I’m Alain Dellepiane and I manage a localization team that translates videogames from English to Italian. We have worked on several titles in the past, some credited, most not. This is our website.
So you’re an agency? No, we’re a team of freelancers. Until about four years ago I was a single freelancer, constantly involved in ad-hoc teams chosen by the clients. Without a clear hierarchy or a shared vision, it started to feel like conveyor-belt work, so I decided to build my own team.
So you’re outsourcing? Yes and no. Yes, because I invoice the whole project to the client, then pay each team member for the parts they cover. No because there is no project management fee or markup. Translators translate, I review everything. For each euro paid by the clients, 77 cents go to the translator, 23 cents go to the reviewer. We’re a team.
What languages do you cover? English to Italian only. I’m Italian and that’s the only language I can revise. If I dealt with other languages, I would be just buying and selling translations. That’s agency work and I prefer to leave it to specialists.
Do you offer revision? I’m afraid not. Revision is maddening. You must be prosecutor, defendant and judge at the same time. Edit too much and they will see you as scheming and annoying, too little and you are lazy and unreliable. All the while, you run the risk of sinking your day into fixing machine (and machine-like) translations or discussing details with a touchy translator. In my experience, revision should be charged more than translation to make business sense, so the simple answer is no.
How do you pronounce GLOC? It’s Gee-Lock. I chose GLOC because it stood for Game Localization, it echoed the old Sega title G-LOC and it could even become Genius Loci (“the protective spirit of a place”) should we want to go even more nerdy… I honestly didn’t think about the Glock pistol at the time but I don’t really mind either.
Why are you writing this blog? Vanity, of course, but it’s also for the team, When I worked alone, I often acted out of gut feeling. Isolating little bits of that experience and writing them down every fortnight is a little discipline that allows me to rationalize those processes and share them with the team. When I decided to start the blog I committed to being more or less open.
What does “open” mean? Many translators don’t like to talk about their work, tools and strategies. I think it’s a pity. This is a new job, with many dedicated professional but also many fly-by-night operations. Sharing information and building common standards would allow us to raise the bar, easing collaboration and improving our profiles. Nothing would make me more happy than seeing the rise of other game localization teams based on the information we shared here and during the Localization World conference.
