LocalizeDirect - Game Localization & LQA’s Post

🚀 Localization Tips for Game Developers: Best practices for Perfecting Simplified Chinese Translations! 🎮 Looking to Translate Your Game into Simplified Chinese? Great Choice! Simplified Chinese is currently the most popular language on Steam! China's language, culture, and writing system are quite distinct from those in Western countries, which can lead to potential character display issues and translation challenges. To help you navigate these complexities, we’ve put together some essential tips for localizing your game for the Chinese market. Read on to discover what to do—and what to avoid! What Game Developers Need to Know: 🗓️ Plan Ahead: Many games involve localizing large amounts of text. As game content often reaches its final form close to the release date, translators might have limited time, which can affect the quality and the amount of time available for proofreading. To avoid a last-minute crunch, aim to prepare the text as early as possible. 🌍 Understand the Importance of Localization: In China, it's crucial to focus on localization rather than just literal translation. Chinese culture, history, and pop culture differ greatly from Western ones, and the way people express thoughts and emotions also varies. Humor is another area where differences are significant. Translators often need to get creative to effectively convey the intended message. Familiarize yourself with the concept of "transcreation"—it's especially important for the Chinese market. 🗣️ Involve a Native Speaker: Ensure that a native Chinese speaker is part of the process to create natural-sounding dialogues and clear instructions. Games are not the place for grammar mistakes or display errors. Only a native speaker can fully apply their linguistic expertise and cultural sensitivity. 🎮 Prioritize Game Testing: Game testing is essential for accurate translation. Context matters, especially for single words or short commands. Testing helps verify that all Chinese characters display correctly and that the font looks appropriate. At Chinese Localization, we offer translation and game testing services even under tight deadlines. You can trust us with your project to ensure a smooth localization experience! 🌟 Picture: Designed by Freepik, tirachardz #Gameloc #indiegamedev #GamingIndustry #Gamedev #ChineseGamingMarket

As you plan your game’s localization for foreign markets, you might look at translation agencies’ offers and wonder – do we really need all these steps? Is proofreading absolutely necessary? And what on earth is “cultural consulting”? Well, in our professional opinion, publishing translations without editing or proofreading is for people who like living on the edge. We place it somewhere between wingsuiting and wrestling a dragon while having all the debuffs applied. 🐉 As for other services, if they might be necessary or not – that depends on your project. Let’s take a quick look at some of them and see how they might be useful for you: 🌪️ Editing – thorough revision of the translation in relation to the original text. If you choose this option, you can be doubly sure that the localized version of the game corresponds to the source and doesn’t contain any terminology or linguistic errors. 🌪️ Proofreading – revision of only the translated text. It can be done after editing, or it can directly follow the translation step instead of editing as an economic compromise. 🌪️ LQA/Testing – checking if all the localized texts fit the context in the game and if the layout looks correct. The localizers don’t know the game as well as you do and often aren’t sure where a given string will appear. To avoid any context or layout issues, LQA testing might be extremely useful, especially in complex projects. 🌪️ Cultural and localization consulting – providing localization advice throughout the whole process, starting with the game’s development. The way the game content is prepared can affect the process of localization and the quality of the end product. To avoid any issues in the future and guarantee smooth and fast localization, you can consult localization experts beforehand. It’s always up to you how your game localization process looks like – if you’re not sure what will be best for your game and budget, contact us and let’s chat about it!

📈 Boost Your Game's Reach: Tips for an Efficient Localization Process! 🎮 Translating games is more than just swapping words—it's about capturing the emotions and atmosphere of the game. So, how can you work effectively with a translator to get the best results? 1️⃣ Context is Key: The more information you provide about the game, its storyline, characters, and style, the better. Game translation requires a full understanding of the context to convey the intended meaning of each line. 2️⃣ Organize Your Text Files: The files you send for localization should be well-organized. Ensure that dialogues are not mixed up—each line should be assigned to the correct character and scene. Items should be categorized appropriately to facilitate workflow and understanding of what is being translated. 3️⃣ Allow Time for Review: Translation isn’t just about converting text; it also involves reviewing and checking it within the game context. Make sure your translator has enough time to thoroughly review the translation in the game to ensure accuracy and consistency. 4️⃣ Use the Right Tools: While content for translation often comes in Excel files, it's worth knowing that specialized tools can greatly enhance project management. These programs offer advanced organizational features, such as adding images of the translated items or characters. They can significantly streamline localization across multiple languages and improve translation consistency. 🌍 Effective collaboration with your translator is crucial for success in international markets. By paying attention to details and using the right tools, you can enhance the quality and appeal of your game! 🔑 #Gameloc #indiegamedev #GamingIndustry #Gamedev #ChineseGamingMarket

