Translators contracted from firms outside of Nintendo have complained about not being credited for their work on high-profile games from the Mario maker, including The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, Animal Crossing: New Horizons and Super Mario RPG.
Speaking with Game Developer, anonymous sources who worked for external translator agencies on Nintendo’s projects said they had been left off credits. In addition, sources said they had been asked to sign a non-disclosure agreement which prevented them from talking about their work for 10 years.
“I kind of accepted [miscrediting] as ‘part of the business’ but that doesn’t mean it’s fair or right,” one source who worked on Nintendo projects through service providers Localsoft and Keywords told the publication. “The fact that these companies are not able to give any reasonable explanation for omitting external translators (and even developers) from their credits is proof of this, I think.
