News from the lovely world of the Games Industry.

[Syt]

The translation to English of the next game of the Kingdom Come Deliverance studio might be of unknown quality.

https://www.reddit.com/r/kingdomcome/comments/1s5vgt9/other_fired_from_warhorse_studios_and_replaced/

[OTHER] Fired from Warhorse Studios and replaced with AI

Hey everyone,

My name is Max H, and I've been working at Warhorse Studios since July 2022 as a Czech>English translator and editor. I primarily worked on KCD2 and its DLCs, including dialogues, quest logs, item names, and various other things, as well as some occasional marketing materials here and there. Simply put, if you've ever played KCD2 in English, you've quite likely seen my work.

Yesterday, March 27th 2026, with no forewarning, I was invited to a meeting and promptly told that, in an effort to "make the company more effective" and "save finances", as of next month, my position at the company would become "obsolete" in favour of using AI for all translations going forward. This came as a huge shock to me, as though the discussion about using AI for translating had frequently come up in the past, something I was always strongly and vocally against, but never to the extent that it might actually cost me my job in the future. It had, of course, crossed my mind many times, but I naively thought my work at WHS was valued enough that I might not be at immediate risk.

I feel incredibly betrayed by the management of the company I've come to care about greatly these past almost 4 years, and am heartbroken I won't get to see my friends and colleagues at the office every day.

I want you to know that the growing use of AI greatly affects people in the games industry and many others, and I thought you should know how much the company that makes the games you love value the work of their employees, not to mention the environment.

To any of my now-former colleagues reading this, I wish you all the best, and strongly hope none of you finds yourselves in the same position as me.

To all management at Warhorse, I won't be breaking my NDA, of course, nor am I looking for my job back or to start legal issues, but you can be damn sure I won't keep quiet about my experience.

To anyone else reading, thanks for making it this far, and if you have any questions, feel free to ask. I'll do my best to answer them if I can.

EDIT: This got a lot more comments a lot sooner than I thought. Many thanks to everyone showing their support, it's a bit overwhelming to tell the truth, but just know that I truly appreciate <3 To those who doubt the truthfulness of this post, all I can say is I understand it's hard to believe everything you read online, but everything I said here is true. I've verified my LinkedIn with one of the mods here, and would post my firing contract thing here, but I'm not sure if it's legal to do so without breaking my NDA, so I'll err on the side of caution. While I can't legally confirm or deny whether or not Warhorse is working on anything at the moment, I will say that while much slower than usual, I did in fact have work to do, and was laid off near the end of a normal work day during which I was completely oblivious to what was coming. I'm going to go out and touch some grass for a while, but will check back in later and answer some questions. Thanks for reading everyone and all the best <3

EDIT 2: PLEASE don't harass anyone from WHS or review bomb their games on Steam, that isn't my intention at all. All I want is for people to be more informed about what's going on it the games industry behind closed doors.

[The Minsky Moment]

The translation to English of the next game of the Kingdom Come Deliverance studio might be of unknown quality.

Terrible idea to rely solely on AI for such translation work. Everyone knows if you want to get a good translation, you must double Czech.

[Duque de Bragança]

AI "translation"   

Even for the cheap "romance novel" genre it is a disaster.
The leading French publisher for that kind of books announced a switch to AI some time ago.

[Valmy]

AI translation is fine for just getting the gist of what is being said. But for an actual artistic work? Sounds like garbage slop to me. I am not playing a whole game or reading a book translated by AI.

[The Brain]

At least translation is an area where AI shines, compared to some other areas. Haven't used it for fiction though.

[Sheilbh]

AI translation is fine for just getting the gist of what is being said. But for an actual artistic work? Sounds like garbage slop to me. I am not playing a whole game or reading a book translated by AI.

I totally agree (it's why I'm also very militant on copyright as the IP that protects human creativity).

I know someone who worked on the translation of Dark Souls into English and I know vicariously the artistry involved in a real translation. Chatted a lot with him about his work - and also worked with translators more recently.

This may be fine for technical translations or other things where style doesn't matter. But that ecosystem of boring translation helps subsidise the artistic translators (with a few superstar exceptions).

[Richard Hakluyt]

AI translation is fine for just getting the gist of what is being said. But for an actual artistic work? Sounds like garbage slop to me. I am not playing a whole game or reading a book translated by AI.

Exactly, very useful for ordering food in Kazakhstan or wherever but useless for works with artistic merit.

[Crazy_Ivan80]

AI translation is fine for just getting the gist of what is being said. But for an actual artistic work? Sounds like garbage slop to me. I am not playing a whole game or reading a book translated by AI.

Exactly, very useful for ordering food in Kazakhstan

That seems a bit far for a uber-eats....

[Duque de Bragança]

This may be fine for technical translations or other things where style doesn't matter. But that ecosystem of boring translation helps subsidise the artistic translators (with a few superstar exceptions).

Not even that, legal translations are notoriously disastrous.

Superficial, undetailed or undemanding messages, to get the gist of them, maybe.

[Syt]

On translations ... was looking at a comic book series on Amazon today and was confused for a second because it said the series had "18 Probleme". They picked the wrong German translation of "issues" into German (correct would have been e.g. "Ausgaben").

