OK, he doesn't really, but official 'nicest guy we know' Nich Maragos has been interviewed over at 4 Color Rebellion on his current job as Atlus localization editor - he was formerly a staffer at The GIA (never etc.), 1UP, and a long-time news editor for our sister site Gamasutra.

Nich says some pretty darn smart things on the art of translation, noting: "The simple fact that Japanese grammar, word order, and phrasing is very different from English means you have to edit a lot to avoid sounding stilted. Then, too, Japanese has words that we don’t, and we have words that they don’t, so sometimes you have to make a best approximation rather than avoid a long, unwieldy phrase. I wouldn’t say that I change things “to appeal to a Western audience” because I don’t go around changing “sake” to “beer” in Devil Summoner or that kind of nonsense."

He also has some dead on advice for those wanting to get into the biz: "If you want to work in games and you don’t now, either become a tester or start making mods for Neverwinter Nights or your FPS of choice. If you want to be a journalist, start a fansite. The way to get paid to do something, in my experience, is to be paid little to nothing to do exactly that for a long time first. If you really love the work, then you’d do it anyway; the industry has no room for people who wouldn’t literally give everything they have to be an editor, or designer, or journalist, or artist, or any position you could name."