In their influential volume Translation, History and Culture Susan Bassnett and André Lefevere (1990) made it plain that translation is best considered against a complex backdrop of "power and manipulation" (ibid., 12). In introducing a major shift in approaching translation from the earlier linguistic-orientation to one which stresses culture, they used the concept of translation as "rewriting" in reference to the literary system:
‘Translation’ ... is one of the many forms in which works of literature are ‘rewritten, one of many ‘rewritings. In our day and age, these ‘rewritings' are at least as influential in ensuring the survival of a work of literature as the originals ... One might even take the next step and say that if a work is not ‘rewritten' in one way or another, it is not likely to survive its publication date by all that many years, or even months. Needless to say, this state of affairs invests a non-negligible power in the rewriters: translators.….
(Bassnett and Lefevere 1990, 10)
The above statement made over two decades ago is still applicable to today's technologized and globalized world, where we can replace the word "rewriting" with "localization" and "literature" with "digital entertainment media". The concept of "rewriting" can be useful to shed light on game localization by highlighting the significance of culture, power, and manipulation. Lefevere (1992, 2) discussed how those who are in a position of power can influence the literary system and can therefore "rewrite" literature. In particular, he acknowledged translation as a significant type of rewriting with considerable influence on readers. In proposing the concept, Lefevere's main concern was about the “general reception and survival of works of literature among non-professional readers" (ibid., 1), by which he meant “the majority of readers in contemporary societies" (ibid., 6). Modern video games and their localized versions may today reach tens of millions of recipients, as demonstrated by recent examples such as the Call of Duty franchise (see Prologue) or the success of the casual game Angry Birds (2009). The impact of games is indeed spreading among heterogeneous groups of players world-wide, supporting the view that game localization is a significant and influential contemporary mode of rewriting, exposed to a sizable and wide ranging globalaudience.
Furthermore, just as rewritings are considered to be "produced in the service, or under the constraints, of certain ideological and/or poetological currents (Lefevere 1992, 5), game localization is indeed subject to various constraints, including ideological issues sometimes coming from the public and sometimes from the game industry, while the current “poetology" can be seen to exert an influence on the basis of game genre and type of narrative. Even though the "popular" nature of the game products may mask the concern of poetology (loosely defined by Lefevere [ibid.] as "dominant concept of what literature should be"), the fact that narrative-oriented AAA games tell a complex story sometimes in excess of 100 hours of playtime exposed to tens of millions of players suggests that it is not trivial. This in turn has raised awareness among some game companies of the need for professional writing standards, not only in the original games but also in their localized versions (Gamasutra Podcast 2006). This has led to an additional specific editing process often carried out by professional writers, over and above the translation process itself. This seems to suggest that such writers are applying and expected to apply the "poetics dominant in the receiving literature" (Lefevere 1992, 41) relevant to the particular game, as well as the narrative genre conventions. While the fact that games are also technological objects adds further new twists and challenges to the concept of“rewriting" as elaborated by Lefevere (1992), we argue that the concept is still highly relevant to this relatively recent translation practice serving the contemporary interactive digital entertainment industry.
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