“The game is good, but without the Russian language I put one” - a frequent review in any store. Learning English, of course, is good, but localization can also help. I translated the article, which languages to target, what to translate and the cost of localization.
Key takeaways right away:
- Translation minimum plan: description, keywords + screenshots.
- Top 10 languages to translate the game (if it is already in English): French, Italian, German, European, Spanish, Simplified Chinese, Brazilian Portuguese, Russian, Japanese, Korean, Turkish.
- Turkish, Malaysian, Hindi, Simplified Chinese, Thai and Polish showed the largest three-year growth (according to LocalizeDirect).
- Translation into FIGS+ZH+ZH+PT+RU languages - "new black" in localization.
What to translate?
First, let's talk about the components of the game that can be translated - localization budgets depend on this.
In addition to in-game text, you can translate descriptions, updates, and keywords on the App Store, Google Play, Steam, or any other platform. Not to mention marketing materials if you decide to promote your game further.
Game localization can be divided into three types:
- basic localization (for example, information for app stores, description, keywords, screenshots);
- partial localization (in-game text and subsections);
- full localization (including audio files).
The simplest is to translate the description in the app store. This is what people will decide on whether to buy or download.
It's important. Most people on the planet do not speak English. On average, 52% of people only buy if the product description is written in their native language. In France and Japan, this figure is 60%.
All text will be in the official language of the store in that country (Google and Apple fully localize their stores), so the translated description will blend in with the store's translation and create a good impression.
Do I need to translate the text in the game itself? Distribution takes place around the world and localization expands the reach and potential to attract a larger audience. If gamers can play the game in their native language, this will positively affect their experience and feedback. Of course, these benefits must be weighed against the costs.
How much does localization cost?
Depends on the number of words, target languages and translation costs.
The cost of a translation done by linguists can range from €0,11 to €0,15 per word or character (for Chinese). Correction costs are usually 50% of the translation cost. These are LocalizeDirect rates, but they give an idea of the approximate prices in the market.
Initially, human translation always costs more than machine translation with subsequent editing.
. Price per word, $
Translating app store metadata into more languages than the game supports is a popular approach. The amount of text in the description is limited, so the translation will not be too expensive.
When it comes to game content, it all depends on how "verbal" your game is. On average, LocalizeDirect customers start with 7-10 foreign languages when translating in-game text.
As for the localization of updates, it depends on how often you plan to release them. It is desirable to work with the same translators - here you need quick interaction and consistency.
Five questions before looking for an interpreter
When choosing markets and languages for localization, ask yourself a few questions:
- Genre and monetization model - is it freemium, ads or in-app purchases?
- If this is a P2P model, how much do I plan to earn per month? Which markets can afford such in-app purchase costs?
- What languages are the most popular on my platforms?
- Who are my competitors? Have they translated their games completely or opted for partial localization?
- How well do I speak English in my target markets? Do they use the Latin alphabet or do their languages have nothing to do with it?
This information is needed to understand the game's potential and how it fits in with the target markets.
The expectations of some countries are also important. For example, in Poland, localized text and voiceovers in English are popular. In France, Italy, Germany, and Spain, gamers expect full VO, especially in large games.
In some countries players don't mind playing games in English, even if it's not their first language. Especially if the amount of text is minimal or the concept of the game is familiar.
Council. Check out the language specifications in the T-Index or the EF English Proficiency Index. Good to know which countries won't accept a non-localized game at all (low to very low English proficiency).
Countries by English Proficiency (EF EPI 2018)
See the most popular games in various markets to gauge competition and player preferences.
Council. Information about mobile games can be found in App Annie reports. SimilarWeb is another free tool with a lot of features. And Steam publishes real-time data on the top 100 PC games by number of players and the most popular languages.
The number of downloads and revenue level are some of the key metrics that developers need to look at.
What languages should the game be translated into?
As of last year, the top ten countries with the highest game sales revenues were China, the US, Japan, South Korea, Germany, the UK, France, Canada, Spain, Italy, and South Korea.
These 10 countries provided 80% of world income (nearly $110 billion). They are followed by Russia, Mexico, Brazil, Australia, Taiwan, India, Indonesia, Turkey, Thailand and the Netherlands, which together added another 8% ($11,5 billion).
