Introducing Community Translations

[Mihai]

Every year we get requests from around the world from people who want us to add a translated version of Football Manager in their language.

As much as we’d love to translate the game into every language, it’s often not possible for us to do so.

So, in the same way as we let people add extra leagues to the game and make them available via Steam Workshop, with FM17 we’re doing the same with languages.

Once the game is released on November 4th, you’ll notice a new tab on the Steam Workshop called “Community Translations”. This is where the community-made translations will live, and you’ll be able to download them here and change the language in game.

If you want to make a community translation you’ll need to wait until the game is released on November 4th when full instructions will be provided as will the relevant files – but here are a few questions answered now so you can get yourself ready.

What languages can I add?
We ship the game with 16 languages and, in theory, you can add any language you want to, but there are some font restrictions. The game will ship with fonts that can cover Latin/Cyrillic character sets plus Arabic, Chinese (simplified & traditional), Hebrew and Japanese

Can we collaborate as a team for the translation?    
Yes, you can, and this will be part of the guide that we release to making translations once the game is released

Who owns the translation?
The people who make the translation will own it – as with any Steam Workshop content, it’s owned by you. You will NOT be able to charge for it though, or sell it to any third party.

What can be translated?
The translation files are for any text in the game not including data (player names/club names/injury names etc). Although, in theory, you can already translate those in the data editor.

How many words are there to translate?
There are over 100,000 “strings”, which are made up of more than 1.5m words.

When can I start working on it? 
We’re still working on the files for the game now, and they won’t be ready before its release on November 4th.

How do I import them into the game?
You import via Steam Workshop, then change your language in game.

What if I want to add in a language that isn’t covered by the fonts already there?
Ask us on our forums at community.sigames.com and we’ll see what we can do – we can’t promise anything, as each new font we add adds more memory to the game for everyone, but will look into it.