Hi everyone! We’re nearing the end of June, and it seems like now’s a good time to update everyone on the progress or Queer Them All and the localization of Psychroma 🌈 🌻 What are we currently doing? Well, we are localizing!  Perfecting glossaries, translating, giving feedback on each other’s translations, proofreading… Some teams are further along the localization process than others, for a variety of reasons: personal and professional obligations, being a smaller team (or working alone!), having more challenges in their target languages, etc.  Whatever that reason is, we have always been very clear with the translators: we don’t want to stress out anyone! Which brings me to my next point: 🌻 When can you expect the localizations to be implemented? Although we had initially planned to finish the project by June 30th, it took us quite a bit of time to actually start translating: organizing the teams, preparing the loc files, getting acquainted with the game, working on glossaries, making some tricky translation choices… So obviously, that’s not going to be a very realistic deadline for us! But that’s totally okay. The end goal is to make something we’re all very proud of, and that’s way underway. I think I can speak on behalf of most volunteers here when I say that we’re having so much fun localizing for this project, being creative and transforming the world of Psychroma into our dearest languages. ➡️ But to tldr this a bit cause I’m too talkative: I think we can safely expect to have most localizations ready… sometime in July… that’s as accurate as I can get 😁 🌻 What’s next? Teams are going to be finishing the proofreading stage at their own pace, after which we will implement the localization in our own closed beta version of the game to start the LQA stage! Meanwhile, I’m going to keep posting Translators’ highlights everyday! I’m really excited about the engagement these posts have gotten, and I sincerely hope they can help the featured translators as much as possible in their career. I’m hoping to keep promoting the awesome work we’re doing on this project, and I want to keep on making Queer Them All louder and louder 🌈 Again, a billion thanks to all volunteers for their patience and dedication, to Rocket Adrift and Gamma Space for collaborating with us, and of course to Lucie Melay and Ludovic Seigneurin for their awesome work in managing this project! #QueerThemAll #Gamelocalization

Master class in GameLoc! I love the Ace Attorney series and even though the localization is challenging, it sure seems rewarding. Learned a thing or two (or maybe even a lot!) on the blog.

🎮 Localization as Creative Writing: When Curiosity Killed the Cat... 🐱 Game localization is so much more than just translation—it often involves a good deal of creative writing. In one of my projects, I came across the phrase like "curiosity will be your downfall." While I can’t share the exact source sentence due to the NDA, it essentially conveyed this meaning. Instead of simply translating it word for word, I chose to bring in a well-known proverb in Turkish: "fazla merak kediyi öldürür." In English: "curiosity killed the cat." Drawing on this, I created a localized version: "merak, seni de kedi gibi öldürecek." In English: “curiosity will kill you like the cat.” This wasn't just about making the phrase culturally engaging, but about adding a layer of creativity that makes the localized version more impactful for the player. -------------------------- 👋 Hi, I’m Emirhan. I specialize in providing effective game, software, IT and marketing localization from English into Turkish. 💌 Interested in a potential collaboration? Feel free to reach out to me here on LinkedIn or via email at [email protected] #localization #gamelocalization #culturaladaptation #turkishlocalization #creativewriting #transcreation #gamingindustry

Localization can be very difficult - it's not just about translating. It's about making your content resonate with your global audience. Here are a few elements to consider: 1) Use a consistent style guide: A well-defined style guide ensures uniformity in communication and maintains brand identity across languages. 2) Invest in translation memory tools: They help save time and resources while maintaining consistency and accuracy. 3) Work closely with native linguists: They bring cultural nuances to the table, making content more relatable to the target audience. 4) Regularly update your glossaries: Keep them current and share them with your localization team to ensure everyone's on the same page. For more insights, check out the full article here: https://lnkd.in/eVUtTtyR

