In order to convey how game localization involves a broad range of sometimes radical adaptive strategies, we previously borrowed the concept of "transcreation" "to explain the freedom granted to the translator, albeit within severe space limitations" in earlier studies (Mangiron and O'Hagan 2006, 11). In them we stressed the creativity and freedom that game translators exercise. We observed that such creativity indeed seemed to be promoted rather than diminished, at least in some cases, even by the very constraints of various kinds imposed on the translators. However, the use of the term "transcreation" in the context of game localization calls for clarification, especially given its historical origins and more recent revival mainly in the context of translation for advertising (Ortiz-Sotomayor 2007). In particular, Bernal-Merino (2006, 32-33) observes how the term "transcreation" has come to be used by "a new wave of companies seeking to distance themselves from traditional translation firms".

The original concept of "transcreation" as discussed in Translation Studies can be traced to India and Brazil. While our main focus is Brazilian contexts, a brief reference to the concept's dual origin in India is warranted. It was Post-colonial Translation: Theory and Practice (1999) edited by Susan Bassnett and Harish Trivedi, that first brought to light in the Anglophone academic community the Brazilian conceptualization of translation as a "cannibalistic undertaking"

(ibid., 15), including transcreation, and its coincidental dual sources. The Indian tradition of transcreation was described as “symbiotic intermingling of the original with the translation", for example, in reference to the reformation of the scriptural epic Ramayanada originally in Sanskrit brought to vernacular consumption by the Hindi poet Tulsi Das (1532-1623) (Bassnett and Trivedi 1999, 10). Subsequently the concept was revisited by the Indian poet and translator P. Lal (1996), and was further extended by Indian scholars in postcolonial contexts. In this way, the Indian context seems to link transcreation with a didactic goal in one sense. The prevalence and significance of this concept in contemporary India seem evident in the fact that the term "transcreation" was included in a supplement to the Oxford Advanced Learners' Dictionary of Contemporary English (1996) as part of an "Indian English" list of words (cited in Bassnett and Trivedi 1999, 10).

In contrast to the Indian developments of transcreation which are likened to the lifecycle of a banyan tree as "a natural process of organic, ramifying, vegetative growth and renewal", the Brazilian take is linked more to bloodthirsty cannibalism (Bassnett and Trivedi 1999, 10). In the 1960s, the Brazilian poet and translator Haroldo de Campos used the term "transcreation" (transcriação in Portuguese). This emerged in the Brazilian context of constructing “cultural identity through translation and self-translation" (Guldin 2008, 110) in opposition to Western colonial hegemony. According to de Campos, conveyed via Vieira, transcreation is a "radical translation praxis", where translation "visualizes the notion of mimesis not as a theory of copy but as the production of difference in sameness" (de Campos 1981, 183 cited in Vieira 1999, 110). Transcreation was used as a means of advocating a renewal of the concept of "translation" as an act of appropriation, recreation and even as a blood transfusion “that moves translation beyond the dichotomy source/target and cites original and translation in a third dimension, where each is both a donor and a receiver" (Vieira 1999, 97). In this sense, transcreation challenges the concept of "translation" rather than being subsumed by it. As explained by Vieira (ibid., 98), the digestive analogy to the concept of "cannibalism" seems fit, even if de Campos had actually not referred to the concept explicitly, in that “foreign input, far from being denied, is absorbed and transformed, which brings cannibalism and the dialogical principle close together". In other words, the act of translation is seen as a two-way transaction in which, rather than the translator being totally subservient to the ST, his or her agency is privileged, enriching the original text in the process of translation. Transcreation is presented as a mode of translation that “unsettles the single reference, the logocentric tyranny of the original" (de Campos 1997 cited in Vieira 1999, 111) where "translation can be "servitude" and also "freedom" in Vieira's words (ibid.). As we argued in this chapter, game localization, at least in the best case scenario, strives to re-create the player experience in the target version and has emerged as a negotiation between constraints and freedom in a specific manner shaped by the nature of the medium i.e. the software. With the possibility of infinite variability through changes in its software code (Manovich 2001), a game can be transformed in a multitude of ways and different versions created. Furthermore, this involves not only verbal but also nonverbal signs, widening the scope of transcreation beyond words. The application of the concept "transcreation" by Di Giovanni (2008) in highlighting the treatment of visual and verbal elements in contemporary audiovisual texts across distant cultures is therefore relevant here. Her case study addressing Indian films and commercials broadcast in Italy illustrates the limitations of the concept “translation" in representing distant cultures in audiovisual texts. Di Giovanni's concluding remark provides a useful insight for the current discussion of game localization as transcreation, as she suggests:

..the term ‘translation' has proven inadequate to account for processes of transfer where verbal and visual language cannot come apart, as images always determine the semantic content and, ultimately, the perception of words. Shifting from translation to transcreation, verbal language has definitely lost its prominence and words have come together with visual references to form broader cultural units.

                                                                                  (Di Giovanni 2008, 40)