An exploration of linguistic preferences in the Chinese Malaysian gaming community: Stardew Valley as a case study

Abstract

ABSTRACT This study aims to examine Chinese Malaysian gamers’ perceptions and attitudes towards translated in-game Chinese texts, and their linguistic preferences in video game localisation. An online survey, based on a Stardew Valley case study, was conducted to collect quantitative and qualitative data from this presumably bilingual or multilingual gaming community. Among 75 Chinese Malaysian gamers, the majority preferred playing games in Chinese, while over a quarter favoured English. The translation quality of a game influenced their decisions to play more than whether the game version was original or localised. Over half of the respondents preferred the official Simplified Chinese localised version to the fan-made Traditional Chinese version; however, preferences reversed when presented with actual examples. This implies that the official Simplified version of Stardew Valley has limitations in aligning with gamers’ linguistic habits, leading nearly half of the respondents to express a desire for a version catering to Chinese Malaysian gamers’ linguistic needs for in-game communication.