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Episode Transcription
FLOR: Hi, welcome to another Open World LocFact!
ALEX: Hi, everyone. Well, I’m Alexis and today Flor and I will be discussing one of my personal favorite games: The Witcher 3, which was localized into a staggering 13 languages.
FLOR: For those unfamiliar with the game’s cultural background, most elements come from Slavic folklore. It’s a rarely seen world to most players, but for localizers, it becomes a hardcore level challenge. Monsters, characters, and locations often have expressive names, so localization plays a big role in portraying culturally accurate descriptions that are heavily influenced by that specific folklore.
ALEX: Now, let’s start with Geralt’s trusty steed: Roach. But don’t let that name bug you! It actually comes from the fish, not the insect. Plotka, the name in the original language, that I’m probably butchering now, it comes from Polish, for those who didn’t know, and is a female gendered word for the roach fish, which derives from the Polish “Płoć.”
FLOR: Funny thing about this horse is that in Czech, “Roach” was localized into “Klepna,” which actually means “gossip.” You may be asking why this happened, right? I mean, we sure did! We have a theory here for this. We think that what might have happened here is that the Czech translator probably used just “Plotka,” as you can see on the screen, without the special symbol right there. And that means “gossip” or “rumor” in Polish. Interestingly enough, regardless of the possible mistranslation here, the word “Klepna” in Czech also refers to the sounds of hooves.
ALEX: There’s a lot going on behind the horse’s name, but Roach clearly deserves it. Such a good steed. Now, something else worth sharing about this game are some of the enemies, and here we should mention the Leshens. These are tough, forest-dwelling creatures with the frightening features of several animals from our world all combined. These creatures’ name comes from the Slavic term for “forest,” which is “les,” and it’s totally fitting for the Leshen’s bark and moss-covered arms, root-like legs, and deer skull for a head. Certainly a forest creature and more than a little badass for a creature, too.
FLOR: They were pretty badass to me. And now, we want to talk about Bies. That’s the Polish word for “devil” or “fiend,” and they’re another creature we often encounter in The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt. Bies are widely considered to be a synonym of “chort,” which is a demon from the Slavic mythology, who is often associated with the devil since the Christianization of the Slavic nations.
ALEX: Now, the Witcher’s localization and culturalization work is just uncanny, and we love to see so much time and energy being dedicated to doing justice to the original books. I mean, there’s so much more to unpack here, but for now we’re gonna wrap it up and thank you for joining us in today’s LocFact!
FLOR: Hi, everyone! Welcome to a new episode of Open World. How’s everyone doing today?
ULISES: Hi.
FLOR: Hey. So today we have a very interesting guest that we’ve been wanting to interview for quite a long time now. Today we have Ulises. Hi, Ulises, how are you?
ULISES: Hi, everyone.
FLOR: Ulises Uno is a content and localization manager at Etermax. Etermax is a very popular company here in Argentina where we are all based, and he’s leading a strategic area for the company’s gaming division, which is focused on developing and publishing worldwide social games that entertain, connect and foster knowledge in up to 34 languages. Can you believe that? And he has an educational background in social sciences and translation, and he joined the gaming industry as a translator and a copywriter. Ulises currently leads a team of language specialists, user experience writers and content producers, guiding them towards a product-centric mindset. Hi, Ulises, welcome to Open World! How are you today?
ULISES: Hi, I’m doing great. It’s an honor to be here. And thank you for inviting me.
FLOR: Oh, please.
ALEX: The honor is all ours, man.
FLOR: Yeah. So, well, we have a couple of questions for you because we’re super curious to know how you got into this industry, your background and your experience as a localization producer. Well, from what I see, you’ve been wearing a lot of hats, and that’s super interesting. And of course, we want to learn from your story. So first of all, what aspects do you take into account when trying to reach a specific market? Are there any specific strategies when it comes to mobile apps and games?
ULISES: Well, I would say in just a few words that we go for the low hanging fruit first and for the long shots later. So we try to see the return on investment and try to figure out whether the lifetime value of a user is bigger than the cost of acquiring a user. And then in terms of the cost of acquisition, localization plays a part. So sometimes, you know that localizing a game that was first devised or first developed in English, translating it into Chinese will be more costly than translate into Spanish, for example. And that’s just taking the cultural aspects into account. I’m not talking about possible dealing with censorship or dealing with local publishers, in the case of China. And… Yeah. It’s usually easier to localize for the markets that are culturally closer to what you already know or kind of know.
