LET THE GAME BEGIN: ERGODIC AS AN APPROACH FOR VIDEO GAME TRANSLATION

This paper attempts to propose ergodic as an approach for video game translation. The word approach here refers to an approach for translation products and to an approach for the translation process. The steps to formulate ergodic as an approach are first, Aarseth’sergodic literature is reviewed to elicit a basis for comprehension toward its relationship with video games and video game translation Secondly, taking the translation of Electronic Arts’Need for Speed: Own the City, Midway’s Mortal Kombat: Unchained, and Konami’s Metal Gear Solid, ergodic based approach for video game translation is formulated. The formulation signifies that ergodic, as an approach for video game translation, revolves around the treatment of video games as a cybertext from which scriptons, textons, and traversal functions as the configurative mechanism influence the selection of translation strategies and the transferability of variables and traversal function, game aesthetics, and ludus and narrative of the games. The challenges countered when treating video games as a cybertext are the necessities for the translators to convey anamorphosis, mechanical and narrative hidden meaning of the analyzed frame, to consider the textonomy of the games, and at the same time to concern on GILT (Globalization, Internationalization, Localization, and Translation).


INTRODUCTION
Approaches designed for video game translation revolve either around ludological and narratological perspectives, or the combination of both as formulated by Esselink (2000), by Mangiron and O'Hagan's transcreation (2006), by Bernal-Merino (2009) and by Costales (2012).
Either approaches applied, they share, though they do not state it explicitly, similar perspectives in the way that they treat video games as a cybertext, as an ergodic literature.
Ergodic derives from Greek words ergon which means work and hodos which means path (Aarseth, 1997) from which ergodic literature, a type of literature requiring nontrivial efforts to allow the reader to traverse the text (1997), emerges and from which type of discourse whose signs emerges a path produced by a non-trivial element of work like I Ching, hypertext, interactive media, computer games, automated poetry generators, and Multiuser Discourse (MUD's) (Aarseth in Rush, 2005).From the aforementioned etymological meaning and definition, ergodic denotes indexical, benefactive, and configurative relationships.Indexical relationship emerges, for instance, when video games, the focus of this article, hints the players to solve some puzzles or presents the players some tutorials to solve the puzzles.It implies that when the players solve the puzzles either from hints or tutorials, contiguity and factoriality, part/whole relationships (Trifonas, 2015), are eminent.This indexical relationship is selected based on benefactive function from which benefactive relationship between the games and the players in the embodiment of winning or losing surfaces.
The choices to solve the puzzles as implied by indexical relationship and the selection toward the choices as signified by benefactive relationship are mechanized through the employment of configurative relationship.When the players, for instance, decides to take the hint as a resolve for their puzzles, they automatically and axiomatically proceed to perform configuration upon the games in the manner of procedurality, to respond to the mechanics of the game (Bogost, 2007), or of instrumentality, to exercise procedure-free responses (Sicart, 2011).This ergodict triangular relationship is embodied through scriptons, textons, and traversal functions.
Scriptons are strings appearing to the readers, textons as existing in the text, and traversal functions are the mechanism by which scriptons are revealed or generated from textons and presented to the user of the text (Aarseth, 1997).The strings mentioned in the definition refer to linguistic units delivered by programming language.The connection between scriptons, textons, and traversal function with the aforementioned triangular relationship is illustrated as follow: Players, when immersing into the games, focus on the scriptons displayed through the existence of textons previously designed by the developers.The different focus the players and the developers have trigger different initiation from the triangular relationship.The players experience indexical relationship, first, before they engage in the configurative one.In the phase of configurative relationship, the players respond the game world through the avatars they are playing by mechanically executing either procedural or instrumental configuration.This actions by the players defining the configurative relationship are what Rush terms as ergodic-direct (2005) from which ergodic-represented, the result of the user action (2005), emanates to evoke a benefactive relationship.This relationship is eventually evoked to the players in the visual representation of winning and losing.A different causal flow occurs on the developer side.On the developer perspectives, the focus is directed to the textons to which the developers compute programming language from which linguistic units are blended.
Through the textons transcribed into the scriptons, the developers attempt to deliver indexical relationship to the players.The designed textons and scriptons, in game for instance, whether they are in ASCII or Unicode, also contain configurative aspects from which the indexical relationship is constructed via game mechanics.Through this game mechanics, the expectation the designers have on benefactive relationship the players are expected to experience is embodied.
The implication acquired from the aforementioned relations between the triangular relationship and the ergodic variables is that any text appearing from cybertext media generates mechanical impacts.These mechanical impacts are what Frasca highlights as ludology, the science of play, (1999).In the perspectives of video games, ludology attempts to place video games as games not as another form of narrative as what narratologists claim (2007) and video games as rule-based system (Juul, 2005).These claims by ludologists imply that video games are mechanical in nature and thereby any elements video games possess emanate and evoke mechanical impacts to the game worlds, the avatars, and the players from which the ergodic triangular relationship and their connection to scriptons, textons, and traversal functions emerge.This mechanical implication observed from its traversal function is realized into seven variables:

