If someone resells your translated game, what will you do？

[sailr]

A translator and I jointly translated a game, but it was sold by a person two days later and claimed to be the original author. We exposed the incident, but it did not admit it. I was thinking, if it is you, how should you deal with it?

 

[AkikoKumagara]

What is the game? A ROM hack or something? If you really want to get them, I guess the best way would be to report their storefront to the game's publisher or something, assuming they're distributing pirated content. If they are located in China, as you are, that may not do any good, however. Honestly, there's likely very little that can be done about the situation. You can also report whoever is selling the content on the storefront they're selling it on or, if it is their own website, to their web host. This might actually work better than trying to deal with the game's publisher, who may actually come after your translation project as well.

 

[p1ngpong]

This has nothing to do with the site so I am moving it over to general off topic chat.

 

[FAST6191]

Selling can mean various things.

I will assume it is a ROM hack and those don't tend to get sold. Though there are always repro types that want to make them and try to get something for it.
You can go after the sellers but most times they just ignore them (the shops get a cut from the repro maker where you are basically nobody).

Some ROM hackers will do things like put screens saying "if you paid for this you are a fool" and protect it within the game such that the average repro maker won't be able to remove it as they are seldom good hackers themselves.
You might also find some mistakes or something in the version you released. You then release a better version without mistakes.

If you need to prove it is you that did as they have first poster advantage here then you probably have all sorts of translation documents, partial translations, emails and messages going around, as well as the ability to radically redo the translation if you need to prove something. There are lots of very simple tests that can prove you know your stuff.


For the most part I tend to just ignore it. I have no fondness for repro makers and don't help them do anything but otherwise I ignore it. Let them deal with whatever beta versions you have out there while people playing with flash carts, mod chips and emulators just get your more bug fixed versions.

 

[Taleweaver]

Depends on the context, really. If it's a professional gig, then you got payed (and it's up to the owner of the game to press charges).
If it's a rom hack, then there's not really anything you can do about it aside making sure your (combined) translation got enough publicity to ensure it originated with you.

I've had a...perhaps similar incident. Or not, depending on the context.
Anyway...as a member of a BDSM scene, I once wrote a short poem that made fun of the clumsy/stupid/bullying way some tend to think courting ladies is supposed to be (basically: some think abuse is okay if you're into BDSM. Just...it's not).
There was a musician on that scene, so I offered him the text in case he could use it somehow. Less than a day later, he got himself a local (site-only) hit. Not really sure how well it fared once he got it on youtube, but I didn't mind (I gave it to him, and he credited my nickname even in the song ).
So...fast forward a year or two. One of my friends tagged me for something: someone on another continent (US? I honestly can't remember) had shared something with the world. Except...it was a large part of my poem, translated to English. Quite good, I had to admit (it didn't just rhyme but it was altered to keep the cadance/rhythm that usually gets lost when you do a normal translation).
Nonetheless, she claimed to be the original author. Claimed never having heard my version nor the youtube version that originated years earlier. When I pointed out that wasn't so, she brushed it aside saying that it could be a coincidence.
Granted, it wasn't that long of a poem (20 lines or so? hers was about half), but no fucking way she happened to just come up with that (especially since she had almost no other creative outlet on her profile page).
Wasn't much I could do, nor that I wanted to do. I would've easily granted her the full text and credit for the translation. It's just sad that she wanted to pretend she was something she wasn't.

 

[The Real Jdbye]

A translator and I jointly translated a game, but it was sold by a person two days later and claimed to be the original author. We exposed the incident, but it did not admit it. I was thinking, if it is you, how should you deal with it?

How did they get it, if you hadn't released it yet?

 

[AmandaRose]

How did they get it, if you hadn't released it yet?

Because they probably had people playtesting it before release. That's the usual before releasing a translation.

 

[The Real Jdbye]

Because they probably had people playtesting it before release. That's the usual before releasing a translation.

Should've put credits in the translation.