Pentiment Will Update Credits, But Game Workers Deserve More

It all started when game designer Hayden Scott-Baron noticed that Pentiment made no mention of localizers—developers who translate game text, themes, assets, and cultural and legal differences to fit another language. It's hard, important work, and the localization and translation teams deserve credit.

"We haven't forgotten them." Pentiment Director Josh Sawyer replied: “But thank you for noticing that they are not there. We requested lists of translator names for all languages ​​from our partners and did not receive them prior to launch. We have requested again and will add them as soon as we receive them.”

Following Sawyer's response, we have reached out to Obsidian for a full response and will update this article if we receive one.

In a related thread, there are many frustrated video game localizers and translators, grateful for Josh's response—which, as one of them says, "almost never happens"—but also sharing anecdotes that show a recurring problem in this area of ​​game development.

To better understand how the lack of proper accreditation can affect individual developers in the long run, we spoke with native Spanish speaker and English-to-Spanish video game translator Tamara Morales. Morales didn't work on Pentiment, but her problems aren't unique or new.

“If you're not listed, you don't have a portfolio and no way to show what games you've translated or proofread,” Morales says. "It's as if you have no proof that you worked on the game... Unfortunately, developers and agencies only seem to respond to bad press."

These agencies often partner with developers such as Obsidian who require external expertise to ensure translation and localization is done to a high standard. But they can also have strange and restrictive policies for their employees.

“There are some agencies whose policy is not to lend to us,” Morales said. “And there are times when only the agency [itself] is accredited: Tunic, Artful Escape, Stray, The Gunk.”

Some localizers and translators are actually mentioned in the credits above, for example if they work for the developer of the first batch, but those who work for the agencies that localized these games do not have their names in the credits.

It is not always the case that a particular studio decides not to lend to individual localizers on purpose. Perhaps this is due to the agency contract or, in the case of Pentiment, very bad timing and lack of urgency on the part of the partners.

If what Sawyer tweeted about "partners" can be taken at face value, he says several partners didn't send his studio lists of localizers working on Pentiment in time for launch. It goes without saying that this should be common practice. You want to see your name on a game, movie, or TV show the day it comes out, not after.

“Now there is pressure from both sides (translators/actors),” Morales tells us. “But the same thing happened with [another Obsidian release], Grounded. I don’t know if they used the same agency, but there were no loans either.”

Grounded, which was recently fully launched after some time in Early Access, highlights another problem with the lack of proper accreditation of localizers: the exclusion of workers from MobyGames.

MobyGames, a video game database site, contains complete credits lists for thousands of games, making it an easy way for the industry to check who worked on specific games, as well as the work of specific developers over their lifetimes. As you can imagine, it's a lot easier than scrolling through the credits on YouTube every time you want to know who worked on what.

The problem is that MobyGames doesn't always update its titles when the titles of the game itself are updated, as was the case with Grounded and possibly Pentiment.

“Unfortunately, excluding amounts is the same as forgetting.” Scott-Baron responds to Sawyer on Twitter. “Credit patches exclude workers from MobyGames. For example, there are no translators listed here for Grounded.”

So while adding localizers and translators after the fact is better than never adding them at all, it's usually too little, too late. Instead, developers and agencies should work together to ensure that the game has a full list of credits on launch day, not only to properly honor their workers for their efforts, but also to ensure that hard work and talent are more easily recognized, which helps create better games in the long run.