Dynamics
In a static text the scriptons are constant; in a dynamic text the contents of scriptons may change while the number of textons remains fixed (intratextonic dynamics, or ITD), or the number (and content) of textons may vary as well (textonic dynamics, or TTD)

Determinability
This variable concerns the stability of the traversal function; a text is determinate if the adjacent scriptons of every scripton are always the same; if not, the text is indeterminate.

Transiency
If the mere passing of the user's time causes scriptons to appear, the text is transient; if not, it is intransient.

Perspectives
If the text requires the user to play a strategic role as a character in the world described by the text, then the text's perspective is personal; if not, then it is impersonal.

Access
If all scriptons of the text are readily available to the user at all times, then the text is random access (typically the codex); if not, then access is controlled.

Linking
A text may be organized by explicit links for the userto follow, conditional links that can only be followed if certain conditions are met, or by none of these (no links).

User Functions
Besides the interpretative function of the user, which is present in all texts, the use of some texts may be described in terms of additional functions: the explorative function, in which the user must decide which path to take, and the configurative function, in which scriptons are in part chosen or created by the user.(Aarseth, 1997).Either texts the cybertext is categorized into, they revolve around the indexical, configurative, and benefactive relationships between the games and the players.This ergodic triangular relationship is differently and variedly responded by the players depending on the text types they engage.In the perspectives of video game translation, the focus of analysis revolves around the transferability of the text variables from source language to the target one.Munday (2008) places video game translation as new media requiring new directions in the manner of functionalist approach and thereby by functionalist approach, it indicates that the translation is of specialized translation (Nord, 2006) which requires a special treatment to approach it.This functionality signifies the necessity to treat the product of translation as functional in itself and functional to itself since being functional involves being functional to whom functionality applies and from whom functionality derives.In the perspectives of video games, the to-whom variables, their gaming activities.Meanwhile the from-whom variables refer to the presented problems in the games and the interactions between the players with the games in the scope of HCI (Human-Computer Interaction).It further suggests that in the ergodic perspectives of cyber-text, functionalist approach for video games denotes the significance of ergodic triangular relationship and the ergodic variables from which texts are classified.

