointless.
I’ll try to explain, I’m not a specialist in the lore of Apex legends. But the game is based in the world of Titanfall. It released in 2019 with a few characters. Each 1 or 2 season bringing a new characters with new abilities and background in the story. They have done a pretty good job so far and I really enjoy each characters.
CS at least back in the day didn’t have a class based gameplay, each characters had the same abilities. So I guess it doesn’t really compare.
It’s more like asking why you need a writer for an Overwatch character than CS. The characterization is half of the point and, more importantly, sales on cosmetics, compared to CS/Halo/MW/Whatever
I was gonna get snooty about being an indie game buyer, then I remembered that I bought a Larian game developed in partnership with Hasbro, so my snootiness will have to wait for another day.
My question is when workers in game studios start to make unions. It’s a massive industry and the people actually making the games are constantly fucked over.
Now can be both the second-best-time to plant a tree and the first-best-time to grab a bucket of water!
Remember everyone, the forest is on fire and there’s not many places to run. The fires of climate change affects the entire world, and this administration and the wealthy that back them will gleefully pour fuel on the flames and let your house burn.
You can stand around begging for rain, asking why the landlord didn’t fix the sprinklers or why he never checked the fire extinguishers or why he’s hiding under his desk clutching the cash register for dear life…
Funny thing about wildfires: the ashes allow a new generation of flora to take root. It will suck for us, but the children of tomorrow might have unions, vacations, and universal healthcare by default.
I can dream of a future, even if it won’t be mine to enjoy.
Yes, but there are also European developers. Such as Ubisoft, which previously had major issues with harassment, and probably still does. If they have a union, it certainly isn’t a powerful one.
The French trade union Solidaires Informatique has pursued both criminal and civil charges. Not sure how much that accomplished, but at the very least a bunch of assholes were fired or resigned, so they weren’t completely ineffective.
in my head its because its an industry where going solo is viable and if they arent working at a company thats their goal so they have full contol over the vision and make all the money and one day they want to exert the same creative control over others and get overtime/overwork out of them
The irony is that becoming a solo dev is rarely feasible and even more rarely leads to a product that pays up more than just working elsewhere.
That immediately makes people point to success stories, like Stardew Valley. Dunno about others, but I don’t have a family + girlfriend to sustain me for 4+ years, nor am I blinded by the dream possibility of reaching millions of sales when so many games struggle to reach 10k sales.
Man, what is it about PC gamers that lets them tolerate mediocre garbage?
is it conditioning? Being raised playing games that are good ‘in theory’ over games that are good in actuality?
I dunno, it feels like a lot of PC gamers are ‘proud’ to play esoteric crap. They view it as a badge of honor, for some reason.
Glad I started recognizing these things for what they are, though. Nobody else seems to be willing to discuss it on the internet, but there are plenty of people in real life who get it immediately.
that’s why what’s good enough for you isn’t good enough for me?
No, we established that with the following comment I made: you being nothing more than an angry little incel bitch. Which is ok, you just wanna rage at whatever other people like, go for it. Well all point and laugh at you for being pathetic, we all win
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