[arg_discuss] Budgets

[Michael Monello]

The Legend of the Sacred Urns was done in French, Spanish, US  
Spanish, UK English, German, Italian, Japanese, and Chinese and  
probably a couple other languages I'm forgetting. We used a NY based  
translation service and the biggest issue was turnaround time and  
context. Fortunately, we had localized people reading and verifying  
the translations. Cultural context is a big one -- for example in  
English we used the word "gypsy" and when they translated it to  
Italian they used a word with very negative cultural connotations  
which only the local reader caught.

Turnaround time for all of it was extensive (I seem to recall a  
little over a week from turning in the English copy), and it required  
heavy management.

Best,

Mike
__________
haxan | films | http://www.haxan.com



On Jun 16, 2006, at 12:33 PM, despain at quantumcontent.com wrote:

> Hello folks,
>
> I'm working on a budget for an ARG with international scope. I've done
> budgets for USA-centric ARGs (with token nods to Canada, Britain and
> Australia) so I realize actual figures probably can't be discussed,  
> but I
> wondered if anyone had advice they could share when doing ARGs in more
> than one language.
>
> I'm looking at English, German and French for sure. Maybe Czech and
> Hungarian too.
>
> Have any of you used professional localization companies for ARGs?
>
> I'm wondering if it would be better to partner with game/media  
> companies
> in those countries who have previous experience with running their own
> ARGs instead of trying to explain the concept to video game or  
> business
> localization companies. And of course there's the possibility of  
> hiring
> in-house translators.
>
> Anybody have any preferences? Horror stories? Cautions?  
> Recommendations?
>
> Thanks for whatever thoughts you can share.
>
> Wendy Despain
> quantumcontent.com
>