This presentation focused on the why and how of localizing a game for multiple markets/languages.
Why care about localization? Games now are more international than ever, with more and more profit potential coming from outside your initial/core market.
Global market estimated at $31.6B (PWC data). Non-NA sales for EA 50% outside of North America, Activision international sales grew 240%. Non-NA sales expected to grow to $50B by 2011, with
Europe and Japan growing fastest. All major publishers have stated international markets are a key focus.
Trend towards “simship†or simultaneous shipping in multiple geographies. But it increases development and marketing costs.
Full localization is often called E-FIGS: English, French, Italian, german, Spanish. Partially includes Japanese, Chinese, Korean, Russian, Norweigian, Finnish, Danish and Dutch.
Core part of game production. Often viewed in Production and Post-Production phases. Includes prep of local kits, translation, linguistic play-testing, bug reporting and fixing, content review, and more testing. Need to think about localization sooner in the lifecycle.
Sample game:
- 30,000 words in-game text – 10,000 in-game words, 20,000 words of dialog, all dialog subtitled, 30 art assets to localize
- 2000 lines of recording Voice Over, 12 major characters, 20 minor characters, 400 dubbed lines
- E-FIGS
- Est production time (best case scenario): 20 days to translate 30,000 words, 7 days to cast 32 characters, 14 days for voiceover translation, 1 day for asset integration, 21 days for Linguistic testing, 3-4 weeks for ratings (but only after 100% of content is ready). Total: 63 days for 1 language, 1 platform, 107 days for 1 language, 3 platforms. Linear increase for every language added.
She then described the “desired state†of game localization, with much more emphasis on pre-production (make code more localization-friendly from the get-go, review content to see if it will fly in the target countries, etc.). She gave an example of a game developer where the German translator was deeply offended that the main villain was named after a Pope and that several elements of the storyline were actually incorrect and might get the game banned due to Nazi content. This happened early enough in the pre-production process to allow for not too disruptive changes to the storyline and character names, but you can see what would have happened if the game was set in stone when this happened.
Keys to localization: technical (localization-friendly code, automation), process (scheduling, asset mgmt, testing) and content (cultural sensitivity, global audience, ratings boards).
Treat English as a foreign language! It’s a great way to keep it top of mind during the technical production phases. That includes supporting Unicode, double-byte and international characters, int’l date/time, icons instead of text, support subtitles, lip-synching, etc.
Remember international keyboards have keys in different places, so important for PC games.
Process: start early in pre-production! Make translators team members. Define process and pipeline. Catalog and detail your assets (including character gender, formal vs. informal language, manual, box text, licenses, customer support, etc.). All common sense.
Testing involves linguistic and functional testing and the ratings submission. Can often take the longest of any part of the localization process.
Content localization: be culturally sensitive (humor is very tricky, politics, religion). She covered examples including Ghost Recon 2 which was banned in
South Korea because of the story line featuring a north Korean general trying to consolidate power. The
UK rejected Manhunt 2 for extreme violence. In
Japan use of 4 fingers by a character is very sensitive (Yakuza reference, “four†is an unlucky number, and historically a 4-finger salute was considered an insult).
XLOC – localization middleware.
Question: games on the web and localization – how is that handled? Local ratings boards trying to figure it out, start with IGDA Localization SIG and ratings websites.
Q: any middleware solutions for font engine support? A: no, sorry.