FLOR: So yeah, we wanted to know what are the main challenges, or better yet, the most fun aspects of your job in a company so well known for making worldwide social games.
ULISES: All right. So I joined the company when Trivia Crack was a sensation in Latin America. And I remember those first days as being really hectic and having camera crews all the time in the office because, you know, the media wanted to know what was it about, this little Argentine company that was playing in the same league as giants like Zynga or King.
ALEX: Making those first big waves.
ULISES: Yeah, exactly. And it was quite rewarding because one of my first tasks was to see how to expand that initial success in Latin America over to other markets. And so we started translating the user interface, localizing the content into, well, quite a few languages. And I remember when it hit number one in the US, that was… That felt so good.
FLOR: Wow, I bet!
ULISES: Yeah.
FLOR: How did you celebrate? Was there anything in particular that you did? I mean, that was a huge milestone.
ULISES: Yeah, we had a party, I remember, to celebrate it.
FLOR: Good times.
ULISES: Yeah. Yeah, it was crazy. We would see people uploading videos on YouTube playing the game. BuzzFeed was making, like, quizzes on the game. And then more… Well, it was a bit unexpected. It was a huge success also in Turkey. So seeing people who don’t speak a language you understand talking about the game on TV was completely…
ALEX: Mind blowing.
ULISES: It was mind blowing. And I would say that the most fun and most fulfilling part of my job is knowing that I can do what I like doing and I can apply the knowledge that I enjoy, you know, harvesting and put it into this collaborative effort to make a game be a success.
FLOR: Yeah. And I bet, like, I mean, I wish I experienced that once in my life. Like, feeling your own product kind of doesn’t belong to you anymore, it’s part of the community. And it’s surreal to see other people like playing with your product, a product that you put so much time and effort, and you get to know every single person who intervened in that process. I bet it’s a really amazing feeling.
ULISES: Yeah. At some point we had two million people playing each day and…
FLOR: Wow! That’s crazy.
ULISES: Yeah. Thinking just that some people were… two million people were probably reading my translations was mind blowing. And at the same time, I saw how the company grew. So we were a startup at the time, and because of the success of the game, we started building like an international company. And at that time I knew everyone. We were only 60 people and now we’re like 500 people.
FLOR: Wow!
ULISES: It’s really… Yeah. It’s gratifying that some of that has to do with localization. Of course, I cannot take credit for all of that.
FLOR: It’s a team effort, right? It takes a village to raise a popular IP and such a successful brand like the one that you got there. And how does it feel like to work in such a large team? I mean, the culture… I know that you have a very strong culture, and I really appreciate that. And I’m really curious on how you build relationships once you’re in that stage, right?
ULISES: Yeah. At some point, we had to, you know, get together and figure out what our values are and how we want to work with each other. Before that, it was just anything goes or whatever makes everyone feel more comfortable. But now, when you’re so many people, you just have to have some rules and some expectations and there are certain rituals. It’s like a Chinese society.
ALEX: Yeah, you go from a household, right? To an entire community. But let’s jump back to the now, right? So now you guys at Etermax localized your products in up to 34 different languages?
ULISES: Yes, that’s correct.
ALEX: We know that it may not always have been like that. From which languages did you start at the beginning? And can you please elaborate a little bit more about this growth and the growing pains, if there were any, in the process?
ULISES: Yes, of course. So the very beginning for us was a game called Word Crack o Apalabrados, that was the first game we made. And it was like a Scrabble for mobile. And, of course, we didn’t invent the genre, but what we did see was that there wasn’t a Spanish version of that game available for iPhone users at that time. And when we released it in Spanish, it was a huge success in Spain, and soon enough people from different autonomous communities in Spain started asking for a Galician version, a Basque version, a Catalan version, and so on and so forth. So, well, soon enough we figured out that we could offer a localized version for users and that it would make sense. And then when Trivia Crack came along, and it fared so well in a variety of countries, I think we became more aggressive in a way, like we started adding languages and they would usually have at least a moderate success. And then I think we became a bit more cost-conscious, because having that many languages in a game can also harm your focus, right? So I would say, generally speaking, we start with the EFIGS and Portuguese, so English, French, Italian, German, Spanish and Portuguese, and then we build it up from there. Usually we start with other European languages. Depending on the game and depending on the goals of the company at the time, you could be adding Dutch first or Catalan first. Other times it means trying to localize it for the East Asian market. Sometimes it’s Russian. Other times might be Southeast Asian countries. It all depends.
