Picture this: you have worked countless hours to create an immersive, groundbreaking, tremendously fun game. Months of polishing landscapes, character design, user interface, dialogues… Gallons of sweat and tears poured all over this project of yours to make your baby unforgettable. Everything is set for your game to become a hit: a local one, that is.
But how about its international reach? How can YOU make sure your product will have the same mind-blowing impact on every market? (If you thought the answer was: “By sending my baby to an agency and waiting for global renown to miraculously hit me”, you got it wrong.) Become the “I” in partnership and make your game a worldwide success.
Ready to take on this challenge?
1. Early bird vs. angry bird
Integrating localization at the early stages of your development is the key to a smooth, almost-stress-free process. Doing so, you will avoid many common errors that can easily be avoided just by giving yourself the time to do things properly. No more last-minute pending questions or English-centric user interfaces: plan everything to avoid missing information, which can lead to ambiguous/erroneous/user-unfriendly translations, which result in one thing: retrofitting.
2. Simply the best
All successful localization processes start with the right people for the job.
A lot of agencies work on a “fastest-finger-first” basis to improve their assigning pace, which is likely to result in a multilingual disaster. If you need your game to be localized in multiple languages, make sure the agency you work with carefully selects localization specialists with experience in your genre, and ask to check their background if necessary. If you only aim for two or three markets, my advice would be to cut out the intermediary and look for translators who meet your needs. Communication is key, and handling the recruitment yourself could make the following steps significantly easier.
3. Gimme gimme gimme (context)
I bet you’ve already written piles of instructions to explain your project in detail to level designers, lighting artists, animators, sound engineers, etc. So why shouldn’t your linguists have reference documents of their own? Style guides, glossaries, cultural and visual references… they come in all shapes and colors, and spoiler alert: we love them!
Storyline, lore, characters (personality traits, physical appearance, background, relationships), names and their meaning, humoristic intentions: tell us everything! Is your text a title, an objective, a description, a call-to-action? Giving as much information as possible will both clarify overall meaning and tackle a number of language-specific challenges, like the speech and space constraints. The more you tell us, the easier it is to avoid technical issues while staying faithful to your content (and the fewer questions we ask!)
Trust me: you don’t want us to have questions. (see point 5)
4. Where do the translators play?
What is better than a text’s context? Text IN context. Let’s be honest: give me one better way to understand the meaning of a sentence or a word than seeing it in use! Many developers do not feel at ease giving access to a game pre-launch, given the highly confidential nature of its content. However, fear not: linguists are used to signing Non-Disclosure Agreements, so adding a clause covering this aspect would be no trouble.
5. Stand by me
Nothing is more frustrating to a localization specialist than unanswered queries. Did you know that my average localization projects count as many as 300 questions? (All languages included, despite the use of styleguides, comments, etc.) As much as you prepare your localization process, there will always be nuances or culturally sensitive points you won’t think of (and who can blame you?).
To make sure our version reflects all the hard work you’ve put into your game, we WILL need to ask questions, and more importantly get answers. As our answer provider, you will be a valuable asset in our localization journey. So, how can you help us efficiently? The best way to facilitate the communication process is to create an online query sheet, an Excel file on Google Docs for instance, in order to log all the general and language-specific doubts that may arise and keep track of the unanswered questions.
Ideally, check it once a day. More than ideally: at least twice a day! (once in the morning, once in the afternoon/evening, to cover all timezones if applicable.) The more you keep an eye on it, the less time-consuming it will be!
6. Make sure you're sure
One step you do not want to skip is LQA, aka Linguistic Quality Assurance.
This final polish is important, especially if your linguists did not have visual references or full access to the game.
After spending hours translating their brains out, chances are you will find in your files some rare typos or sentences that could use a better phrasing, whether it be a syntax or tone of voice issue. For a large-scale project divided between several linguists, you might also want to check that no inconsistencies slipped in: although we communicate regularly thoughout the project to agree on specific translations and addresses, our writing style is still very personal, and this could show along the game if no one harmonizes the text as a whole. We are human after all (getting tired of these song titles yet?), and no translation process is complete without one last proofreading step.
Preferably, you will hire another person to either go through the game or screenshots/videos that will allow them to see the translations in context and identify, categorize, explain and fix all the remaining errors.
Conclusion
Here you go: you now have all the loot you need to make your games an international success, and become your linguists’ hero in the process!
If you would like to offer the French market a native experience of your game, feel free to reach out!
Bonus: I know a few localization specialists myself who could help you with several languages, so let’s create your ideal squad. 😉