Somewhere in between burnout and lack of self-discovery abrekkoc, October 17, 2023October 17, 2023 I remember the first time I had this interest in localization. I was tinkering with the files of some random indie game only to find its multilingual text data file (I guess it was a JSON file). I was playing around with it, but could not see how to add a new language so I changed the text to other languages since the game did not have Turkish. It was a mind-blowing experience to see that I could interact with the game to change the contents like that. I was already dealing with modding the Source engine games for performance or visuals or even creating some new maps and mods yet none of them were as fascinating as changing the language of the game.The rest of this excitement was a path down the rabbit hole, I was researching localization, trying to reach out to the publishers (my first cold call attempts happened while I was 16), I set my route to be a localization specialist for sure, I studied language track during my high school years and ended up in translation and interpreting department. It was a dream coming true for me since my attempts as a kid were being rejected by everyone but now it was my major so I would have more chances, or so I thought.The first couple of years were mostly rejections and advice on improving myself which made sense since I had to be on some level to begin with professional work, so I tried my best to have a network around the world, I learned about localization best practices, I studied the products that could be localized, even learned to build websites, basics of programming and the popular game engines, how to manipulate data and how it behaves in different platforms, etc. I was a localization geek who was trying to discover everything out there.Eventually, this interest turned into a profession and I started getting my paid, real-world commissions and I could not even describe the excitement of it. This was the result of one internship chance I had. I was doing work for the brands that I use daily, I could talk to game publishers about localizing their games, and I even had the kindest indie studio I’ve ever met, Toge Productions, handing me over my first game localization commission. So things were eventually starting to move forward for me, I was working daily and fulfilling my dream.At some point, I noticed that things were not moving forward as I was expecting. After my millionth word or so, I was taking the assigned task, fulfilling the needs of it, sending it back, rinse, and repeat. This is how most jobs function and I am aware of that but the sheer fact that my excitement was wearing off was upsetting for me. Eventually, I took a break and did not do anything with my professional life for a couple of months, also, it is important to mention that most of these gigs I was having were technical localization, so I was not working with games yet apart from that one job from Toge.After a couple of months, I started trying my luck with game localization and started my first-ever game loc agency collaboration, which turned out to be the longest-lasting so far, with WordKeepers. I was once again having this excitement and things started to look brighter for me. Every project was a new learning opportunity, I was having fun with each of them, and I was preparing memes about the game, and the localization mistakes during production. I never had this rinse-and-repeat feel. It was a great restart to localization.Of course, the beast within was still not fulfilled so while I was having fun and everything was working out fine, I was craving for more knowledge, more customization, tweaks, tools, technology, and all, I was constantly in front of my monitor, tinkering to produce simple tools, small programs or games to use as test-case scenarios. Then this effort made me notice that even though I liked the translation, I was in love with the whole localization process.Everything mentioned above is quite a broad and superficial explanation of my 5 years as a localization professional. There have been many more details to it but the main idea is more or less like this. So after feeling like I was burning out and not being able to understand what I wanted, I took my time off to draw a better route, but since I was sure that games were my main passion, I started working as a QA tester to know them even better in the meanwhile.Both this time off from localization and my expat time as a master’s student taught me a lot in the last year and helped me clear things out in my head. I was not having a burnout, I just did not know what I was expecting. Now I know what to expect from a job, what my hobbies are, and most importantly what I want to build eventually. Starting a blog was part of that eventual project, so it is safe to say that I am taking baby steps towards that happy place.So the basic idea is, whenever you feel like things are not working out fine, you are having a burnout or feel like you are at the wrong place, take a big step back to see what you have been doing and what parts were the most enjoyable, focus on them, do not fear to discard the ones that do not fit in for you, empower the rest and always leave your door fully open for change since it is a strong tool to help you discover yourself better. General Localization Travel
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