Fan translation (video gaming)

In video gaming, a fan translation is an unofficial translation of a computer game or video game made by fans.

The fan translation practice grew with the rise of video game console emulation in the late 1990s. A community of people developed that were interested in replaying and modifying the games they played in their youth. The knowledge and tools that came out of this community allowed them to work with translators to localize video game titles that had never been available outside of their original country of origin.

Fan translations of video game console games are usually accomplished by modifying a single binary ROM image of the game. Fan translations of PC games, on the other hand, can involve translation of many binary files throughout the game's directory which are packaged and distributed as fan patch. In dealing with translations of console games, a console emulator is generally utilized to play the final product, although unofficial hardware, hardware mods or software mods can be used to run the translated ROM image on its native hardware.

The central focus of the fan translation community is historically of Japanese-exclusive computer and video games being made playable in English for the first time, and sometimes of games recently released in Japan that are import-worthy and are unlikely to be officially localized to English speaking countries. It has since expanded to include other languages as well. Fan translations to English have provided a starting point for translations to many other languages. A fan translation is also started if a certain game released in Japan is not announced for localization within one year from its Japanese release.

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