ALEX: It’s a bit of a people’s choice too, right? And market research, for that matter, right?
FLOR: Yeah, it’s a mix of listening to your community and getting your numbers right, and doing a lot of research.
ULISES: Exactly. And being mindful also of the genre of the game. Because for trivia games, it’s not difficult to provide an experience in Chinese, for example, or Korean. But Scrabble, which is, you play with tiles with different letters. No, it’s just impossible.
ALEX: Yeah, that can be quite a challenge.
FLOR: Yeah. And was there any particular language or languages that were more challenging than others?
ULISES: Well, I suppose the further away you go from the Indo-European languages, the harder it gets for different reasons. So in some cases, like in Turkish, you have two “i” letters. And that’s a problem because we don’t have them mapped out in our database. But then East Asian languages come along, you have so many languages. And then you go to Southeast Asia and you have probably Vietnamese that doesn’t look too hard because it’s Latin based, but you have so many diacritics. And then you have Russian, which is, well, they don’t have that many characters, different letters, but they do have more than two plurals. So… yeah.
ALEX: Different challenges.
ULISES: Yeah.
FLOR: Yeah, right? It’s so interesting that you learn so much because you start to find these similarities, even though some languages are so distant from one another, right?
ULISES: Yeah, exactly.
FLOR: So we also wanted to know what games you’re playing because, yeah, we’re all into localization, but what brings us here are games as well. So is there any game that you would like to recommend us?
ULISES: Huh. Well, I’m not the best of gamers.
FLOR: Oh, me neither!
ALEX: Yeah. We are not pros. We are not on E-Sports. We like to play games.
ULISES: All right, fair enough.
FLOR: We’re very busy people, and we don’t have enough time.
ULISES: Fair enough. I tend to play games that came out a couple of years ago. So right now I’m playing Final Fantasy VII, the Remake version. It’s really good. And I recently finished the entire Uncharted series. That was really good. But what happens to me is that I see video games as a social activity, and of course, I play your occasional FIFA or Fall Guys online. But I prefer getting together and playing Mario Kart or, you know, Smash Brothers and stuff. So, yeah, in this pandemic, it’s really hard, you know?
ALEX: It’s really hard.
ULISES: Yeah.
FLOR: Well, for the people that are not aware what was going on before we started this session, there was a box lying there because I just got my TV delivered this week. And one of the things that I’m looking forward to is to playing games with my friends in my couch like co-op. And those are one of my favorite games, actually. Last year I played a lot of Overcooked.
ULISES: Oh, yeah.
FLOR: It has this cool factor, you know? It helped me go through lockdown and stay in touch with my friends. And I mean, it became a social space, like you said.
ULISES: Yeah, totally.
ALEX: Yeah. I have this same spirit to play co-op, but with different games. I’m a big Souls fan and Bloodborne fan. But to play co-op on those difficult games, it’s like to have people that help you and that have fun with you, right? Or suffer with you!
FLOR: We’re in this together.
ALEX: We’re together, right?
ULISES: Yeah.
ALEX: So now moving forward to your experience, Ulises, what are the most challenging features that the localization process have in video games? Is there anything in particular that keeps you up at night? Or do you have a good night’s sleep every day?
FLOR: I do hope so, though.
ULISES: Yeah. I would say I do sleep well nowadays, but I didn’t before. So, well, first of all, I think localizing games is a complex endeavor. We mentioned a few things that get in the way of a perfect localization for internationalization. And after some time working in the industry, I think I’ve come to realize and accept that there’s no such thing as a perfect internationalization or localization in the real world. And yeah, I used to lose sleep over it, worrying about, what are we gonna do about the Arabic speaking users that won’t be able to see all the plurals that they have and whatnot? But I guess it’s just not reasonable to be a stickler of localization. And you have to try to come to terms with that. And yeah, and after that, you learn to compromise and prioritize. And I think the most challenging thing is to have a clear vision of where you want to go with a game or a product, and think in terms of incremental steps and finding ways to test your hypothesis and validate what you thought was right, and finding ways to collaborate with the myriad of different disciplines that work together in building a game.