[Syt]

RockPaperShotgun is really disappointing these days.

Since the acquisition through IGN, many staff members were let go, and while new ones were hired, the content has suffered.

E.g. in Q1 last year they had over 30 games reviews, this year it's been less than 10. Original content has dropped, and there's mostly been reposting of news stories with some attempts at witty commentary. I've been reading them for well over 10 years, and while people came and left (rarely were they fired, unlike recently) and the tone was always a bit in flux, there was usually something to bring me back.

A big warning sign was the recent posting of an article that was "sponsored content": https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/survival-game-soulmask-launches-version-10-with-egyptian-myth-inspired-dlc-thats-free-for-a-limited-time

Sure, it was flagged appropriately, but it was a lightning rod for readers, especially paying supporters to voice their concerns. (Some pointed out they pay to NOT see ads.)

My impression is they run on a very thin budget and few resources at the moment (I also noticed shoddy editing of articles - typos, repeated words, missing words ... )

Always sad to see sites like that die a slow death.

The comments, however, pointed me to recently opened https://www.jank.cool/

It has a very similar format. It's run by former RPS editor in chief Graham, together with Brandon Caldwell (always loved him on RPS) and Jon Hicks (also previously worked in the RPS back office). Their contributors so far include former RPS allumni like Alice Bell and Jim Rossignol. For their podcast they also add former RPSer Nate Crowley (he left RPS to write novels for WH40K). And they honestly copy/pasted old RPS staples - what are you playing this weekend, a Sunday article collecting worthwhile news stories, Brendan's random top lists ...

I guess I will visit that site instead in future.

[Syt]

https://www.pcgamer.com/gaming-industry/bank-of-america-thinks-take-two-should-charge-more-for-grand-theft-auto-6/

Bank of America thinks Take-Two should charge more for Grand Theft Auto 6

It's for the good of the games industry, you see.

There are two big questions preoccupying Grand Theft Auto fans these days: Will Grand Theft Auto 6 be delayed, and how much is it going to cost? (If you're a GTA fan on PC, you get a bonus question: What the hell?)

Obviously we'll have to wait for Take-Two Interactive to make the call on those, but a Seeking Alpha report (via IGN) says Bank of America securities analyst Omar Dessouky is calling for GTA 6 to launch at a higher-than-usual price point—for the good of everyone.

Dessouky was speaking in the wake of the Interactive Innovation Conference—stylized as iicon, because cool—a game industry conference for "visionaries, thought leaders, and innovators" (ie., CEOs and money types) organized by the Entertainment Software Association to fill the void in its heart left by the collapse of E3.

"We also heard from attendees that the industry, which is perceived as struggling, would have difficulty selling games for $80 if GTA 6 came out at $70," Dessouky said. "We think it's in Take-Two's self-interest, as a publisher and partner to many developers, to raise the price point for the entire industry."

Nobody likes the idea of paying more for stuff, especially at a time when stuff in general is growing unmanageably more expensive because of all the other stuff happening in the world. But looking at it strictly from the perspective of someone whose only interest is creating a lot of value for shareholders, Dessouky's point is spot-on: If any game can get away with asking $80 for a basic edition, it's GTA 6—and if Take-Two breaks that seal, it won't be long before others follow. Rising tides, and all that.

Conversely, if Take-Two sticks with the $70 price point, it's going to be very difficult for other publishers to justify charging more for their games, even heavy hitters like Call of Duty and EA Sports FC. I'm not sure that's necessarily bad for the industry—I think there are far more pressing concerns right now than whether multi-billion-dollar corporations can charge an extra tenner for their wares—but Dessouky is absolutely correct that Take-Two, whichever way it goes, will set the path for the rest of the industry.

As for which way it will go, Take-Two is playing coy about the whole thing. Speaking at the same iicon conference, Take-Two CEO Strauss Zelnick said he wants to ensure that "what people pay for it feels very reasonable." But he also pointed out that big-budget games could (and, by implication, should) cost more than they do right now, because game prices have held steady over the years while everything else has gone up—which sounds like the sort of thing you say when you're getting to slap your customer base with a little of the ol' sticker shock.

My money, metaphorically speaking, is on GTA 6 coming in at a higher-than-standard price: Not the $100 earthquake that some are dreading, but $80? I'll be very surprised if it's not at least that much. We may finally get some insight on that topic later this month: Take-Two's next quarterly financial report is set for May 21.

[garbon]

I do not really know why we care about what Bank of America is saying suddenly. I recall in the past year this also happened with regards to Hasbro.

[mongers]

.......

The comments, however, pointed me to recently opened https://www.jank.cool/

It has a very similar format. It's run by former RPS editor in chief Graham, together with Brandon Caldwell (always loved him on RPS) and Jon Hicks (also previously worked in the RPS back office). Their contributors so far include former RPS allumni like Alice Bell and Jim Rossignol. For their podcast they also add former RPSer Nate Crowley (he left RPS to write novels for WH40K). And they honestly copy/pasted old RPS staples - what are you playing this weekend, a Sunday article collecting worthwhile news stories, Brendan's random top lists ...

I guess I will visit that site instead in future.

Thanks Syt, that's an excellent link, interesting articles.

[Syt]

I think over here we call it Bank of Mexico.