Advancing Game Translation User Research (GTUR)

Special issue: Advancing Game Translation User Research (GTUR)

The special issue focuses on video game translation from the vantage point of video game users. Topics to be explored centre on the role that translation (in the broad sense, importantly including accessibility services) has in how games are experienced. Experience is then understood as a conglomerate construct and can be investigated in players as well as other users of games, notably encompassing viewers of gameplay.

Below is a non-exhaustive selection of topics that contributors to the special issue might be interested in:  

• facets of user experience, e.g. immersion, playability, comprehension, cognitive load, emotions, satisfaction.
• diversity of user profiles, e.g. in terms of gaming motivation, age, gender, accessibility needs, language proficiency, nationality/cultural background, personality.
• elements/dimensions of games in translation examined from the perspective of the user, e.g. the choice and availability of mode (dubbing/voiceover/subtitling/audio description), language varieties, humour, cultural-embeddedness, translation profile (official vs. unofficial/non-professional/fan translation), multimodality and communication layers (e.g. paratexts, game textures, controller vibration).
• methodologies for research into translated video game users and how they react; affordances and limitations of e.g. psychometric scales, questionnaires, statistical evaluation of metadata (user analytics), interviews, eye-tracking, screen recording, keylogging.
• industry-academia collaborative efforts for understanding how translated games are experienced, players focus groups with dev/pub companies, or loc. agencies.
• video game translation quality and user experience measuring semiotic layers (text, voiceover, graphics, haptics…) of localisation quality.
• levels of interactivity, e.g. user experience of playing a game vs. viewing streamed gameplay, impact on playability of translated games from a pragmatic perspective.

You can submit manuscripts of up to 7000 words in English to krzysztof.hejduk@edu.uni.lodz.pl. If your paper includes figures (images, screenshots, etc.), please submit those in high resolution as separate graphic files.

This special issue is enthusiastically guest-edited by:

Miguel Á. Bernal-Merino

Krzysztof W. Hejduk

Mikołaj Deckert

 

Some references to get you started:

Bernal-Merino, M.Á. (2016). Creating Felicitous Gaming Experiences: Semiotics and Pragmatics as Tools for Video Game Localisation. Signata, 7(1), 231–253. https://doi.org/gmzm38

Bernal-Merino, M.Á. (2020). Key Concepts in Game Localisation Quality. In: Bogucki, Ł., & Deckert, M. (eds). The Palgrave Handbook of Audiovisual Translation and Media Accessibility. Palgrave Macmillan.

Jiménez-Crespo, M.A. (2024). Localization in Translation. Routledge. https://doi.org/nvqv

Deckert, M., & Hejduk, K.W. (Eds.). (2024). User-Centric Studies in Game Translation and Accessibility. Routledge.

Deckert, M., Hejduk, K.W. and Bernal-Merino, M.Á. (2024). Towards Game Translation User Research. Cambridge University Press.

Drachen, A., Mirza-Babaei, P., & Nacke, L. E. (Eds.). (2018). Game User Research. Oxford University Press.

Fernández-Costales, A. (2016). Analyzing Players’ Perceptions on the Translation of Video Games: Assessing the Tension between the Local and the Global Concerning Language use. In: Esser, A., Bernal-Merino, M.Á., & Smith, I.R. (eds.). Media Across Borders: Localizing TV, Film, and Video Games. Routledge.

Mangiron, C. (2018). Game on! Burning issues in game localisation. Journal of Audiovisual Translation, 1(1), 122–138. https://doi.org/gjs4sb

O’Hagan, M. (2009). Towards a cross-cultural game design: an explorative study in understanding the player experience of a localised Japanese video game. The Journal of Specialised Translation, 11, 211–233. https://jostrans.soap2.ch/issue11/art_ohagan.php

Suojanen, T., Koskinen, K., Tuominen, T. (2015), User-centered Translation. Routledge.

 

Important dates:

• manuscript submission: by 1 August 2025
• reviewer feedback and editorial decision: by 1 October 2025
• revised manuscript submission: by 31 October 2025
• publication: December 2025