ALEX: That’s amazing advice for everyone…
FLOR: Yeah, everyone should be taking notes right now.
ALEX: I know that I am at least taking mental notes.
FLOR: Yeah. And I wanted to go back to… Well, I know that you’re a super large company right now. You mentioned that you are almost 500 people, over 500 people, and I know that you have presence in a lot of parts of the globe. And I wanted to know, how is that experience? Was there any opportunity where you encountered any cultural barriers with your colleagues or even with your partners as well? Because I know that you collaborate with people from all over the world.
ULISES: Yes. It’s a funny question, really. And I think I’ve encountered what many may have encountered, too, when working with international colleagues. You get the, you know, the common share of stereotypes, I would say, like some nationalities tend to be more structured or others tend to be more laid back and whatnot. But the funny thing is, well, I’m from Argentina and I work in Uruguay, have been working here for three years now. And when I came to Uruguay and started leading the team here, I was soon… I soon encountered that we Argentinians don’t know much about Uruguayans, like we take for granted a lot of things. Of course, we’re really similar, you know? From the outside you probably cannot tell many differences. And Uruguayans know a lot more about Argentinians that we know about them. And also they tend to… they know that, and they try to make us feel at ease. So we always…
FLOR: Oh, that’s so sweet of them.
ULISES: Yes, but we underestimate the subtle differences. That was one problem moving. And I’m usually, you know, really calm. I have a calm demeanor, but I’m really direct and straightforward and like, yeah, upfront. And those qualities here are a bit frowned upon. Like, you can come off as blunt or even impolite. So things that have been working for me in Argentina didn’t work here. I had to relearn some social norms to make things work. And I’m talking about two really similar countries.
FLOR: For those that may not be familiar with how the map is looking over here, well, we’re pretty close to Uruguay, we’re pretty much neighbors.
ALEX: One hour away by boat.
FLOR: Yeah, well, and you can also go by car and it’s like a five hour ride or something like that. But yeah, it’s pretty close to Argentina, Buenos Aires in particular. And we even share the same language. And it’s so easy, as you said, to fall into those assumptions and to think that we’re so close that we’re the same, but we’re not.
ULISES: Exactly. And, well, what I did learn was that it’s not good to assume that what is normal to you is normal for everyone. But at the same time, you know, working in video games, you come to learn that cultural differences are not a barrier, but an asset or an opportunity. We need more diversity in video games now. And if you want to reach a global audience, then having different nationalities on your team could be really valuable.
FLOR: Yeah, I totally agree with that. It makes the final product so much diverse, and it helps you reach a broader audience and to connect in a more deep way to your audience, right?
ULISES: Yeah, exactly.
ALEX: Okay. So going back a little bit to Etermax now, given that you guys are working on very popular mobile franchises that include many cultural and sometimes even very specific local references, how often do you receive feedback from your players? And do you have a system nowadays in place to process and implement that feedback?
ULISES: All right. Yes, we receive a ton of feedback. So people are very vocal, and we appreciate that. We appreciate that a lot, actually. But most importantly for our Trivia Crack family of quiz games, we have something called the Question Factory, which is a feature that not only allows them to give feedback, but also participate in the localization, continuous localization and content generation for our games. So what we do is we created this space right from the beginning almost. Users send their questions, and then we process them a little bit and send them back to the users who then rate them. And then we do this language by language and country by country, so we make sure that your country of origin is one of the key factors that determines the questions that you’re gonna get and, henceforth, the experience that you’re gonna have with the game. And I think that has been a really popular feature, because right now I would say that almost 95% of the content that you see in the game was created by users. Especially Americans and Brazilians and then Argentinians, in that order, are the top contributors to the content.
FLOR: In order of passion, right?
ALEX: But that’s so cool, that the user experience, I mean, it’s generated by the users. I mean, that speaks highly of Etermax as well.
FLOR: Mm-hmm.
