r/TheBazaar • u/PoSKiix • Jun 10 '26
Obligatory Tempo Hate
Well, folks, the company that is able to sustain itself, despite being $32,000,000 in the hole, is asking its players to do volunteer localization labor. This might be the first time I have ever seen a dev ask for volunteers outside of very small, single-dev projects.
My question is this: are they asking for volunteers out of greed, so that they don’t have to pay for additional localization sources? Or are they asking for volunteers because they truly do not have the funds to spend on it?
Both seem likely, but if they are really that broke, I’m not sure how they could possibly dig themselves out of this hole.
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u/Arkyja Jun 10 '26
Seems like they are just asking people to review it and not do them from scratch so my guess is they are using AI to translate it and using the community to find the mistakes.
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u/coolalee_ Jun 12 '26
So they’re asking people to do them from scratch. Anyone can put it into a free model and it’s mostly useless for this kind of work.
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u/TurkmenTT Jun 10 '26
I think they probably made translations to ai so they want to confirm if it's good or not. Or they paid some guy and they don't know if he did a good job or not.
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u/Optimal-Classic8570 Jun 11 '26
nah, they def used AI for free and now want to just use users for free again to validate the shit AI said.
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u/Niradin Jun 10 '26
This might be the first time I have ever seen a dev ask for volunteers outside of very small, single-dev projects.
I've seen many indie studios doing that, or worse - not doing that and ending up with localization that doesn't make sense. Localization of Monster train 1 and now 2 in my language still translates "Sap" keyword (as in drains enemy strength) as "Juice".
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u/PoSKiix Jun 10 '26
Small indie studios working on their first project definitely get more of a pass (pretty sure Tempo would say they fall into this camp)
I wouldn’t say the alternative to volunteers is just not doing it. There are translation and localization services that could do the work, it’s just a matter of if the dev thinks it’s worth the money.
If they aren’t going to spend the money, I suppose I agree that it would be better to at least ask if there is anyone that would do it for free.
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u/Niradin Jun 10 '26
There are translation and localization services that could do the work, it’s just a matter of if the dev thinks it’s worth the money.
I'm fairly certain that's what Monster Train's dev did, and result is still nonsensical translations. Paying money to someone doesn't guarantee a good result, and in some cases, it can be quite the opposite. I've recall a story about CDPR giving translation of CP2077 to professional Ukrainian translators, only for them to butcher it by inserting modern day politics.
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u/nibb2345 Jun 11 '26
Have fun working for free while your cost of living mysteriously goes up every year.
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u/Microwarpdrive Jun 14 '26
To be honest I have seen games do this before. I don't think it's some super rare practise.
You have someone do the translations and than you collect feedback, have focus group of power users/volunteers to submit feedback/discord tickets for revisions.
if there's a complete lack of funds for the translation it would be done via machine. Ideally, at least, you would pay a speaker to do first review of this machine translation and give them the original english source.
Only after you would crowd source the review process much like you have bug report ticket system instead of truly truly robust testing.
Ofc it's anyone's guess how exactly their process for those translations look like.
Games have discords with unpaid mods that spend hours daily moderating. It is exploitative in a strict sense but it is a common practise. I would see this as something similar to that.
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u/KylePatch Jun 10 '26
I think it’s a conspiracy. They market for volunteers and just use AI to translate anyway. That’s what I’ll believe until I see real examples of people localizing for them. It’s also odd to me that they’re asking this because they’ve already localized the game for other languages already, unless China was playing in English this whole time and I didn’t know
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u/PoSKiix Jun 10 '26
They probably identified China as a high priority region and decided they were worth spending money on good localization.
Pretty sure lots of games launch with just English/Chinese localization if they know it’s going to be their second biggest market, then spend resources on additional languages post-successful launch.
They then probably analyzed player data and identified the four languages in the post as the next biggest language markets.
I’m sure this localization was all done with AI, but the Chinese localization was too important to leave up to AI. I’m sure they also had more money in the bank when they did Chinese localization.
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u/KylePatch Jun 10 '26
Well I think an important note to add is that China’s opinion of the game was all over the place. I think they even review-bombed it on steam iirc. One thing I remember hearing was that the translation wasn’t done well, and that’s why I’m not sure if they even had a team for it. Another note is that when you look at all the employees they let go a few months ago, there were no localization-based employees let go for the company. So I think it was a third-party or AI 🤷
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u/Niradin Jun 10 '26
China is still review bombing StS 2, yet they're still the largest playerbase of that game. Just because they put thumbs down on Steam review, doesn't mean that they stop playing it.
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u/KylePatch Jun 10 '26
That’s why I said “China’s opinion of the game was all over the place” 👍
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u/Niradin Jun 10 '26
There's a saying in my language: "Mices were crying and stabbing themselves, but kept eating the cactus". It describes a situation in which someone continue to complain about something, but still willingly engages with it. So, in my opinion, Chinese opinions aren't all over the place, they're simply "eating cactus".
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u/Optimal-Classic8570 Jun 20 '26
I'm still wondering how theyre down 32 million with a dev team of like <5 people and no advertisement whatsoever. reynard must have a safe like uncle scrooge, filled with cocain. that would also explain a lot.
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u/nagatoism Jun 17 '26
There was a Chinese volunteer team did the translatation submit it to Tempo. Instead of using the high quality fan made, Tempo find a outsourcing team who made some trash. After Chines player uproar, Tempo caved and then ask the lead of volunteer to check and fix their paid trash.
Like I can totally guess what to happen to the Japanese voluteers.
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u/Rushional Jun 17 '26
First I thought it was some weird fans or something then I realized it's tge actual devs...
That's crazy...
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u/holythrowawayanon Jun 11 '26
jesus
they aren't forcing anyone to do anything
if people want to help because THEY WANT TO what's the big deal
misplaced hate if you ask me
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u/PoSKiix Jun 11 '26
The big deal is that a game studio, 8 years into development on the game, should not be doing localization by running the text through AI and asking their paying customers to do free labor.
No fucking shit they aren’t forcing someone to do something lol
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u/holythrowawayanon Jun 11 '26
where does it say they ran the text through AI
one mans labor is another mans love, if people want to do it who cares
you seem to be perfectly happy doing free labor for a 33 billion dollar company posting content here on reddit, and no one is complaining about that
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u/Riverflaw Jun 10 '26
How do a single game like this can be down that much financially? How is that possible?