Ergodic and the Transferability of Variables and Traversal Function
The focus of implementing ergodic approach in translation studies in the domain of video game translation is to reveal whether variable shifts and shifts on traversal function occur when a text is translated.To reveal the shifts on ergodic variables, mechanical comprehension toward each variable should be considered.In the perspectives of video game translation, the steps taken to approach video game translationare to describe the assets of the video games.Assets range from in-game text, art, audio, cinematics, and printed assets (Chandler (2005) in Mangiron and O'Hagan, 2013).In ergodic-textonomy, the assets have features differentiating each asset from the others.Definite spatiality provides a limited access to the textonomy and thereby the translators have to be selective in applying the linguistics units or images for their translation.In contrast, intratextonic and textonic dynamics enable the translators to access a susceptible amount of space for their translations but due to the existence of complex combination of non-diegetic and diegetic texts, the translators are required to execute a plural performativity, a multi tasking revolving around non-diegetic and diegetic textprocessing.On the other hand, static textonomy requires the translators to do a singular performativity: working on the diegetic s or images.
Therefore, in the perspectives of video game translation, this dynamics is vulnerable to alter and thereby a shift might occur.The above logical string suggests that a configuration from the players will occur procedurally as suggested from the scriptons.The players have to hit the acceleration button to hit over 60 miles an hour to evoke the emergence of the flashing arrow.The absence of a scripton, as pointed out by the string above, signifies the reduction on the completeness of a sequence to make an event happen.This condition is what Rehak terms as suture, a condition by which spectators are 'stitched into' the signifying chain through edits that articulate a plentitude of observed space to an observing character (in Isigan, 2013).In the case of the aforementioned translation, the problem of being 'stitched into' occurs when the translation technique of deletion is applied and thereby ludological observation by the players is assumed to be reduced.

Ergodic and the Transferability of Game Aesthetics
Aesthetics in video games is concerned on the audiovisual style the games employ (Jarvinen, 2002).The styles oscillate around three elements: (1) space/environment (2) different objects, and (3) symbols (Jarvinen, 2002).In the case of Need for Speed Carbon: Own the City translation, the aesthetic element experiencing a shift is on the symbol.The influence of translation techniques is assumed to trigger an impact on the on screen text display of the game.
As perceived from the game screenshots, the text display experiences a technical shift of presentation.
The jumbled structure of the translated versions indicate that the translation focuses mainly on transferring the message by examining the probable space intratextonic dynamics offers.From aesthetics viewpoint, this jumbled structure is assumed to contribute to the shift of game experience knowing that transferring a similar game experience is what game localization (and translation) prioritizes to convey (O'Hagan, 2009).In the case of the dynamics, the flexibility the dynamics offers is not yet considered for aesthetic function of the game as the flexibility itself is still character restricted.This condition is implied by Alexander O'Smith, the translator of various Square Enix's games.He said that there were often strict character limits for UI elements in the English translation, so diving straight into dialog and narrative text could be dangerous when the translators eventually realized none of the UI terms they wanted to use there would actually fit (in Jayemanne, 2009).It implies that the applied translation techniques will, in a direct manner, influence the graph structure of the text in frame.It further suggests also that the  to North American version on the profile of Haggar (Purnomo and Purnama, 2013).The nondiegetic text of the North American version, as seen from the screenshots, is able to visualize more information about the character.This situation indicates that non-diegetic, to some extent, is flexible to be utilized to cover diegetic information.It further suggests that plural performativity of the intratextonic and textonic dynamics is not a hindrance to convey the message intended to deliver.In the perspectives of translation techniques, the above case reflects that the translation technique applied is amplification.In ergodic perspectives, the question is whether the amplification occurs on the information given,on the data used, or both.By the amplification of information refers to the addition of new information not found on the source language.By the amplification of data implies that any texton addition triggers the addition of certain amount of space from which the amount of data inclines.This condition suggests that any selected translation techniques will have any consequence on the inclination of the data usage from which production cost might experience a hike.
Other translation techniques as seen from Figure 4 denote that their relationship with traversal function and game aesthetics still requires a close examination because modulation, adaptation, and literal are not conscientiously observable in the term of character number impact.
In the perspectives of video game translation as a restrictive translation (Mangiron and O'Hagan, 2006), it is assumed that distinctive translation techniques possess spatiality in terms of character number.Description, Amplification, Linguistic Amplification, and Substitution might convey a larger space as they have magnification function in which new information is added for the clarity of meaning.Meanwhile Reduction, Deletion, and Linguistic Compression are assumed to trigger a smaller space as they have simplification function in which the information is reduced, deleted, and compressed.On the other hand, Adaptation, Borrowing, Discursive Creation, Established Equivalent, Literal, Modulation, Calque, Transposition, Variation are paradoxical as they are relative in generating the character number.Departing from this assumption, translation techniques, in video game translation, contribute to any ergodic elements and variables involving character numbers.In the case of game aesthetics, the translation techniques have a role in the shift of game aesthetics.

