Fan Localisation in the Chinese Overwatch Game Community: Conflicts about the Information Transmission

This study examines fan localisation within the Chinese Overwatch community, focusing on how volunteer localisers transmit game-related information between English and Chinese-speaking audiences and the conflicts that arise from this process. The research centres on three episodes: the 2021 renaming of the character Jesse McCree to Cole Cassidy following a sexual harassment controversy at Blizzard, the Chinese warm-up release of Overwatch 2 in late 2022, and the termination of Blizzard's distribution partnership with NetEase in early 2023. The author argues that conflicts in this community stem not only from whether information is localised, but also from the quality and framing of localised content and from how audiences receive it, including issues such as machine translation, mistranslation, delayed official news, and self-interpreted cultural adaptations.

The study employs a descriptive, participant-oriented, netnographic, and documentary approach. Its primary data come from an eight-month practice-led engagement from April to December 2021, during which the author translated an official English novel and localised game updates and esports news for a fan-operated account on Sina Weibo. This is supplemented by participatory observation of Sina Weibo and Bilibili from 2020 to 2023, with official Chinese Overwatch accounts serving as a control group. Reception was tracked through social media comments and annotated for game events, trends, cultural elements, and sensitive content. Analysis relied on comparative discourse analysis and translation commentary.

The findings indicate that fan localisation is a growing mode of information transmission that uses multiple semiotic channels, including text translation, voice dubbing, video sharing, and live streaming. Fan practices are shaped by individual stances and perceptions, and they can produce negative consequences for game companies, official localisers, and esports players. The author concludes that the delayed or limited visibility of official localisers on sensitive topics such as gender, politics, and emergent events warrants further investigation, and suggests that future work include interviews with localisers to examine censorship, regulation, and working constraints.