An exploration of linguistic preferences in the Chinese Malaysian gaming community: Stardew Valley as a case study

ABSTRACTThis study aims to examine Chinese Malaysian gamers’ perceptions and attitudes towards translated in-game Chinese texts, and their linguistic preferences in video game localisation. An online survey, based on a Stardew Valley case study, was conducted to collect quantitative and qualitative data from this presumably bilingual or multilingual gaming community. Among 75 Chinese Malaysian gamers, the majority preferred playing games in Chinese, while over a quarter favoured English. The translation quality of a game influenced their decisions to play more than whether the game version was original or localised. Over half of the respondents preferred the official Simplified Chinese localised version to the fan-made Traditional Chinese version; however, preferences reversed when presented with actual examples. This implies that the official Simplified version of Stardew Valley has limitations in aligning with gamers’ linguistic habits, leading nearly half of the respondents to express a desire for a version catering to Chinese Malaysian gamers’ linguistic needs for in-game communication.KEYWORDS: Game localisationuser perceptionlinguistic preferencesChinese MalaysianTranslation quality Disclosure statementNo potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).Additional informationNotes on contributorsArista Szu-Yu KuoArista Szu-Yu Kuo is an assistant professor of Translation Studies at Nanyang Technological University, Singapore. Her research interests focus on the intersection of translation quality, audiovisual translation, and translator training.Zheng Ci LaiZheng Ci Lai obtained his Bachelor of Arts (Hons) in Chinese and a minor in Translation at Nanyang Technological University. He is an avid video game player who also likes studying video games. He is currently working in the game localization industry as a Localization Expert.