Ted Woolsey

Ted Woolsey
Occupation Translator, video game producer
Years active 1991–present
Notable work Final Fantasy VI, Secret of Mana, Super Mario RPG, Chrono Trigger

Ted Woolsey is an American video game translator and producer. He had the primary role in the North American production and localization of Square's role-playing video games released for the Super NES between 1991 and 1996.

Biography

Although born in America, Woolsey spent five years living and studying in Japan as a young adult. He received a Bachelor of Arts degree in English literature at University of California, Santa Barbara and spent time as a graduate student at the University of Washington where he completed a master's degree in Japanese literature.[1][2] He joined Square's American office in Redmond, Washington shortly thereafter in 1991.[3] At the time, Final Fantasy IV had just been released in the United States (under the title Final Fantasy II) and did not sell according to their expectations.[4] Woolsey's first project with Square was the translation of Final Fantasy Legend III and the company asked him to review and avoid the mistakes found in Final Fantasy II's messy translation.[5] Other titles he worked on included Final Fantasy Mystic Quest, Secret of Mana, Capcom's Breath of Fire, Final Fantasy VI (retitled Final Fantasy III in the United States), and Chrono Trigger.

When Square's offices moved to Los Angeles in 1996, Woolsey decided to stay in Washington, leasing his old employer's office space for his next company, Big Rain. Woolsey's last project with Square was the translation of Super Mario RPG, leaving before the English localization of Final Fantasy VII began.[5] At Big Rain, he served as Vice President of Marketing and Business Development. The company moved to Seattle in 1997 where it was purchased by Crave Entertainment. Woolsey signed on as Vice President of Internal Development and oversaw development of Shadow Madness, a Japanese-inspired role-playing game.[3][5] Upon its release in 1999, Shadow Madness sold poorly and Woolsey left the company to join RealNetworks as the Director of Business Development. As director, he managed RealArcade, the network's online gaming client.[3] Between 2000 and 2004, he worked on the distribution of the service to game publishers and internet service providers, and helped launch RealArcade in Japan.[5]

Woolsey moved to Microsoft Studios in 2007 where he was Senior Director of First Party Publishing for the Xbox Live Arcade service.[6] In this role, he brought games such as Limbo, Killer Instinct, and Ori and the Blind Forest to Xbox platforms. He became General Manager of Undead Labs in 2015 after acting as liaison between Microsoft and that team for four years to bring State of Decay to market.[7]

Works

Title Year[lower-alpha 1] Platform(s) Notes[lower-alpha 2]
Final Fantasy Mystic Quest 1992 Super NES
Final Fantasy Legend III 1993 Game Boy
Secret of Mana 1993 Super NES
Breath of Fire 1994 Super NES
Final Fantasy III 1994 Super NES
Chrono Trigger 1995 Super NES
Secret of Evermore 1995 Super NES Marketing
Super Mario RPG 1996 Super NES
Shadow Madness 1999 PlayStation Producer
  1. ↑ Sorted by year of English language release
  2. ↑ Credited as translator or localization specialist unless noted

See also

References

  1. ↑ https://asian.washington.edu/people/ted-woolsey
  2. ↑ Vestal, Andrew (April 29, 1999). "Interview with Ted Woolsey". The GIA. Retrieved 2016-03-09.
  3. 1 2 3 IGDA Online Games Committee (2002). "IGDA Online Games White Paper" (PDF). IGDA.com. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2007-09-29. Retrieved 2007-09-12.
  4. ↑ http://www.hardcoregaming101.net/localization/localization.htm
  5. 1 2 3 4 Cifaldi, Frank (August 29, 2005). "Playing Catch-Up: Ted Woolsey". Gamasutra.com. Retrieved 2007-09-12.
  6. ↑ DirtyDiva (2008-09-24). "Gamerscore Blog : XBLA - Want More? Got More!". Gamerscoreblog. Microsoft. Archived from the original on 2009-04-28. Retrieved 2008-10-06.
  7. ↑ http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2015-06-24-undead-labs-hires-new-gm
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