Suppose we have a game. There are two versions of the game, one (the original version) in Japanese), and one in English. (The actual language choices don't matter here, but it is important that they're different.) The Japanese version does not require an Internet connection to play, but the English version does. Here's why:

In the English version, the game's data files still have Japanese text; rather, whenever the game needs to display text, the game connects to Google Translate (or a similar service), sends the Japanese text, and displays the resulting English text. Naturally, not only does this require an Internet connection, it also slows down the game considerably when it needs to wait for the result.

There's some precedent for parts of this: I am aware of two games (Ultima 6 SNES and Chrono Trigger PSX) where, in the English version, Japanese is swapped out on the fly for English text; in both cases, this slows things down. I also remember reading about some indie game where the English text is the result of machine translation. So, the logical conclusion is that, maybe, some developer might get the idea of having the game translate itself on the fly.

The company's rationale for this strange (and rather silly) approach is that it insures that consumers "will always have an up-to-date translation".

Do you think any game developer will be so stupid as to actually do this? (If you are aware of any game that *actually* does this, feel free to mention it in this topic as well.)

I feel strongth welling in my body.

I wouldn't call that stupid. Perhaps overly clever, but not stupid. It sounds like you're saying they would be aware of what they were doing.

I can imagine translating text like this as being a means for extending accessibility, such as incorporated within an operating system. Until such time as that happens, it doesn't seem unreasonable to me to include the possibility within individual applications. What initially comes across as a stop-gap measure might eventually become extremely convenient after a bit of refinement.

It sounds like you're trying to describe an undesirable circumstance. However, I can think of ways to appreciate it, even if it wouldn't seem ideal.

It seems to me there usually isn't the resources to do everything. I generally don't personally ask and pay developers to write software for me, though I'm sure I'd talk over the possibilities and what I'd appreciate if I did request an application for myself.

I don't think I would call either stupid or clever. I wouldn't do it though.

We're talking about static content. All the software platforms we support with our clients have translation files that either are provided by the platform themselves and/ or clients have provided them.

To rely on a third part source for data and with all the problems related to doing that would just be silly.

Having said that, I don;t like the use of third party CDNs either. Too much can go wrong with a provider you have no control over.

Google's speech-to-text has english stored on device, Japanese requires connection to internet.

This adversely affects poor gamers.
* people with slow net speeds
* people with data limits and over-the-limit charges
* people with poor/ intermittent/ no signal or who just want to play offline

I'm guessing the devs think this is a free way to make their game sell to far more customers. Instead of hiring multiple translators and all that cost and hassle, just have google do it for you free.

I wouldn't buy a game that did this though.

Instead of using Google Translate, I could see a translation hosted by the developer. This would allow for them to make ongoing improvements to the translation without requiring A) a third-party service like GT, and B) provide those changes without requiring large updates. Further, it might allow for multiple translations; for instance, an official version created by the developer, and also fan-based and/or crowd-sourced translations.

Whether or not this would be a good thing...

I can only think of that possibly making sense if the developer was planning to do translations of the game for a wider release in Latin American, European, and other Asian countries, and only if the developer had a reputation for being especially cheap and lazy.

Otherwise? Yes. Yes, I can believe game developers could be this stupid.

When the game comes out:

Enjoy our direct connection to google translate, where you always have a to-notch traslation of our Japanese original!

“All your base are belong to us!”

15 years later:

Enjoy our direct connection to google translate, where you always have a to-notch traslation of our Japanese original!

“Your basics can has to our belongings!”

If we accept that games are art, then we should do our best to convince game designers to use actual people to translate the in-game text. Nothing is better than a person (ideally a native speaker) who knows und fully understands the conteext of the language and even may have a good sense of style to hit the nail on the head. A decent native speaking gamer should be better than any translation engine, and maybe games should just have all in-game text accessible to the players, if possible, so they can translate it to languages the developer didn’t even remotely think of.

But! Game developers will do every stupid thing if it’s in their grasp. They would even shoehorn gambling into every single game if they could. They’d just name it like something that sounds more acceptable, like... “mystery box”, “surprise crate”, or something like that. ;)

Does this really exist? O_o
Translating a game with GT is already bad, but why not change the text directly?
Is there some semi-rational reason for such crap job?

Some devs already do that, but most don't want to go that far because A) it takes time and effort and B) it means essentially giving up a bit of control over their own game. They might end up with an excellent fan translation which hopefully will increase popularity and sales (but then again, it might also not make any difference) but they also could end up with a piece of crap that will have the opposite effect. Fan translations might be (almost) cost-free but they're not entirely risk-free.

Agree with that.

I wonder, though, if something can get lost - pardon the pun - in the translation IF a poor translation is intended, say, for a character for whom the language she or he is using is not his or her native tongue. This comes to mind after spending a week with my wife's relatives, of whom few are native English speakers: there was some butchery (I was even worse) but we managed. To represent these conversations properly in a game or other medium, the 'mistakes' should be included. How to accomplish that in a way that makes sense when translated into a third language? No idea whatsoever.

Anyway, hopefully developers are mindful of these things when they hire out for translation services. Maybe a minor point, but if we ARE going to look at some games with an eye toward art then I think those particular games should take that into consideration.
I suppose that's true: hand things over to the internet and expect the best? Haha. Sometimes.

Could make for some cool results, though. Imagine a Star Wars game translated into - blaspemy! - Klingon. ; )

Hmm.. Everything seems to be possible nowdays.

Game of War: Fire Age mobile game seems to use Microsoft and Google to auto-translate player-to-player chats and emails so it's not game scripts/assets but still.
It does use volunteer players to translate messages that auto-translate are unable to translate.

I guess this translation topic is going on in some circles because of that one UnNamed but known publisher in Steam shovels machine translated eroge, people review them Positive even when those are published broken because of MT breaks the script etc and is left to fan patchers to fix.

That's live content though. I believe we're talking about static content or text lines within the game that are know ahead of time.

Like this:

https://github.com/yuzoolcode/pulsecms-languages/blob/master/pulse%204/french.php

Your post reminded me of my experience concerning the translations of the first two books of Cixin Liu's Remembrance of Earth's Past Trilogy. Ken Liu's translation (IMHO) of The Three-Body Problem focused less on linguistic fidelity and more on thematic accuracy; in other words, he went more for keeping with the spirit of the characters, and their context (as he interpreted them, though no doubt he had some input from the author). Joel Martinson OTOH went more for linguistic fidelity (IMHO) with his translation of The Dark Forest.

Again, IMHO Liu's translation was a lot more dynamic and a lot more natural in terms of how the characters spoke and how the descriptions made in natural English. Martinson's translation, however came across to me as being more clunky with syntax and grammar, though it was likely more faithful to Liu's original text. More than once I scratched my head at what a character would say, because a native speaker wouldn't have said it the way it was said in the text.