It’s been over half a year since we wrote about the first machine translation of the game into Czech. At that time, it was about Hogwarts Legacy and localization from Pařanské raj, which is behind the streamer Rudolf Pokorný. Even then, it caused quite a bit of controversy, however, AI translations have not disappeared anywhere, and within a few months we have seen a number of others, because such Czech can be created much faster than a traditional, manual translation. It was thus basically certain that AI localization would also be created for Bethesda’s expected Starfield RPG, and indeed it did. But there are quite a few of them and not all of them have to be original.
Behind one translation is the streamer Squiee, who has been interested in the potential of AI for a long time. “I think there is a future in it, and when I heard that DeepL could be used in this way, I started to find out what and how,” she told Zing. “The first translation I did was Hogwarts Legacy, paradoxically I had the idea for it thanks to Pařanský ráj.”
But it was only the first attempt and she wanted to fully use her skills in the expected sci-fi RPG: “I was really looking forward to Starfield, and despite the fact that I know English, I wanted to play it in Czech.” I like the AC series, and unfortunately I didn’t finish Valhalla, because without the Czech language I simply stopped enjoying it. That’s why I knew I wanted her 100% for Starfield. I registered the domain starfield.cz and I improved my tool.”
Czech actually arrived shortly after the release of the premium edition, in three versions, depending on whether you want complete localization, no user interface, or only subtitles. For the translation, Squiee used DeepL and its own tools, and on its website it states that it was not only a translation from English, but also other languages, such as German, for better inflection or enunciation.
She was even more surprised when she found out that the Czech version published a day later by Pařanský ráj was exactly the same. She subsequently released video, in which he compares the two versions. They are completely identical, except for a few expressions, such as the names of the planets, which are additionally translated in Czech by Squeee, while in location from Pařanské raj remained in the original.
Of course, it could be argued that due to the use of the same AI translator, a truly identical Czech could be created, but in addition to the already mentioned translation from different languages or its own tools, Squiee also used specific expressions. “Even if I leave out my comparison video (which is on YouTube – and where I point out that it is 1:1 plagiarism), there are specific words in my translation that I made up as a joke – for example ‘buffet’ as the name of the scavenger skill, ‘dusters’, ‘sperhák’ instead of digipick and many others, which AI will never translate like that,” she said in a statement to Zing. In the video, he also shows a comparison of his Czech with the localization from Game translations (which is only background, the team is already working on classic translation), which is different in almost everything.
Rudolf Pokorný subsequently responded in his own video, in which he denies the accusation and refers, among other things, to the fact that his team has already created localizations for more than 30 games. “We didn’t steal the translated texts for Starfield from anyone, we translated it all ourselves,” wrote Pokorný for Zing. “Their similarity is logical when it comes to the same DeepL program. But if you compare the two Czech languages, you will easily find out that they have a different file structure, size and that they also differ in their content in many texts.”
According to Pokorný, this is a deliberate provoking of controversy: “As for the streamer and her being accused of our theft, it’s already such a cliché that every time we release something great in the Czech Republic, there is hype around it,” he said.
In the comment section under the video on YouTube claims that Squiee is “lying and promoting itself”. He refers to his team as “the best translation team today”, which he says is also the reason why it “lies in someone’s stomach”. Specifically, he names Indian magazine, streamer Acradebulls, Paras from Překlady her and distributor Cenegu, who had already stopped cooperating with Pokorný.
“That streamer has no translation background and I don’t think she could even technically do it herself. In addition, she doesn’t even stream the Czech version she released, and the whole thing seems rather strange, to say the least,” concludes Pokorný in his statement to Zing.
“I am 100% sure that now they will try more and more tricks and fairy tales about me being the bad one. I’ve had a lot of conspiracy theories come my way already,” Squiee tells Zing. “I intentionally leave positive and negative comments under YouTube videos so that everyone can draw their own picture. Pařanský raj only approves comments.’
Finally, he adds that in addition to the Czech language, which has recently received version 2.0, it has also created a localization to Slovakwhich can be downloaded from the same pages and is also available in three versions.
2023-09-04 09:11:27
#Pařanský #raj #allegedly #stole #Czech #language #Starfield #Zing
