In this empirical study we examine three different translation modes with varying involvement of machine translation (MT) post-editing (PE) when translating video game texts. The three translation modes are translation from scratch without MT, full PE of MT output in a static way, and flexible PE as a combination of translation from scratch and post-editing of only those machine-translated sentences deemed useful by the translator. Data generation took place at the home offices of freelance game translators. In a mixed-methods approach, quantitative data was generated through keylogging, eye tracking, error annotation, and user experience questionnaires as well as qualitative data through interviews. Results show a negative perception of PE and suggest that translators’ user experience is positive when translating from scratch, neutral with a positive tendency when doing flexible PE of domain-adapted MT output and negative with static PE of generic MT output.

MTxGames is a doctoral research project examining three different translation modes with varying degrees of machine translation post-editing when translating video game texts. For realistic experimental conditions, data elicitation took place at the workplaces of professional game translators. In a mixed-methods approach, quantitative data was elicited through keylogging, eye-tracking, error annotation, and questionnaires as well as qualitative data through interviews. Aspects to be analyzed are translation productivity, cognitive effort, translation quality, and translators’ user experience.

MTxGames is a doctoral research project examining three different machine translation (MT) post-editing (PE) methods in the context of translating creative texts from video games, focusing on translation speed, cognitive effort, quality, and translators’ preferences. This is a mixed-methods study, eliciting quantitative data through keylogging, eye-tracking, and error evaluation as well as qualitative data through interviews. To create realistic experimental conditions, data elicitation takes place at the workplaces of freelancing professional game translators.