gender

POTENTIALLY OFFENSIVE CONTENT

Avoid literal translations that sound disrespectiful towards others. You are free to tone down sentences that could be sensitive. 

If you believe the issue cannot be fixed without a major change of original meaning, communicate with the PM so the issue can be dealt by the Localization editors.

Most polls show more than half of the mobile game audience in Brazil is female. Therefore, our translations MUST ACKNOWLEDGE the feminine audiences in all aspects.

PRACTICAL TIPS:

1. AVOID adding (a) on everything as it is a lazy solution and adds clutter. Check the reference materials on how to rephrase sentences.

2. DO NOT use both forms, e.g. jogadores e jogadoras. This will be too long for our UI.

3. When possible, avoid gender-locking adjectives and nouns.

4. Use (a) as a LAST RESORT only. In plural form, the dual gender indication is not necessary.

Examples:
Adjectives instead of nouns — for an emote, use Paixão instead of Apaixonado

Favor substantivos uniformes — iniciante instead of novato; for skin name, agente instead of espião

Omit articles, use plural — Instead of o(a) consorte concede... translate as consortes concedem..

Avoid third person, use você — for game mail, instead of o jogador, use você... it also sounds less impersonal and less stiff.

Remove unnecessary gender — instead of agradecemos a todos vocês pelo..., you can use agradecemos a vocês pelo...

Recognize women in gaming industry — For announcements, use agradecemos instead of obrigado. Not everybody here is a dude 😉.

"Player" in game mechanics — instead of atacando outro jogador, use atacando outra pessoa, atacando alguém...

Avoid "King of ..." — xx之王 is a common format for missions and achievements; if it refers to the player, use majestade or monarca.

DO NOT USE NEW GENDER-NEUTRAL LANGUAGES

Despite the commendable efforts, a gender-neutral language for Brazilian Portuguese is not a reality yet. Different standards are used informally, e.g. x, @, e, i, but they all have some drawbacks that render them impractical at this point.

In our context, is very hard to commit to any standard, considering: 

a. the lack of a unified and comprehensive corpus that covers application in all possible contexts;

b. the pace these standards are created, adopted and replaced and the shelf life of games (a couple of years to more than a decade);

c. it could segragate players ongoing alphabetization, dyslexic people or that require text-reading software to play.

Reference materials:

• Manual Prático de Linguagem Inclusiva. Fischer, 2020. 

• Microsoft Style Guide — Português (Brasil), p.19.