Perhaps one area where the passage of time can be detected in Bassnett and Lefevere's discussion of rewriting (1990, 10) is their focus on "rewritings in the written medium" with the concept's extension to the film genre being presented as "one pole of a future ‘translation/rewriting studies". This is indeed the case with game localization as the production of a multimedia and multimodal product. In particular, in the context of video games as transmedia, for which game localization provides further evidence of a form of "rewriting" in order to create a re-entry point for users to savour a previously known work in a new way in a new media format. Games as transmedia, with an explicit link made between games, literature, cinema, music, or comics, also provides the opportunity for rewriting sometimes canonical works. For example, Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings has been made into several versions of video games, especially following the success of the film trilogy (2001-2003) by Peter Jackson. Apart from the fact that Tolkien's work has always been considered as forming the prototypical basis of RPGs, video games as transmedia are providing game companies with new opportunities for rewriting the canon across different genres and media. However, freedom of adaptation is conditioned by the type of license the game company may obtain. For example, while the game publisher Sierra obtained the book rights to The Lord of the Rings without the rights to the films, EA gained the film rights but missed out initially on the book rights (Deaf Gamers 2011). This situation affected their respective transmedial creations of the games, conditioned by the nature of the rights. Another film tie-in example is the game Watchmen: The End is Nigh (2009). This title was released as a prequel to its film version, which in turn is based on the original graphic novel series. The game's link to comics was made apparent by the use of comic-strip sequences within the game while two playable characters – Rorschach and Nite Owl – were voiced by the same actors who played these protagonists in the film version.
The link between games and films is clearly intensifying, blurring the boundaries between the previously separate entertainment genres. Peter Jackson's King Kong (2005) published by Ubisoft was developed based on Jackson’s film version in collaboration with Jackson, who is also a gamer. His creative contribution to the game design is reported to have further brought the gameplay experience closer to that of cinema, for example, by replacing the health bar typically used in games to display a character's health, with the screen changing to blood-red when a player is attacked (Holson 2005). Considering the ever increasing capacity of video games to immerse players using stories and enhanced game mechanics, facilitated by high-definition graphics and sounds, it can be argued that the avenues for rewriting in the context of transmedia are widening. At the same time, given the already established readership of aficionados with their expectations from the book or film, rewriting in transmedial transactions is always constrained.
These examples demonstrate how game companies can be seen as contributing to a contemporary system of patronage to propagate a new form of entertainment through localization as rewriting, exerting more influence on the distribution of rewritten products. The view of the controlled distribution of games as rewritten artefacts for which translators exercise their agency by way of transcreation facilitates an understanding of the game localization paradigm far more clearly than the ill-defined term "adaptation" can signify.
In summary, we have applied the concept of "rewriting" to game localization while also drawing on the notion of "patronage" to understand the location and the nature of power which influence the localization practice. When treated as a form of rewriting, game localization can be seen as a series of iterations in response to various constraints and forces. The role of powerful game corporations that both protect and dictate game localization practice was considered to effect something akin to the idea of patronage. Above all, our goal was ultimately to further explain and solidify our claim that game localization is a mode of transcreation. Lefevere's (1992, 8) view of the role of rewriters clearly highlights the fact that they rewrite "to make [the originals] fit in with the dominant, or one of the dominant ideological and poetological currents of their time" and ultimately rewriting "manipulates, and it is effective" (ibid., 9). Given the complex nature of game products themselves, which are in turn positioned within the specific structure of a dynamic game industry, transcreation cannot be fully understood without acknowledging the wider environment within which games are localized by teams of specialists working under specific constraints. In the end, it is their collective creation which makes it possible to deliver a sophisticated modern technological and cultural artefact which meets the internal approval of the patron and also the external approval of gamers. In this process, professional norms and expectancy norms may constantly collide and be negotiated before eventually being reshaped. Despite less than ideal conditions imposed by different parties, translators’ contributions are an essential factor behind internationally successful games that engage gamers in diverse geographical locations. Game localization as rewriting highlights the translator's active role in finding innovative ways to transmit the essence of game play experience from one culture to another.
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