What do gamers look at in a localized game?

Eye-tracking analysis of three language versions of Shadow of the Tomb Raider

Abstract

Both the process of creating new language versions of video games and eye-tracking methodology became a part of international translation studies discourse at the turn of the 21st century. The present paper discusses an experiment which utilized eye tracking to juxtapose the perception of the original English version of an action-adventure game Shadow of the Tomb Raider (Eidos-Montréal: 2018) with the perception of its partial and full localization into Polish. The study involved 39 BA and MA students of applied linguistics, Polish native speakers, with vast and very vast experience with video games, who differed from one another in the levels of translation experience and formal university translation training. The eye-tracking analysis found no considerable difference in the character of gaze patterns for the subtitles used in the three language versions, although the highest values of eye-tracking parameters were observed for the full English language version. While playing, the participants devoted much more visual attention to the imagery of the game than to dialogue subtitles, overlays or auxiliary screens. In all versions, the dialogue subtitles were read more intensively for cutscenes than for in-game conversations and active gameplay. For BA program and between the BA and MA programs, some positive connection was noticed between the grade of university training and the levels of eye tracing parameters.