ULISES: Yes. I suppose… Well, it was one of the things that we saw at the very beginning. We didn’t invent trivia games, of course, but we did see that whenever you wanted to play a trivia game in Spanish, two things happened. On the one hand, there were a certain fixed amount of questions. So after a while, they would start repeating themselves. And the other thing was, you get questions that were only relevant for people in Spain. So you get questions like, which of the following towns is in Extremadura? And I don’t know the answer to that, and I really don’t care.
ALEX: Yeah, me either.
ULISES: Yeah. It’s not relevant.
ALEX: It’s not relevant, right?
ULISES: Exactly.
FLOR: Yeah. You’re doing a master’s in Spanish, [indistinct 31:00] your geography, and you’re based in Argentina, right?
ULISES: Exactly. So we gave the users the chance to create content and also rate it. And also, we started serving it based on their country of origin. And that has become a really scalable model too, because we couldn’t possibly make that many… well, a couple million… or more than a couple million, like 50 million questions nowadays. There’s no way.
FLOR: More than a couple million!
ALEX: More than a couple million. Just one million is a lot. “More than a couple of million.”
ULISES: Yeah, there’s just too many. There’s no content or localization team in the world that can make that many. So our focus is more on, well, how to process this, how to make the most out of it, and how to provide users with the most meaningful and pleasant gaming experience.
FLOR: That’s incredible. I love that you came up with that system and that it’s working so well. And I also want to know if there’s any specific tool that you used through this specific process or through the localization process in general. Because I know, like you said, you have millions of questions, and I bet it was also interesting to streamline this process through some sort of technology, right?
ULISES: Yes. Well, when it comes to the questions themselves, we used tools that we built ourselves in-house. It’s quite specific. There was no one that provided it. But when it comes to the localization of the interface, we started with our own tool as well and it quickly became, you know, not worthy. It was really costly to maintain it. It was really a hassle. And soon enough we started looking for a tool that could do that for us. And…
FLOR: Yeah, probably there was a need to reinvent the wheel, right?
ULISES: Exactly. Exactly. And well, in that respect, I don’t know if I can mention the tool itself that we…
FLOR: Oh, it’s okay. We don’t want to break any NDAs or put you in a spot, but there are many tools in the market that generally cover the main features. Some may cover some different aspects, but generally what they do is process tons of words simultaneously and have some sort of translation memory or a glossary that you can access to and keep consistency throughout the languages, right?
ULISES: Yes. Yes, exactly. But I can tell you about the requirements on our side.
FLOR: Oh, please.
ULISES: What we needed it was… Well, we have our team of freelancers, so we had we have something in place that would work for them. So we had to have a translation memory and the CAT tool as well. And from our side, we had to add a translation management system as well. And it had to be decentralized because we have many games and not all of the games have a translation manager. So we had to find something that could work for that workflow. And at the same time, we needed a continuous translation so translation task should flow like really fluently. And, yeah, I think those are the main requirements. And, of course, we appreciate our QA, as anyone does in the business.
FLOR: Oh, yeah, quality is everything right?
ULISES: Yeah.
FLOR: So we want to go to the meme section now, if that’s okay with you. I know that you have a pretty interesting story to share about memes, because I know that you’ve created some sort of museum around memes with some of your colleagues and friends.
ALEX: I want to hear about that, too.
FLOR: Yeah. Do you want to share more details on how that was born?
ULISES: Of course. Um, well, first of all, I love memes. I think everyone here loves memes.
FLOR: Yeah. You’re in the right space here.
ALEX: Yes, my friend.
ULISES: Yeah, I think it’s a really generational phenomenon as well. So we’re all millennials, and that has hit us harder than all other generations, maybe. And we take memes so seriously, they’re such a big part of our life, that we started thinking, isn’t it almost like an art form? Isn’t it the way that we’re communicating now with other adults, too? Isn’t it the way we socialize? And we also learned a lot more about the other person, like the memes that the other person likes probably just tells you a lot about them. And we thought that it would be funny to make this memes museum, so a place where we could discuss memes and to preserve the memes that are worth preserving. Like, you know, a good old painting. And, yeah, I think it’s also interesting because localization and memes, there’s a connection there.
FLOR: Yeah, well, we were just discussing this the other day. Yes. One of my question is, when are we going to start thinking about meme localization? Because I know there are many dev teams, even publishers, that are trying to reach their communities, and they found that memes generate this engagement that we’re looking for. So sometimes you need to translate them and even localize them and go like full culturalization with the meme, you know.
