New Translation Setting for Players: Automatic Translations

[hydr0h0mie]

Key Takeaways

Players can now opt-in to Automatic Translations so that games currently missing translations will be automatically translated into their language. We’ll never override your manual translations if they exist.

To prevent translations for a specific object (e.g. a character name), disable the AutoLocalize property in Studio.

Hi Creators,

Last year, we shared the results from an automatic translation experiment that filled in missing translations in games. Today we’re introducing an account setting that enables players to see translations in all games they play, making sure games are accessible to users who want to play in their native language. This new setting will impact translations for in-game content, game names, and game descriptions. We’ve been rolling this feature out over the course of the last week, and we’ve seen increases to both overall spending (+0.23%) and new user playtime (+1.27%).

How the Automatic Translation Setting Works

Every player will have a new setting on their Account Info page called “Automatic Translations.”

This setting will also appear in the game settings menu:

If this setting is on, game names, game descriptions, and in-game text will be translated into the player’s language. For games that are already translated, there will be no change. However, for games that are currently missing translations or not translated at all, when this setting is enabled, automatic translation will translate any strings the player encounters. We’ll never override a manual translation if it exists.

When players join a game that has missing translations filled in with automatic translations, they’ll see a badge on the loading screen letting them know the game has been auto-translated.

If players want to switch languages for a particular game, they can use the dropdown in the in-game settings menu to do so. This only impacts the current game and will persist across sessions.

How to Disable Translations

If you want to override any automatic translations, you can always add manual translations via Creator Hub.

There may also be situations in which certain text should never be translated - for example, a street sign in a foreign country or character name. To prevent translation, you can go to the Studio properties panel and disable the AutoLocalize property for these objects. If AutoLocalize is turned off, we won’t attempt to translate the associated text.

Giving Feedback on Translations

If you or players in your game encounter bad or missing translations, you can give us feedback via the “Translation Feedback” tool in the game settings menu. We use this feedback to track and improve the quality of automatic translations.

What’s Next

In a few months, we plan to launch a translation glossary tool. This will enable you to create a custom list of terms that should have specific translations. Our system will make sure that those terms are uniformly translated according to the translations in the glossary, regardless of where in the game they appear. View the full Creator Roadmap here!

As always, we are continuously working to improve automatic translation and our translation tools so that Roblox feels native for players around the world. Please let us know if you have any questions.

Thank you!

[Kampfkarren (boyned)]

Does this get included as part of our localization table limits? My game has an enormous amount of dynamic text from users so I’ve always had AutoLocalize disabled, but I would like for them to be translated in principle.

[luaClass]

Does this work for games that haven’t configured any supported languages in the Localization portal, or do developers still need to add languages manually before players can receive automatic translations?

[EmesOfficial (Emes)]

While I find automatic translations useful, I don’t want my game’s name to be translated. Translating a title damages the brand, makes the game harder to find via social media, and often results in inaccuracies since many names aren’t meant to be translated. Imagine if Grand Theft Auto or Counter Strike were translated differently for every language. There are games on Roblox that are not meant to be translated because, for example, they refer to specific locations: in Liberty County, “Liberty” might be translated awkwardly, in Southwest Florida, “Southwest” could be translated undesirably, and in my game, San Aurie, “San” has been translated in the past. It just wouldn’t work.

Previously, disabling automatic translation applied to both the game name and description simultaneously. I wanted to disable it only for the name, but that wasn’t an option. Now, it seems we don’t have a choice at all.

I hope you consider this feedback and let game creators decide on their game title.

[hydr0h0mie]

Hey @Kampfkarren - if AutoLocalize is disabled, these strings will still count against your localization table limit.

However, if automatic text capture is fully enabled (including the automatic cleanup setting), dynamic text should be detected and removed from your table regularly, which should help prevent issues with limits.

[hydr0h0mie]

Hey @luaClass - this will still work for games that haven’t configured any supported languages; there’s no action needed from developers to add languages manually.

[TheGrimDeathZombie (Reapimus)]

@hydr0h0mie

Today we’re introducing an account setting that enables players to see translations in all games they play

As much as this seems like a great idea, please give developers an option to opt out of this setting working in their games. A lot of us made a conscious decision not to enable automatic translations for good reason. This should be something we choose to explicitly allow in our games, not something Roblox has arbitrarily decided is better for us.

[hydr0h0mie]

Hey @EmesOfficial - thank you for your feedback! We definitely understand that there are situations where something shouldn’t be translated. For the time being, if you want to preserve your game title you can either save a blank translation (this will fall back to the source language) or save your unlocalized title as a manual translation. We will always show manual translations if they exist.

But I know this can be tedious - as mentioned in the post, we’re working on a translation glossary feature that will ensure terms are translated consistently across your game. You’ll be able to define terms (such as your game title) that should never be translated, and we’ll respect that even if automatic translation is enabled.

[CcXxiiHuman_C4t (HumanCat222)]

Is there any way to disable this for our games? I do not want to support automatic translations and value the user experience, which includes providing manual and accurate translations. If we chose not to support a language, it shouldn’t be translated at all. There are also strings in my localization tables meant to be handled exclusively by manual translators, and important context is also only visible to manual translators.

And as previously mentioned translating game titles is just not a good idea.

[ittrgrey (Ittr)]

Just seems to be a continuation of the recent trend where everything is seemingly switched on by default, with no or limited opt-out. Really disappointing that yet another level of control is being pulled away from creators.

[Reditect]

@hydr0h0mie

We’ve been rolling this feature out over the course of the last week, and we’ve seen increases to both overall spending (+0.23%) and new user playtime (+1.27%).

How do you distinguish the impact of this update and that of the Discovery Teams constant updates to favor longer play time?

Additionally, +0.23%, idk how significant that is in comparison to other updates. Lots of people, but you can’t expect people to trust Roblox data when distrust has been earned. Roblox has a whole system for data and finding, put more info when you cite stuff please.

[FederalNando (nando)]

you should bring back the button to disable the automatic translation in a game page. it just disappeared one day and i posted before about it, there are games titles or descriptions that aren’t just be meant to be translated and game devs (mainly english speakers) don’t realise that. many times i get confused when reading the game info or title having nothing to do with the real intentions of it, and realise what they meant trying to translate it back to english in my head with many times doesn’t work at all.

[TheGrimDeathZombie (Reapimus)]

@Reditect

How do you distinguish the impact of this update and that of the Discovery Teams constant updates to favor longer play time?

More importantly, I’d be more curious to know exactly what games they pulled these metrics from. I’m willing to bet these metrics only look good because they actually come from already well performing and popular games and not smaller ones where any benefit matters.

[C_LRH]

Some games attach a filter layer over the UI. In this context, the translation feedback can only select this filter layer.

[Usering]

Will the translations these users are seeing show up in our Localization portal? How is this any different than offering automatic text capture + machine translation like we had before?

[EenatAlt (Renatka)]

Automatic Text Capture Turn On Automatically: bug is still not fixed and I would like to know when the Roblox team will address this.

[Kampfkarren (boyned)]

I’m not sure that addresses my concern. My concern is moreso can I have this real time translation without saving it alongside the traditional auto text capture?

It’s important because even with the auto text cleanup, that text still lies around in my localization tables and takes up space/bandwidth, and my game is nearly nothing but dynamic text.