Translating Variables in Game Localization

This paper focuses on video game localization of English projects into the Russian language and the problems of translation linked to it, such as the issues which arise in the translation of variables. Variables or so-called placeholders exist in the game text only to be replaced later in the actual game by a name, a place, a number. This concept creates a unique translation difficulty which many translators unfamiliar with localization are unaware of. This fact constitutes the relevance of this research. When translating games into the languages which use declination and conjugation various issues may arise when it comes to variables. The grammatical categories of gender, number and case vary drastically from language to language, posing a problem in English-Russian video game translation. When translating into the Russian language it is crucial to maintain gender neutrality and work around the sentence structure to manage variables correctly. Through extensive literature review and drawing examples from particular games for case studies this paper outlines the main peculiarities of variable translation in order to propose an array of strategies suitable for future and current specialists in the area of game localization.