[ecrea] CFP 'Analog Games and Translation', Special issue of *Analog Game Studies* (2019)

Special Issue of Analog Game Studies
‘Analog Games and Translation’
Guest Editor: Jonathan Evans, University of Portsmouth, UK

Call for Papers
This special issue will analyse translation in and of modern analog 
games, including board games, card games, tabletop role-playing games 
(RPGs) and live action role-playing games (LARPs). Recent decades have 
seen the expansion of the hobby of gaming around the world and gaming is 
now more multinational and multilingual than ever.

Official game production is polycentric, with games being created in 
many languages across multiple locations. Games are regularly officially 
translated from one language to another, at least in major languages. 
The website Drive Thru RPG, for instance, offers games in ten languages. 
In addition to these official translations, there is also a thriving 
amateur translation culture for games, with amateur translations of rule 
sets and other materials appearing for languages where official 
translations have not been produced (and for which an official 
translation might not be profitable). Despite a developing body of work 
on the translation of video games (e.g. O’Hagan and Mangiron 2013, 
Bernal-Merino 2015), there is less research on the translation of analog 
games. The little work there is (e.g. Evans 2013) has focused on the 
translation of rule sets, but there are many other ways in which 
translation is part of gaming.

Translation may be necessary as part of the gaming situation: as gaming 
in an international hobby, gaming groups may include players of 
different native languages, requiring the use of a shared language and 
other forms of language mediation to allow everyone to play together. 
Ad-hoc forms of translation may also be necessary for gamers wanting to 
use rules in other languages (e.g. Chinese gamers playing 
English-language games).

Translation may be a part of the game itself: some games create worlds 
where there is explicit mention of language difference (e.g. Numenera), 
requiring in-game interpreting or translation. Artefacts in other games 
may be in a language that cannot be understood in-game until some action 
is completed. Games therefore dramatize and theorize translation as a 
practice, in ways that might be more or less visible.

A further aspect of translation relates to the question of accessibility 
(as seen in research on accessibility in video games, e.g. Mangiron, 
Orero and O’Hagan 2014): how are analog games made accessible for 
different audiences? As with other aspects of translation, this may be 
implemented by producers in the form of adapted texts and materials, or 
by players through the use of signed languages at the gaming table or 
other means.

Finally, gaming culture is being translated across the world. Game cafés 
are springing up in the UK and China, among other places, and gaming 
websites exist in different languages. How does gaming culture interact 
with local traditions? How does gaming culture spread from one location 
to another?

This special issue welcomes original articles that deal with the 
question of translation (and interpreting) in relation to analog games. 
Any appropriate methodology may be used. The deadline for submission of 
full articles is 1 September 2019. Publication is planned for December 
2019. Articles should be between 2,000 and 9,000 words in length.

If you have any queries, would like a copy of the referencing guidelines 
or would like to submit an article, please contact the guest editor at 
(jonathan.evans /at/ port.ac.uk) .
Topics of interest include, but are not limited to:
•	Theoretical aspects of game translation
•	Historical case studies (e.g. Dungeons and Dragons in different languages)
•	Amateur translation as part of gaming culture
•	The role of digital platforms in facilitating game translation
•	Translation at the table: ad hoc translanguaging as part of game play
•	Sight translation of rules and the dissemination of games
•	In-game translation and interpreting
•	Multilingual gaming groups and translation/interpreting
•	Translation and accessibility in relation to analog games
•	The translation of gaming culture

References:
Bernal-Merino, Miguel (2015) Translation and Localisation in Videogames: 
Making Entertainment Software Global. Abingdon, Routledge.
Evans, Jonathan (2013) ‘Translating board games: multimodality and 
play’, Journal of Specialised Translation, 20, 15-32.
Mangiron, Carmen, Pilar Orero and Minako O’Hagan (eds) (2014) Fun for 
all: Translation and Accessibility Practices in Video Games. Bern, Lang.
O’Hagan, Minako, and Carmen Mangiron (2013) Game Localization: 
Translating for the Global Digital Entertainment Industry. Amsterdam, 
Benjamins.


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