Localization strategies and their impact on gaming community identity
This article examines the translation of in-game terminology in English-to-Russian game localization, with particular focus on the sociolinguistic consequences of translation strategy selection for gaming community identity. The relevance of the topic is driven by the rapid global expansion of the video game industry and the formation of a stable English-based gaming sociolect that frequently conflicts with officially localized equivalents. The novelty of the approach lies in the application of an integrated theoretical framework – combining Vinay and Darbelnet’s translation strategy typology, O’Hagan and Mangiron’s concept of transcreation, Tajfel’s social identity theory, Lave and Wenger's Communities of Practice model, and discourse theory by Michel Foucault – to the Russian localization of Resident Evil 4: Remake (Capcom, 2023). The analysis identifies four categories of translation difficulty: loss of character-specific idiolect markers, register distortion, untranslatable wordplay, and terminological inconsistency. It is concluded that domesticating translation strategies, while ensuring surface-level fluency, may undermine the discursive coherence of gaming communities and erode the identity-bearing subcultural language.
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