1. General information about the project and the game content
Developers may provide information such as specific translation instructions, the list of assets to be translated, internal deadlines for the project (i.e. the start and completion dates for the translation of the different assets; the date when the review process should start; etc.), the name of the contact person in the developer's or publisher's company, and information about the software and tools required to perform the job.
Information about the game may include a general description of the storyline and the characters, as well as the walkthrough – a detailed guide to all the steps needed to advance in the game and the different levels required to complete it. It may also include cheats containing all the data, codes, and tricks necessary to successfully complete different trials and overcome obstacles in the game.
2. Reference materials
Where possible, publishers also provide localization vendors with glossaries of the terminology used in the game and the terminology and standards specific to the platform or platforms for which the game is going to be published. While Sony and Nintendo's terminology is not publicly available, Microsoft terminology for the Xbox is available on the Microsoft Language Portal, on their terminology database.
3. Software programs and computer-aided translation (CAT) tools
If the translation of the game requires the use of specific tools designed by the developer, these tools will be provided to the localization vendor (for more details, see the last section in this chapter).
4. Code
If the localization vendor is responsible for the integration of the game, with localized assets integrated back into the main body of the game, developers will provide the source code necessary to integrate the localized versions of the game and all the setup files necessary to run them.
5. Assets to translate
These assets comprise all the text files, graphics, script, songs, etc. that need to be localized, as will be explained later.
Despite a generally increased awareness among developers of the need to provide contexts in the translation process, smaller and less experienced developers often do not provide much information about the game and simply submit the script and a series of Excel files with text strings and without any contextual information. This makes the translator's task extremely difficult and is likely to lead to a high number of errors in localized versions, especially when different translators are assigned to different parts of a game, do not have access to the other files, and cannot consult with one another. Responding to the question of the main challenges in game localization, the game translator Alexander O. Smith, who is well known for his role as a translator for the North American versions of the J-RPG Final Fantasy (FF) series, confirms that "insufficient source material, or source material that is presented in a confusing way" can create difficulties and "can do much to affect the quality of a localization" (cited in Jayemanne 2009, n.p.).
While blind localization is the most common modus operandi in the outsourcing model, more recently some clients also supply a playable debug ROM to localization vendors, owing to increasing awareness by developers and publishers of the importance of context in game localization.
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