The table shows 20 countries ranked by their 2018 gaming revenue estimates. The gaming population data was collected in 2017-2018.
countries by gaming revenue
Thus, by launching the project in all 20 countries of the world, you will gain access to markets with almost 90% of the global gaming income. The Asia-Pacific region brings about 50%, and North America brings 20% of the world's income.
If your monetization model is based on ads, then it makes sense to consider localization in countries with the largest user base, such as China, India, Brazil, or Russia.
Do I need to translate the game into 20 languages?
Not necessary.
We assume that your original language is English. Otherwise, translating the game into English is the first thing you should do. With it, you will enter the North American, Australian, British, part of the Indian and some other Asian markets. You may want to separate the UK and US versions. Players may be annoyed by words that are not local or familiar. If they're specific to a game genre, then that's fine, but usually not.
Now let's take a look at the most popular languages we localized games into in 2018 in terms of word count.
The pie chart shows the distribution of the most popular languages in LocalizeDirect in terms of word count. In total, the data pool includes 46 languages.
languages for localization
The vast majority of localization orders are in four languages, the so-called FIGS: French, Italian, German and Spanish.
Then we moved on to Simplified Chinese, Brazilian Portuguese, Russian, Japanese, Korean, Turkish, Chinese, Portuguese, Japanese.
They are followed by Traditional Chinese, Polish, Swedish, Dutch, Arabic, Latin American, Danish, Norwegian, Finnish and Indonesian.
Again, the top 10 languages made up over 80% of the total words.
7 best languages for localization
The mandatory list includes FIGS+ZH+ZH+PT+RU. And that's why.
French
Along with France, it opens the doors of Belgium, Switzerland, Monaco and a number of African countries. European French is also current in Canada (about 20% of the population speaks French), although Canadians may prefer the local version.
Who cares? Canadian (Quebec) French contains many English loanwords, local idioms and expressions. For example, in Quebec, ma blonde means my girlfriend, but French-speaking Europeans will take it literally as my blonde.
If you distribute the game online in Canada, you can leave it in English. But if offline, then Frenchization is necessary.
Italian
Italian is the official language in Italy, Switzerland and San Marino. Italy is the 10th largest gaming market in the world. They are accustomed to high-quality localization of games due to the low level of penetration of the English language.
German
With German, you can reach gamers from Germany and Austria (#5 and #32 globally) as well as Switzerland (#24), Luxembourg and Liechtenstein.
Spanish
The Spanish gaming market is quite small - 25 million. But when it comes to Hispanic internet users, that's a whopping 340 million - the third largest after English and Chinese. Given the dominance of the US in the ratings (and the fact that 18% of the US population is Hispanic), it is not surprising that many developers have chosen to translate games into Spanish.
It's important. Latin American Spanish is different from European. However, in South America playing in any Spanish language is more welcome than just the English version.
Simplified Chinese
It is our fifth most popular localization language. But it often requires a culturalization of the game. Google Play is banned in mainland China and replaced by local stores. If you use Amazon or Tencent, we recommend translating the game into Simplified Chinese.
It's important. A game for Hong Kong or Taiwan needs to be translated into Traditional Chinese.
In addition, Chinese is the second most popular language on Steam, followed by Russian.
The most popular languages on Steam for February 2019
Brazilian version of Portuguese
It allows you to cover half of the Latin American continent and one of the most densely populated emerging economies - Brazil. Do not reuse European translations into Portuguese.
Russian
Lingua franca in Russia, Kazakhstan and Belarus. It's big, especially if the game is released on Steam. According to statistics, Russian gamers are more likely to leave negative comments if the game is not translated into Russian. This can ruin the overall score.
Let's take a look at the languages that have seen the most growth over the past three years. The chart shows the 10 fastest growing languages in the LocalizeDirect portfolio over the three years from 2016 to 2018. Taiwanese Chinese is not included as it was only added to our language pool in 2018.
for localization
The Turkish language has grown 9 times. It is followed by Malaysian (by 6,5 times), Hindi (by 5,5 times), Simplified Chinese, Thai and Polish (by 5 times). Growth is likely to continue.
A reliable and XNUMX% option is to translate games into "traditional" European and Asian languages. But also entering growing markets can be a reasonable step for the development of the project.
Source: habr.com