ALEX: Culturalizing memes.
FLOR: Yeah, for the other person to get it. I have a lot of English speaking friends that I sometimes share memes with, and some are very… super, super specific to the Argentinian culture, and I need to give them like a full explanation of when I was born, in what culture I was immersed, what programs or TV shows I used to watch to get to the conclusion. Of course, the fun aspect is lost in between because of that whole explanation. But they have such a huge cultural baggage sometimes that it’s hard to portray the message.
ULISES: Yeah, exactly. I think… well, probably you’ve heard the mantra that goes like “To go global, you need to think local,” or something along those lines, when it comes to localization. And I think memes are probably the epitome of that mantra, because it’s a global phenomenon, but at the same time, the ones that, you know, get to you really to the deepest part of your heart are the ones that are hyper localized, the ones that you understand them because you were born and you grew up in a certain place at a certain time. And that’s, well, that’s a challenge to translate and transculturalize them.
FLOR: Hell yeah. I mean, we take memes seriously here.
ALEX: We take memes seriously.
ULISES: Yeah. But I also think they’re… I’m sorry.
FLOR: No, it’s okay.
ULISES: I think… It’s like… I take it so seriously. But I think memes can…
FLOR: We do as well, trust me.
ULISES: Memes can bring humanity together, I think, much like localization, because we’re seeing that we can laugh at the same things. And, you know, being able to be in this generation and seeing how we are laughing at the same topics or the same entities. I don’t know. If that doesn’t bring us together, then I don’t know what will.
FLOR: Oh, yeah. I mean, yesterday, I was talking to one of my best friends and I was so tired that we were just talking through stickers and memes and gifs. That’s my language when my brain is dead.
ALEX: It’s a sociological subject on its own.
FLOR: Yeah. Yeah, and it can portray a whole mood or a whole vibe or a whole even political stance, you know, it can get as personal as you want them to.
ULISES: Yes.
FLOR: So we’re gonna get personal. I’m gonna go ahead…
ULISES: All right.
FLOR: I’m gonna share…
ALEX: This is too real. This hits too close to home.
ULISES: Yeah. I don’t know why, but it does happen.
FLOR: Yeah, especially… Well, sometimes lately, I’ve had some of those days when I’ve been like for hours in a call, jumping from one call to the next, and I start to, of course, I start to lose concentration, lose focus. And then whenever that happens, I just stand up, just go to… or maybe take a walk around or something because, yeah, I’ve been there so many times. The next one.
ALEX: The same thing can apply to Resident Evil 4, right? How many consoles do a single game need?
ULISES: Well, my sense on that is that, if the game is good enough, then it should survive and come to the next generation’s console.
FLOR: Yeah.
ALEX: And it certainly does. My concern is that not enough… not enough good games are going out or being released, right? That we continue to play that amazingly good game, but it’s ten years old.
FLOR: Well, but it takes years to build a game that is actually good and that can stand for decades and have communities of followers for decades. So maybe that’s why. There are many other reasons probably there, but yeah, for sure.
ULISES: I can totally relate to this.
ALEX: Yes. Yes, totally.
ULISES: So my favorite game of all time is Super Mario World, and I play it every year, and I play it through and through every year.
FLOR: And with whom do you play?
ULISES: I’m sorry?
FLOR: With whom do you play generally? Friends, family?
ULISES: Oh, no, that one I play alone.
FLOR: Really?
ULISES: Yeah. Super Mario World is, you know, I can beat it with my eyes closed at this time.
FLOR: Oh, you’re that good?
ULISES: No, I just like it that much. And I’ve play that many times.
ALEX: It’s an amazing game. I had it back in the mid-nineties, and when I bought my Super Nintendo Mini, I started it over again. And it was like, I felt like a little kid again.
ULISES: Yeah. Yeah, I think that’s what makes me feel.
FLOR: Exactly. That’s what’s great about it, that it gets you back to that space, like a child again. Right?
ULISES: Yeah.
FLOR: There’s… Yeah, yeah. I could be talking for hours and debate about video games making people violent. Like, no. I mean, look at us. Right?
