Valve exploits fan translators, treat them like shit and "fire" them

[Down]

I wish I were kidding as I'm writing this headline but this event is pretty unbelievable.

Most of it looks like internet drama, but the very premise (which the author of this post didn't even stop to question, which surprises me) is mind-boggling: fucking Steam, a company that drowns in money, relies on unpaid fans to localize games in multiple languages. And not just an obscure language spoken by 1000 people in the world (which wouldn't really make it more okay to exploit people for free but well), we're taking about Spanish.

Seriously, what the fuck? How are those people not paid for their work?

And then they just illegally fire an employee for "whistleblowing" and kick out the team without anything?

tfw firecat was right ;_;

[Nosebleed]

Damn it, and I finally just convinced my parents that me majoring in translation is not such a terrible idea as they thought.

I think this speaks more about Torsten Zabka being a douchebag than anything else, and what an absolute scumbag he comes off as.
The fact that someone actually got fired over this is unbelievable and disgusting and the entire dismissal of a whole team is the icing on top of the cake.

Also, a token system, are you fucking serious? Are we in the cavemen era again?

I also agree translators should get paid if they're translating a game that's being officially licensed by Steam. Even if the translators have good intentions and don't mind doing it for free, it's absolutely not okay to not pay for someone's hard work that you're using to profit off of.

I hope some other Valve employer notices this and does something. Hell, I hope Gaben notices this, because it sounds to me like the problem is Mr Zabka being a bottleneck for what information is being passed along to other Steam employers/sections.

[Hanako]

Such troll always call forth such  

Well Steam is all-ages so they're bad from the start

Morever SP always use them, they really can't be good 

 

More seriously, now even if they fire the guy, the harm is done and the repercussion of Steam as a whole may be quite dreadful :/

I'm glad I don't steam 

[Redpanda]

Added to the list of reasons why I still boycott steam.

Wish GOG doesn't fall into this kind of behaviour but first they need to accept visual novel as a 'game' and that it has a market in the west.

[Deep Blue]

I don't understand how people can work for free for years and years....in a company that makes millions of dollars and can easily pay (and should do so) for those jobs! You are working for steam for free, this is not a hobby translating or localizing indie games, again you are essentially working for a multimillionaire company but for free so yeah I don't get it :/

this is not related to anything that I said before but MaTa is a great dude and im sad to see this happening to him and the other guys.

[Soulless Watcher]

I've noticed that allot of game developers on steam treat different languages like "mods" for their game. Like they might update the game to support characters from a complex alphabet, but they never actually hire people to make an "official" translation. In all fairness though, these games are mostly from indie developers..... not the big boys like valve.

[Nosebleed]

It doesn't matter who it is for, your work should always be paid if the product you work on is going be sold. If it's a close friend maybe you can give them a freebie, but anything else? Payment should be mandatory.

These people are too nice for their own good and Valve is completely taking advantage of them because of it. They didn't sign any contract so they're not bound by anything and thus don't technically need to get paid, but I wish more people would actually value their talent time and demand payment under a contract from whoever they're working with.

This same problem happens in all kinds of industries. Just talk to a couple animators on YouTube to know how often they get screwed over by having their work undervalued, usually because the people who hire them are big channels and thus "promotion" is your reward instead of money. Man that promotion really paid the bills didn't it?

Valve is doing the same thing here, asking people nicely to work for them for free and get some "recognition" instead of actual money for the time they sink into their games (because working for Valve is so cool bro, you should be thankful they even looked at you). If these people valued their talent a bit more they'd demand a proper contract from the start. Sadly, because spending money is just too much to ask, Valve would probably just ignore them and look for someone willing to work for free elsewhere.

[CeruleanGamer]

1 hour ago, Hanako said:

Such troll always call forth such  

Well Steam is all-ages so they're bad from the start

Morever SP always use them, they really can't be good 

 

More seriously, now even if they fire the guy, the harm is done and the repercussion of Steam as a whole may be quite dreadful :/

I'm glad I don't steam 

Whoever gets most of their games from Steam is a plebeian. Send these fools our way so we can purify their souls from being a filthy casual. 

[Hanako]

1 minute ago, CeruleanGamer said:

Whoever gets most of their games from Steam is a plebeian. Send these fools our way so we can purify their souls from being a filthy casual. 

Funny how the word "purify" coming from the "netoare witch" seems lewd and totally opposed to his normal meaning

 

20 minutes ago, Nosebleed said:

 

These people are too nice for their own good and Valve is completely taking advantage of them because of it. They didn't sign any contract so they're not bound by anything and thus don't technically need to get paid, but I wish more people would actually value their talent time and demand payment under a contract from whoever they're working with.

