The Translation Gate acknowledges that creating a captivating user experience for gamers starts with exceptional game localization services. That’s why game localization services have been our game since forever, excelling each game localization project in order to maximize our clients’ games international appeal. At the Translation Gate, we do have 12 years of experience in games localization and translation, including marketing solutions, graphics localization, cultural adaptation, transcreation, voice-over, and game quality assurance testing. We gladly offer professional game localization services of computer games, online games, console games as well as mobile games covering more than 160 different languages.
WE SIMPLY KNOW HOW TO ELEVATE YOUR GAME TO THE NEXT LEVEL
One of the top video game development companies in Asia approached the Translation Gate agency to be their expert localization partner and render precise and well-crafted gaming localization services. The South Korean gaming company aimed to localize the full thrilling and daring experience of their game to the languages and cultures of their international audience. This is because gaming is no longer a niche subculture but more of a conventional action to be relished by players of different ages and spots around the world.
The required project was an action-adventure mobile game localization project that had to be translated from South Korean into multiple languages including, English, Arabic, French, Spanish, Japanese, Chinese, and Italian. The gaming localization project had to be finished in only 3 months, providing various video game localization services which include game script translation, graphics localization, user interface localization (UI) user experience (UX) localization, soundtracks localization, voice-over recording, regional adaptation, and linguistic quality assurance (LQA) testing.
Localizing a mobile game into multiple languages through a tight deadline and a reasonable budget is undoubtedly a complex challenge. However, our team of professional language experts, gamers, developers, and project managers handled and delivered the task smoothly and efficiently within the assigned time.
To overcome such challenge, The Translation Gate team had to make an extensive analysis to produce a top-notch mobile game localization strategy depending on the following:
- Who are the target audience?
- Where do they exist?
- What are the cultural codes of their countries?
- What will the required translation entail?
- What are the visual modifications needed to be done in each game version?
- How will the game interface accommodate new languages?
- How will the tasks be scheduled to guarantee on-time delivery?
How The Mobile Game Localization Process Went?
In the beginning, our team project managers and language experts successfully gained all the knowledge and information needed from the South Korean Video Game company starting from brand considerations to the quirks and peculiarities of the game, so as to create a localization kit, guarantee an accurate and smooth mobile game localization process, and avoid any cost overruns, missed deadlines, or business problems.
Later on, our team of developers imported the strings that needed to be translated from the game source code into our translation management system, with each string of its own ID to assist the localization team in enhancing consistency and lessening costs, so that the language-based part of the localization process can commence.
In this adventure-action game, we adopted a multiphase translation workflow that comprised Translation, Editing, and Proofreading (TEP), in order to secure delivering a quality-guaranteed translation that fulfills the pertinent specifications.
The acknowledged industry-wide practice of TEP entailed:
- Translating the game’s text, features, and properties into the target language (TL).
- Editing the game’s first-draft translation and correcting stylistic and textual errors, as well as ensuring the language accuracy and consistency.
- Proofreading and fixing the spelling mistakes and any further typos.
In the aforementioned game, we translated all the text content of the game including the user interface, the dialogue scripts, user manuals, and game descriptions on the App Store and Google Play. We also translated all the UX writings, gamers’ and critics’ reviews, advertisements, websites, and all related promotional materials. Moreover, we also did localize all the local-specific features such as date, time, currency, units of measurement, etc..
Our hardworking team worked with highly-qualified native DTP specialists who integrated their knowledge of language conventions, industry specifics, and local norms, in addition to their expertness with DTP techniques and technologies to deliver outstanding game graphics.
So, either it was typesetting of a simple text, or the adaptation of complex graphics through creating and adapting layouts to illustrate the game’s unique look and feel, both cultural adaptations and transcreation came into play.
As for the cultural adaptation part, any socially, politically, and culturally inappropriate concepts, incidents, or names were removed from the localized versions of the game without affecting the game plot or scenario. For instance, hard drinks and +18 sexual and violent scenes were removed from the Arabic game version as it’s somehow socially and culturally unacceptable.
Meanwhile, as for the transcreation part, our language experts employed a sense of creativity and imaginative reflection to go beyond the literal translation of the game content and enrich the game adventurous world. Hence, they transcreated the game slogans, the informal conversations, the puzzles and riddles, the play-on-words, and the fundamental clues, so as to deliver the same essence and ideas implemented in the source game version.
In addition to the source text translation and graphics localization, our extensive experience in the multimedia localization industry allowed us to provide superb multimedia localization services for our gaming company including transcription, subtitling, voiceover, and dubbing.
A team of hand-picked native talented voiceover artists, linguists, sound engineers, and project managers delivered the highest-quality multimedia localization services that captured the game players’ attention and made the game genuinely stand out without losing the passion, objective, context, or tone of wording in mediocre translation or clumsy casting.
In that step, at the Translation Gate agency, our team of experienced gamers and devoted game testers, coming from different countries around the world, lived and enjoyed the gameplay experience before, during, and after the localization process to ensure the targeted sense of adventure was felt throughout all the localized versions.
As a final step, our game testing team including LSO specialists, developers, linguists, gamers, and QA testers carried out a final test to try the user experience and conduct linguistic, coding, layout, and functionality testing. This step incorporated:
- Ensuring the coding worked accurately.
- Testing UX in diverse markets and checking output.
- Making sure content translation was engaging, precise, and in perfect condition.
- Removing any culturally or socially inappropriate references and jargon.
- Assuring that the visual design was optimum without any cosmetic or graphic problems.
- Securing mobile responsivity with an optimized speed.
The Translation Gate proudly delivered the mobile game localization project on time with exquisite satisfying quality results. Accordingly, the South Korean Gaming company became one of our happy clients, and the mobile game became a worldwide hit with an estimated 5x rapid revenue growth after the localization project.
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