ULISES: Yeah, exactly. And the media portrayal of video games, I suppose it’s gonna change at some point. Like so many people are playing games now that we have smartphones and there’s casual games for literally everyone. I don’t know. It should change that perception. It’s so old.
FLOR: I mean, I like to believe that it’s already changing. Like we talked just a couple of minutes ago, it’s becoming a social space, and everyone is pretty aware of that already. So I think that this idea will get old soon. Hopefully.
ULISES: Hopefully.
ALEX: Now I have something that I want to ask. Who was that that just did a cameo on screen?
FLOR: Where?
ALEX: I need to know the name of that beauty.
ULISES: Oh, are you talking about my cat?
FLOR: What am I missing?
ALEX: You are missing something, Flor. We had a cat cameo. We love cat cameos here. I’m sorry to expose you, but… Oh!
FLOR: Oh! Yeah, we need proper introductions.
ULISES: She is Arabella, one of the… Yeah, the two cats that live here, but she’s the more extroverted one. And she likes to say hi.
FLOR: Hi, sweet girl! Oh, so cute.
ALEX: Sorry. I had to meet her. Sorry, Ulises.
FLOR: Yes. Thank you, that was absolutely necessary. Alexis, thank you.
ALEX: Oh, please. [I deserve it. 46:53]
FLOR: So going back to this. Every single time.
ALEX: Who hasn’t tried to drive normal on a GTA game or something? It’s impossible.
FLOR: I just can’t.
ULISES: It’s impossible.
ALEX: It’s impossible.
ULISES: Yeah, totally.
FLOR: It reminds me also, well, to every single car game. Whenever there is a car involved, I just can’t drive.
ULISES: I’m a really bad driver in the real world, so imagine in games when there are no consequences.
FLOR: Well, in the real world, I’ve been told that I’m fearless. So that can be a problem.
ALEX: That’s something I should take into consideration, Flor, when we meet.
FLOR: Yeah, you’ve never been in a car with me. I still have to get my driver’s license. Yeah, I’m 33 years old, I’m an adult, and I don’t have a driver’s license. I don’t know how that happened.
ALEX: It can happen.
FLOR: Yeah, I mean, I’m here. So, yeah, this meme also reminds me whenever I try to play Rocket League. I’m flying in the air.
ALEX: I suck so bad at Rocket League.
ULISES: I’m all over the place when I play Rocket League.
FLOR: It’s like, “Hey, look at the ball!” and I’m like over there flying. Something like that.
ULISES: But then again, I’m bad at driving and I’m bad at playing football, so it’s only normal that I suck at Rocket League.
FLOR: Well, you probably have a lot of other skills. And we are… We’re convinced about that. Did you know that there’s…?
ALEX: This is very funny.
FLOR: Yeah. There’s a Twitter where you can see like different scenes in games where you can pet the animals that appear on the screen.
ULISES: Oh, really?
FLOR: Yeah. I have to share it with you because it’s super cute.
ULISES: Yeah. I can relate to this. I prefer animals to humans too, in real life, so.
FLOR: Yeah. That’s why my roommates are cats. That’s how she died, old and alone with a ton of cats.
ALEX: But you’re still young, Flor, you have time to get more cats.
FLOR: Yeah, always. Cats and plants. So that was the end of our meme round.
ALEX: Thanks so much for taking time out of your busy, busy schedule to meet with us, man. Thank you very much.
FLOR: Yeah, I had so much fun, and I really enjoyed getting to know more of you and your start in this industry, which is super interesting. Thank you for joining us today.
ULISES: Thank you for inviting me. It’s been a pleasure. It was really fun, and I look forward to seeing you guys in Buenos Aires when I can travel.
FLOR: Yeah, well, I look forward to traveling either to Uruguay or to wherever.
ALEX: I’d love to go see you in Uruguay, too. I mean, I miss that country so much.
FLOR: It would be great to get together for drinks or for a game session or something.
ULISES: Yeah, that sounds good.
FLOR: To get to see you in person. We’re definitely going to leave the meme museum link over there in YouTube because people should see this. I mean, I really appreciate it. And it’s a gem, a hidden gem that everyone should be aware of. Thank you so much, Ulises. Thank you so much, Alexis. So nice to be here with you today. Thanks, everyone, for joining, and see you on our next episode. Take care.
ULISES: Bye.
ALEX: Bye, guys.