Hey there! This post is to let you know that we’re currently enrolling for our Loc700: Translation and Localization Specifications course that will begin in February 2025. You can enroll in this course using our EOY2024 discount code until the end of the year to take 24% off the full price of this course. 🤔 Why should you consider this course? Well, because quality in content work like translation and localization is subjective, and specifications are what make quality objective. Many different parameters need to be defined within specifications prior to kicking off the production of multilingual communication campaigns in order to set your work up for the best chances of success. Who is this course for? 🙂 Localization producers who want to take a systematic approach to defining the multifaceted requirements that must be achieved to make products and services globally local. 🙂 Translation and localization buyers who want to understand what requirements should be defined and met when they purchase language services from providers. 🙂 Technology developers who'd like to automate the process of defining translation and localization requirements, by first taking a comprehensive and systemic look at the requirements for definition. Any of this resonate with you? Join our one-of-a-kind 6-8 topic translation and localization specifications course before the end of the year to receive your 24% discount on this valuable content using the EOY2024 discount code. To get an idea of how you can apply what you’ll learn in this course, you can also check out a GAI application our Translation and Localization Specifications Template – a light version of our Content Specification Wizard. *Our lightweight GPT Content Specification Wizard: https://lnkd.in/d_ndJfig #LocEssentials #Loc700 #Specifications https://lnkd.in/dePUpkJX

Here it is! My massive side translation project! A (Unofficial) Comprehensive Localization of the first case of Phoenix Wright: The First Turnabout! This was made for new translators (and even old ones) that want to know what's the whole process of making a video game localization. As someone with over 10 years of experience, this project demonstrates how an experienced translator approaches a game without relying on AI/MT translation or translating word-for-word. Instead, it involves researching English and Japanese names and carefully considering how the Brazilian audience will experience the game. This post includes: ☑ Characters' transcreations ☑ Glossary ☑ Style Guide ☑ Complete translation of "The First Turnabout" Please support by reacting to this post and following me on my blog on Wordpress. (This game does not have an official translation, and all rights belong to Capcom. This is only a fan translation by a senior translator).

It's been getting increasingly harder to check off my annual CPD hours in a meaningful way. I usually take one large course on translation, localization or management per year to refresh my skills and keep up to date with the evolving market demands. This year, though, I found myself in a situation where most supplementary educational programmes for translators are of no use to me anymore, and this is especially true for the ones aimed at those translating into Russian. "Basic Marketing Translation Course" does not sound very enciting to me with my 8 years of experience in this field. I've lost count of how many Steam pages for games of all sizes and popularity I translated, and these give a lot more insight into the process of creating an appealing message than any training examples taken from some luxury brand press release from 2013. "Localization: A Comprehensive Course" is actually an extensive collection of very shallow insights into the very basic things any decent translator usually learns the hard way after receiving their first negative feedback from a diligent enough reviewer. I am aware that {0} usually substitutes for a number and any measurement units that follow have to be abbreviated to avoid declension inconsistencies, thank you very much. Each and every person reading this post now owes me €690 for this unique piece of valuable knowledge, by the way. "The Intricacies Of Oil & Gas Translation" sounds promising, but in reality it is more of an on-site interpreting training, which is obviously not something I am looking for with my very narrow localization specialization. I'm not even going to delve (haha) into the depths of "ChatGPT in Translation for Dummies" and the like: I am yet to see an MT engine or LLM produce a translation which does not require extensive editing for every single sentence in Russian. It seems like the only way to actually learn something new and potentially useful for a middle to senior level localization specialist is enrolling at an actual university degree with the goal of eventually switching to a career in localization engineering, management or perhaps UX writing/design. The actual process of converting words originally written in one language into words that sound like they were originally written in a different one is pretty straightforward; you either are good at it or you are not, and there is not much you can do to improve your personal translation capabilities beyond a certain point determined by your own talent rather than the amount of other people's knowledge you stuff your brain with. Or is it? I'll appreciate your thoughts and recommendations on advanced training for translators and localization specialists greatly.