Machine translation (MT) is rather good these days. Luckily for human translators, machines have difficulty translating imaginative or literary texts... among other things. Machines struggle to detect and faithfully translate shades of meaning and cultural nuances. We need human translators to identify these things in a foreign text and convey them fluently, in a culturally appropriate way. This is what localisation is all about (localization in the US) and it's a field in which human translators are crucial. In a similar vein, non-native translators struggle to translate a naturally flowing text that satisfies a native-speaking reader. If the quality of your text is important to your company's reputation or the success of your product, this needs to be kept in mind. Early video games (and unfortunately some contemporary video games and apps too) are notorious for their unnatural use of language. This leads to results that can range from irritating to hilarious.
To see concrete proof of what happens when machines or non-English speakers are given a go at translating this kind of text, I highly recommend the website Legends of Localization. It explores all the ways that video game translation can go wrong, but also offers advice on how it can be improved.
The creator of the site, Claude Mandelin, is a veritable legend of localisation! He offers us insights into the best and worst of video game translation in his language pair: Japanese to English. If you're a translator, I highly recommend his article on "Redundant Translation in Games and Anime". But everyone will enjoy browsing through the "This Be Bad Translation" pages. I particularly enjoyed Heidi Mandelin's "This Be Bad Translation #20 Selfy Collection: the dream fashion stylist!". It has some gobsmacking bloopers from a Japanese stylist app with my favourite: "Douche Meteor"! See the screenshot below. If you're a translator of video games, many of these examples will strike a chord.
Claude Mandelin has also published several books on video game localisation and a collection of memorable translation disasters. You can order his books online at this link. Otherwise, you can enjoy the free content on the website. It's well worth a visit!