Ergodic and the Transferability of Ludus and Narrative of Video Games
Ludus, play in English word, owes its fame from Homo Ludens, a term introduced by Huizinga (1944) to refer to men as playful creatures.In the context of video games, ludusis studied by ludology, the science of play (Frasca, 2007), to refer to positioning video games as system of play not as a system of narrative (Juul, 2015) while narratology, the study of narrative (Bal, 2009), remarks that video games are a narrative which takes a different form like movies (Simons, 2007).Due to its position as a game system, ludus revolves aroundthe studies on game The understanding on textonomy and text type contributes to the translation selection strategy from which considerations on the ideologies of anamorphosis and metamorphosis are taken.The following example from might help clarify the statement:The textons from Need for Speed Carbon: Own the City are of intratextonic as the constant textons provide, as indicated by the circle, an opportunity for the scriptons to change though only for three spaced characters.The translators might utilize the opportunity to select the dictions from which anamorphosis ideology could be transferred.The anamorphosis ideology is noticeable from the implication of the frame demanding the players to check the GPS as they speed up exceeding 60 miles an hour.This anamorphosis requires both procedural and instrumental configuration from the players.In the case of the racing game, the players are instructed to preserve their concentration to the track by examining the signal displayed in a flashing arrow.The followings are the translated version of the racing game by two different groups of translation with each group consisting of three members.The three members were taking the roles of translator, editor, and typesetter.The following translation is not intended to violate the copyright as the translation is intended purely for educational purposes.The following translation will indicate that intertextonic, though flexible for executing a rewriting on the textons, still has some limitations.The intertextonic characteristic the textons have in the aforementioned game evokes a flexible translation strategy selection.The changes on text display, as perceived from the above screenshots, indicate that the scriptons are varied and thereby signifying the intratextonic characteristics of the textons.In the case of the anamorphosis of the game, the left screenshot is able to transfer the configurative implication regarding with the emergence of an arrow shaped signal translated into 'tandapanah' while the right one does not cope the configuration optimally due to the absence of the translation of the word 'arrow'.Though the right screenshot misses the word 'arrow', it pertains 'corners' translated into 'tikungan' from which configurations from the players entail.Meanwhile, the left screenshot does not preserve 'corners' on their translation.It implies that inter-textonic characteristics of the textons are proven to be less beneficial when, asDietz(200, said  about the requirement to be a video game translator the translation and computer ability are not of quality.In the relation with translation techniques, the deletion employed on the word 'arrow' and 'corners' triggers significant impact on the holistic apprehension of the traversal function.The deletion ignites a traversal function shift from procedural/instrumental to instrumental configuration only.Four scriptons contributing to the emergence of traversal function are

Figure 1
Figure 1 Indonesian version of Need for Speed Carbon: Own the City Figure3 The influence of translation techniques in traversal function and game aesthetics

Figure 4
Figure 4 Non-Diegetic to Non-Diegetic with diegetic style The reason of violence is behind the shift of non-diegetic text from the Japanese version

Table 1 .
Assets and Textonomy TypologyDynamics refers to the number and format of textons and scriptons.If the number of textons and scriptons share equality, the dynamics is static.If the textons are non-diegetic text based and so are the scriptons, the dynamics is static.If the number of textons is constant, but the number of scriptons is varied, the dynamics is intratextonic dynamics.If the textons are formatted in non-diegetic text, but the scriptons are in diegetic text, the dynamics is also intratextonic and vice versa.If the number of textons is varied and the number of scriptons is also varied, the dynamics is textonic.If the texton is in image and diegetic , and the scripton is in either of the format, the dynamics is textonic.Departing from the assumption that non-diegetic text, from the perspective of data processing, embeds technical and operational difficulties, it