Posting a translation without the OC's approval

[Arcade Kylo Ren]

Hello,

I wanted to get the community's opinion on this.
I'm finally starting my objective of translating games, weither it be from English for now and from Japanese when I get a little better.

I'm sure most japanese games translated here never got approval from their original creators and I personally think that it's alright, but I also understand that you have to respect the decision of a creator. If that person doesn't want you to post translation of their game, you shouldn't.

That being said, I'm currently looking for an english Ren'py game to translate into French and I intend to do it for free, so what I'm asking is this: do you think it's ok to translate a game without the approval of it's creator (like they didn't respond to me, more than saying "no")

I'm kinda new here and I don't want to post something that would be against the community rules or something, and even though I want to start translation work, I'm not a fan of the idea of doing in the back of a game creator.

What do you think?

 

[moskyx]

Hello,

I wanted to get the community's opinion on this.
I'm finally starting my objective of translating games, weither it be from English for now and from Japanese when I get a little better.

I'm sure most japanese games translated here never got approval from their original creators and I personally think that it's alright, but I also understand that you have to respect the decision of a creator. If that person doesn't want you to post translation of their game, you shouldn't.

That being said, I'm currently looking for an english Ren'py game to translate into French and I intend to do it for free, so what I'm asking is this: do you think it's ok to translate a game without the approval of it's creator (like they didn't respond to me, more than saying "no")

I'm kinda new here and I don't want to post something that would be against the community rules or something, and even though I want to start translation work, I'm not a fan of the idea of doing in the back of a game creator.

What do you think?

This is a pirate forum so any content you offer for free is welcome. There's an active community of French translators (here's one thread, there could be more) and I doubt they wait for creator's approval before posting their translations. I know I don't. That said, asking devs it's the polite thing to do, especially if they are active in this forum. If you don't ask them for permission, at least let them know you translated their game. You can get all kind of responses from them - mostly they'll thank you for your effort but it's even possible (although not very common) that some of them might want to include your translation in their official builds. Others will just ignore you, though. It's their loss, in my opinion, but that's another topic

 

[Niv-Mizzet the Firemind]

I think that you should just translate the games if that's what you want to do.

It's not a mod that might fuck up a game or anything in that vein. It's always a welcome addition to any game. Also, keep in mind that most translations (in the games I've played at least) are from volunteers.
Having said that, I would consider moskyx's response above regarding communication with the developers.

 

[Rafster]

If someone offered to translate my game to another language I would be honored ... I dunno why any dev would be aganist this since it's free.

 

[wep]

If someone offered to translate my game to another language I would be honored ... I dunno why any dev would be aganist this since it's free.

well it happened in the past. free translation from Russian to English...
NOPE
so the game is still only in Russian

 

[Rafster]

well it happened in the past. free translation from Russian to English...
NOPE
so the game is still only in Russian

Holy shit...that is beyond my understanding

 

[CardinalRed]

Don't ask, just do it

 

[Silentce]

Ask for forgiveness, not for permission is my take on it. If you do it and it's good the developer might buy it off you and distribute it. Worst case scenario they get ahold of your info and DMCA your ass or more likely the links and mirrors you created. If you aren't making money off the translation directly you are unlikely to get much wrath from developers for translations. I haven't heard of anyone getting shut down for fan translations lately but at the end of the day it depends on the developer in question.

 

[Arcade Kylo Ren]

Yeah, I get it. Since it's just a mod to the original game, it couldn't hurt anyone anyway.

Thanks for the help guys! Can't wait to post a translation here.