 

But it also mean that they can stop whenever they want no? (I'm really asking, I may be completly false)

Sure Translator's work is almost always underevaluted, but, for me, if you propose to do it free at the start it's only by sheer passion. Of course, no one would refuse money if it's given to them, and it's even appreciate. But here, it was presented like a competitive work, without counting all the years of work. It was a really bad move, because translation doesn't work out on competition, I think. They should have hired them and make a contract or change nothing (less on the human side of the thing and more on the buisness side, thing I do not approuve but could have worked, sadly)

[Nosebleed]

@Hanako

A proper contract would establish the terms in which you can quit, and if you do quit, what do you or your employer have to pay.

People don't realize that contracts can even give you the power to "fire" your employer if you're not getting along with them, and that's why contracts are so vital and you should NEVER work without one, because if you do, you have no legal foundation to stand on if you get screwed over like this.

What I'm arguing is that, although it's nice that you want to work for free, you also need to realize that a big company is not your next door buddy, they're a business, so you should not be that trusting of them with your time and not demand any payment from them, things should be handled professionally, with contracts.

Hell, if you REALLY want to work for free YOU CAN PUT THAT ON THE CONTRACT. A contract helps you with more than just getting paid, it secures your position with the contactor and makes your relationship with them official, so if shit ever goes down, you have legal documentation to back yourself with.

If you don't have a contract, it's basically like you're doing Valve a favor until they decide they don't need you anymore, and you have no right to demand anything then, because you didn't sign a contract.

I'm not blaming the translators though, Valve is clearly the one doing the shady business here, they should have had contracts from the start, even if the contracts said they'd work for free. Not having a contract is absolute bullshit.

[Justin579]

damn. gaben is like the greediest CEO on the planet. maybe never to Microshit

[sanahtlig]

Supply and demand.  People are willing to work for free, and Valve simply leverages that (with the very important caveat that they have little control over the final product).  I don't see anything wrong with Valve taking advantage of it, and it appears that there's also a program where teams are paid for their work (to retake that all-important control).

Now you see why some argue that fan translation by its very nature subverts the English VN industry and those who work for it.  Fan translation is the Chinese sweatshop of translation, driving down salaries for professional translators.

[Nosebleed]

These people should be properly hired as either employees or contractors, that's really the bigger issue here. They should NOT be just a bunch of people who are doing you a favor and can be dumped any time, that's a clear case of exploitation. The big problem here is not so much the payment but the fact these people who are working for Steam are not legally bound by any form of contract. They can get a contract if they get enough "tokens" but that's just shitty PR speak for "after a while you're probably getting dumped before you get a contract and we'll find new people to work for free". It's a clear abuse of an already really poor system.

The difference between fan translations and this is that nobody typically profits off of the former, it's not a business, it's people with free time trying to do something for fun. When Steam or any other entity is involved however, it turns into business and you need to have proper formal procedures for this kind of stuff.

[Darklord Rooke]

Why do people volunteer to help out a multi-billion dollar corporation? I understand why people volunteer to help out charities, because NPOs are supposed to be organisations whose primary objective is something other than profit, and charities primary goal is supposed to be helping out your fellow man. But to volunteer to help out such a large and profitable organisation, whose primary goal is to make money is just stupid. Let me just say this to anyone who volunteered to do this stuff - Valve's goal in this exercise is to make money from you, and the metaphorical equivalent of you doing it for free is bending over. 

I mean, seriously people ...

[Scorp]

Generally people do not care, whom they volunteer to help. They want to help and they help. Not everyone think about money, you know.

[Darklord Rooke]

1 minute ago, Scorp said:

Generally people do not care, whom they volunteer to help. They want to help and they help. Not everyone think about money, you know.

If you apply so little forethought to your actions, I really have no sympathy for you.

[Scorp]

26 minutes ago, Rooke said:

If you apply so little forethought to your actions, I really have no sympathy for you.

Tell that to Valve translators. Actually if they already agreeded to work for free without any payments - well, this was their choice. And seems they only against a person, who made some ridiculous conditions to be promoted to real employees. They are completely ok to work for year without any money. So, well... It is not like Valve do not pay. It is like people want to do things for free.

[sanahtlig]

1 hour ago, Rooke said:

Why do people volunteer to help out a multi-billion dollar corporation? I understand why people volunteer to help out charities, because NPOs are supposed to be organisations whose primary objective is something other than profit, and charities primary goal is supposed to be helping out your fellow man. But to volunteer to help out such a large and profitable organisation, whose primary goal is to make money is just stupid. Let me just say this to anyone who volunteered to do this stuff - Valve's goal in this exercise is to make money from you, and the metaphorical equivalent of you doing it for free is bending over. 

I mean, seriously people ...

I don't know, why do people blog about games for free?  Why do they write reviews for free?  They do it to share the love of their hobby.  They see a game on Steam that they want others around them to play and enjoy, so they volunteer their time to work on it.  It's not really any different from fan translation, except their work is made available through official channels.  From Valve's point of view this is probably no different to them than providing a platform for fan mods.  They probably figure it's a win-win situation for everyone: fans get more games in their native language, Valve gets more sales, and fan translators get... the satisfaction of having contributed to something.