Tower of Fantasy developers ask fans to translate the game for them
Hotta Studio’s Tower of Fantasy is one of the most popular Genshin Impact clones to date. However, as we noted in our review, it’s not exactly the best or most accomplished game in the open-world gacha genre.
One of the main problems with Tower of Fantasy is the poor translation. Now only some parts of the game are in flawed English, but some parts of the game are not translated at all. However, Hotta has plans to fix this: unpaid labour!
Fans translate Tower of Fantasy
Revealed in a post on the game subreddit, publisher Level Infinite asks fans to translate the gacha game. This means that instead of hiring real translation services, they will let fans translate the game for free.
This isn’t even new to the gacha game. During the game’s closed beta testing, there were numerous times when fans translated the game for free. One user explained that they were part of a group that made sure the early content of the game was available in English.
“FYI, there was a group of us who helped with English localization and translation during the betas. To my knowledge there was no refund at all. We basically covered level 1-50 content,” said one user. “I was told that the developers might give us a title or something, but no other compensation was given either.”
Gamers doing free translations has been done countless times in the past. However, these are mostly game mods that fans are passionate about, not just free, exploited labor.
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They have the money
Hotta Studio and Level Infinite’s cheap skating is compounded by the fact that Tower of Fantasy is a multimillion-dollar success. Tens of millions of dollars in revenue were earned during the game’s launch period.
In just two weeks, Tower of Fantasy’s revenue exceeded $34 million. With the game still one of the biggest open-world gachas, there’s no reason translators shouldn’t be paid for their work.
Hopefully, with enough slack, translators for the game will be compensated. Oh, and we’re not talking about in-game rewards – real money, Level Infinite! Don’t be so stingy!
