I've been quiet on this subject due to certain work politics that I won't go into, but I will just say regarding the recent hubbub about holding translation agencies and developers/publishers accountable when it comes to properly crediting fellow freelance translators and other people in localization, thanks to all of you out there who are helping my colleagues get properly heard so that our grievances are actually taken seriously and don't stay within our circles, never to be rectified. While I'm one of the luckier ones to be generally credited in the bigger releases I'm involved in (or at least allowed to disclose my involvement), it's an issue that's been endemic for a very, very long time in this line of work and I'm going to be frank with you all, it made me emotional to see it finally getting attention in big outlets like Eurogamer and Game Developer. There are very few of us with much social media reach and/or media contacts and sometimes it's been hard to feel confident whether these issues would ever properly get noticed when we're talking about one of the lesser understood parts of the industry in general. We just plain don't come to mind as readily for most people when it comes to labor issues in video games like, say, QA and voice acting deservedly have in recent years.
But it is genuinely making a difference, and not just with the game that was most recently at the center of all that talk. Again, I'd rather not name names and go into specifics due to professional considerations, but I will say that I myself am beginning to see this inspire more widespread accountability behind the scenes, even at places that aren't currently in the line of fire. It gives me renewed hope that my own crediting negotiations will be more consistently fruitful moving forward, which is a level of optimism that can frankly be hard to maintain this many years on the job.
Either way, please keep holding people's feet to the fire when my colleagues who have been wronged are brave enough to step forward and share their stories. This is not an issue that's going to be resolved over just one or two outcries. There are so many more people than you realize who feel stuck and don't feel safe to raise a ruckus in public no matter how much they might be in the right. I myself am only in the position I'm in now in large part because one particular PM stuck their neck out for me to ensure I got my credits on early projects when it really counted in my early years. It shouldn't take that sort of luck and career risk to give every freelance localizer a shot at proper recognition and career advancement and, quite frankly, we can't do it alone. Please, please keep amplifying those voices and make sure those developers, publishers, and especially those translation agencies know that our work, our insight, and our creativity aren't just a commodity to be anonymized for their own often cynical commercial ends.
