English fan translation of video games

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Fan translation being done from English into Finnish for the game, Tales of Phantasia, using the Japanese language version as reference.

Fan translation of video games refers to an unofficial translation of a computer game or video game, sometimes into a language that it was never marketed in.

The fan translation practice grew with the rise of video game console emulation in the late 1990s. A community of people developed that were interested in replaying and modifying the games they played in their youth. The knowledge and tools that came out of this community allowed them to work with translators to localize titles that had never been available outside of their original country of origin.

Fan translations of video game console games are usually accomplished by modifying a single binary ROM image of the game. Fan translations of PC games, on the other hand, can involve translation of many binary files throughout the game's directory. In dealing with translations of console games, a console emulator is generally utilized to play the final product, although game copiers or similar devices can be used to run the translated ROM image on its native hardware. The central focus of the fan translation community is historically of Japanese-exclusive computer and video games being made playable in English for the first time, and sometimes of games recently released in Japan that are import-worthy and are unlikely to be officially localized to English speaking countries. It has since expanded to include other languages as well. Fan translations to English have provided a starting point for translations to many other languages.

The fan translation community was at its most popular, and attracted the most media attention, when certain popular game titles were still being worked on. These were usually parts of popular series such as Square Enix's Final Fantasy. Some consider the peak was reached with the translation of Seiken Densetsu 3, a title that was highly desirable to RPG players and also very difficult to translate on a technical basis.

[edit] Origins

The earliest fan translations were done by Oasis, a group formed by Dennis Lardenoye and Ron Bouwland, two Dutch fans of the MSX system. Konami’s RPG SD Snatcher was translated in April 1993, and The Legend of Heroes was translated in 1995. Their other projects include Fray, Rune Master 3, Xak - The Art of Visual Stage, Xak 2, Xak - The Tower of Gazzel, Ys, Ys II: The Final Chapter and Wanderers From Ys.

These were possible before emulation on PCs became popular (or even adequate enough to play games) because the games were on floppy disks, and were therefore easier to distribute to the users, in comparison to ROM cartridges used by video game consoles (the MSX also used cartridges, but methods were discovered to copy the content onto floppy disks and other media too).

[edit] Revival after emulation

RPGe’s translation of Final Fantasy V was one of the early major fan-translated works. Original Japanese is on the left; RPGe's translation is on the right.

The development of console emulators led to access to foreign video games. A revival began in 1996 when a group calling themselves Kowasu Ku formed under the lead of one "Hazama". The group stated plans to translate Final Fantasy V, but their efforts were never publically released. Later that summer, a user called Demi announced work on a Final Fantasy V translation and founded Multiple Demiforce. It was eventually dropped in favor of Final Fantasy II (NES), a more manageable goal at that time. Demi and Som2Freak used Pasofami to post four screenshots of their work to Archaic Ruins, an emulation website. Shortly after, the translation stalled and the group disbanded.

Derrick Sobodash and David Timko both saw the Archaic Ruins website and contacted Som2Freak expressing interest in translating Final Fantasy V. He provided each with some primitive tools, and for the next few months, Shadow and Timko worked against each other. Both projects generated renewed interest in fan translation.

After months of working against each other, Shadow and Timko began cooperating.^[1] RPGe, the first major translation group was established on July 8 in the #ff5e IRC channel, on the EsperNet IRC network by Shadow, Timko, Hooie and Thermopyle.^[2] The start of RPGe sparked many other efforts to unify and within months, Translation Corporation, DeJap Translations and Starsoft Translations had formed.

RPGe's translation of Final Fantasy V was completed October 16, 1997 (version 0.96).^[3]

[edit] Community hubs

The first hub of the fan translation community was The ROM Hack Board, hosted by Demi on Frognet. The board began in fall of 1996 operating on the Matt's WWWBOARD script. It reappeared later in 1997.

Early community news was posted to emulation websites such as EMU News Service, now archived by ClassicGaming.^[4] It wasn't until July 8, 1998 that Cataclysm-X, Jason Li and WildBill opened RPG Dimension (also known as RPGd), a site dedicated to reporting fan translation news as well as releases of general ROM hacking tutorials and utilities.^[5]

RPG Dimension met competition on March 31, 2000 when Spinner 8 and (wraith) opened The Whirlpool, a rival news site focusing exclusively on fan translations. The former met a slow death over the next two years as staff lost more and more interest in updates. The Whirlpool eventually closed on October 4, 2005 following from a dispute between the site's founders, though site owner (wraith) assured users he was working on another project to supersede the old site. Updates ceased by December 27.^[6]

The English fan translation community is currently centered at ROM Hacking.net.^[7]

[edit] Legal issues

While unauthorized fan translations are indisputably illegal (Article 8 of the Berne Convention explicitly reserves the right of translation to the copyright holder and whoever receives permission of them, saying "Authors of literary and artistic works protected by this Convention shall enjoy the exclusive right of making and of authorizing the translation of their works throughout the term of protection of their rights in the original works."), it is unusual for copyright holders to object. This is probably largely because the electronic games in question are generally not considered commercially viable in the target language, so the translation is rarely seen as a source of lost revenue.

However, in 1999, one well-known incident in which copyright holders took action involved the translation of a Windows game maker called RPG Maker 95. The Japanese company ASCII had their lawyers send a cease and desist e-mail to the translation group KanjiHack Translations. The group shut down immediately but others eventually finished the project. Titles from the RPG Maker series were eventually localized and officially released in the US for the PlayStation and PlayStation 2.

A popular belief in the fan translation community is that distributing only a binary patch, which must be applied to the full, original game, is legal. The reasoning is that the patch only contains the new data and directives for where it is to be placed, and does not have the original copyrighted material included in any form, and therefore it is useless unless the user applies it to a (copyrighted) ROM, the acquisition and legality of which they are left completely accountable for. This belief, while untested in court, is probably not supported by international copyright law, but this anti-software piracy attitude by the fan translation community may have convinced copyright holders to, by and large, turn a blind eye.

There have never been any legal cases involving fan translation issues, and such projects have been relatively widespread over the Internet for years. In recent years, anime fansubbers have started to attract the attention of some American anime distributors; and as of 2004 one manga scanlator has been handed a cease and desist by a Japanese company, but most of this attention has been restricted to polite entreaties asking fan translators to refrain from dealing with licensed material.

[edit] Game company acknowledgments

On July 12, 2007, RPGamer released an interview they did with Koichiro Sakamoto, a game producer from Square Enix, acknowledging fan translations: "On a similar note, we told Mr. Sakamoto that a fan translation had been done some years ago for Front Mission 1, and asked how he felt about such efforts. The producer replied that he actually found them very encouraging -- it's something the developers should be doing, but because they're not, the fans are doing it instead. He stated that he'd like to be able to give something back to the fans, and would like to thank personally each of the fans that worked on the translation."^[8]

[edit] Popular complete translations

[edit] Popular incomplete translations

[edit] Notes

1. ^ EMU News Service (June '97) David Timko and Shadow Join Forces for FFV Translation!
2. ^ EMU News Service (July '97) New SNES Translation Group Formed
3. ^ EMU News Service (October '97) Final Fantasy 5
4. ^ EMU News Service closed paged
5. ^ RPG Dimension
6. ^ The Whirlpool's final update
7. ^ ROM Hacking.net
8. ^ RPGamer E3 - Front Mission Interview

[edit] See also

• Cavespeak
• Console emulator
• Reverse engineering
• ROM hacking
• Variable width font
• Game localisation