In recent years, significant growth has become evident in the interactive entertainment software industry. Experts are confident that this process will not be slowed down in the coming years. The market for computer and mobile games has become more successful than ever in this decade. Accordingly, computer games are not only interesting entertainment but also a viable business that has become one of the most profitable and promising segments of the global market.
There is a trend to create a foreign language interface in the video game market. The localization of entertainment software often becomes a subject of neglect by distributors, so many computer games and game applications need some LQA testing. That is a kind of localization quality assurance, which remains an important stage in the localization of any game if the creator tends to bring it to the global market.
The localization of computer games works in a unique field. Often, the process of translating computer games must occur simultaneously with the development of the game in the original language since it allows the project to go to market in several countries at once. In this article, you will learn that and other features of localization for gaming applications.
Stages of game application localization
Game application localization is linked to several steps that explain the importance of this process for the global game community and business.
- First of all, that is the translation of the user manual. It’s a fairly simple step that requires strict adherence to terminology.
- Localization of the user interface is a more complex task. The text in the target language cannot exceed the length of the source language, besides the process is complicated by the complete lack of context when trying to translate often.
- Script localization. Any game application has its script. Moreover, mobile game scripts themselves can contain tens of thousands of words. Coordination of lip-syncing can become a real issue. But in the end, a worthy project can be achieved that will win the hearts of millions of users.
- Audio translation. The quality of sound dubbing in mobile and computer games is of great importance. Also, that stage is the most critical and complex, which requires specialists to be accurate, concentrated, and thorough.
- Localization of the graphics. It is a more basic process that does not cause many problems as a rule.
- The last and most important step is testing the project. Most often, the localization agency is responsible for this procedure. Today, there are many useful tools for localization quality testing.
Localization quality: game application testing
Often, experts and gamers rate the quality of a localized mobile or computer game higher than the version in the original language. The person’s commitment to their native language affects this. Also, a strict quality assurance process has a crucial role in this question.
Experts analyze and test each component of the game application by linguistic tools. Moreover, testing is conducted to ensure consistency with related products, if it is a very popular game or product of corporate studios. Accuracy is so important that the time of adaptation may exceed the time of initial translation.
Conclusion
The localization of mobile and computer games remains a very exciting process. Few advanced gamers will argue that the importance of localization is high. Translation of texts, an adaptation of graphics and audio, as well as cultural adaptation of the project, are not the only issues of the localization of video games. However, they remain the most important today when there are so many gamers in our world.