Choosing the Appropriate Degree of Localisation

Localisation decisions do not only depend on the time and budget of the publishing company, but also on the expected success of the game in specific markets and on current practices. For example, nowadays games tend to be localised, whereas in the early days it was very common to have the games shipped in their original versions.

However, the degree of localisation of a game, even now, is not consistently the same.

Various levels of localisation have thus been identified and detailed by Chandler and O’Malley (2012, pp. 8-11):

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• Level 0: no localisation. The game is simply marketed internationally in its original version.

As Chandler and O’Malley note, it is common for “budget titles”, i.e. games with small development budgets and schedules, not to be localised (p. 9).

• Level 1: packaging and manual localisation (also called “box and docs” localisation). Only the packaging, the manual and additional documentation related to the game are localised. The game itself remains in its original version. This minimal localisation requires less time and money from the company, makes it easier to achieve simultaneous shipment and provides some information to the player, though it is not fully immersive.

• Level 2: partial localisation. This “means that only the in-game text is translated, not the voiceover.” (p. 9). Sometimes the audio files are rendered in the target language in the form of subtitles. This level of localisation entails a bigger time and money investment on the part of the company and a higher level of risk since in order to accommodate various linguistic versions, the source code has to be altered. Functional and linguistic testing need to be performed on the game to ensure everything is in place, especially considering that the text can be unstable, i.e. the version is not final when the translators start working. The constraints for sim-ship releases are therefore heightened. “Partial localizations are usually created for quality games released in secondary markets such as Holland and Italy” (p. 10).

• Level 3: full localisation. At this level, everything is localised, including voiceovers.

This degree of localisation is the most expensive one since tasks related to voiceover localisation are highly specialized, have to be performed very fast and require many people and skills. For example, facial animations may need to be redone in order to match the words pronounced by the characters, a long and laborious process. Due to these factors, full localisation is the costliest option, with audio localisation making up the biggest part of the budget. Indeed, according to Le Dour’s estimation (2007), audio localisation (script translation, actors’ recordings and studio time) accounts for 50 per cent to 70 per cent of the localisation budget, depending on the size and number of platforms, while text translation usually accounts for 10 per cent to 15 per cent of that budget. It may be worth noting that the cost of audio localisation depends more on the type of recording required than on the actual text volume (Sioli et al., 2007).

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Still, Chandler and O’Malley deem the expense worthwhile since “[f]ull localization shows the player that the publisher is committed to providing the best quality gaming experience for its international customers” (2012, p. 10) i.e. to tailoring a locale-specific game that enhances immersion. However, due to its costs in terms of time and money, this option is “usually reserved for big-budget games” (Chandler and O’Malley, 2012, p. 10) for markets that are deemed highly profitable (and/or language-sensitive). This may explain why traditionally full localisation was provided only for the “FIGS” languages (French, Italian, German and Spanish).

Different decisions may be made by the developers and/or publishers as regards with localising the game taking some factors into account. Other aspects that should not be neglected when choosing the appropriate strategy for the target-locale will be discussed in the following lines. Apart from price and time at the company’s disposal, efficient localisation decisions shall consider the characteristics of the targeted market. Indeed, as Jaime Giné, EA’s Vice-President for International Development Services outlined in his keynote speech in the 2009’s GDC, worldwide, but specifically within Europe, there are various types of markets, with specific needs. The following table summarizes the specificities of each market type and the localisation outcome EA saw as most profitable.

Type of market / characteristics

FIGS Nordics, Du Central Europe

Market size Established large markets

Average-sized markets Small markets growing fast

Example Spain Sweden Poland

Localisation

Table 4. Various localisation approaches depending on market type Source: Giné 2009 [accessed 09 Sep. 2017], available at

http://game.watch.impress.co.jp/img/gmw/docs/079/921/html/gdcloc59.jpg.html

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Other elements that might influence a company’s choice include player data and piracy rates in the target country. Indeed, according to Bernal Merino, the turn of the century has enabled producers to make wise localisation choices based on accurate sales data like “constant direct information provided by game registration schemes, online game memberships and gaming networks” (2015, p. 188). This stream of data allows producers to tailor localisation for each game. For example, the dialogue-driven RPG Mass Effect 2 (BioWare/EA, 2010) was localised into eight languages (Kietzmann, 2010), but due to high piracy levels in the Spanish-speaking world, this language was not offered in the traditional full localisation but only in the partial version, just like Czech, Hungarian and Russian (Bernal Merino, 2015, p. 188). This highlights the fact that there is no one-size-fits-all solution and that the characteristics of the various markets, and their needs alongside it, keep evolving.

This chapter first examined the concepts at the core of this paper. The various debates surrounding the field of video games (for instance regarding denomination and classification) were therefore analysed before defining localisation and other notions closely connected with it, including its most advanced instantiation, culturalisation. Then, the interaction between those concepts was established, first by giving a brief history of video game localisation, from none to full localisation. The rationales behind the decision to localise a game were also explored and the assets that may be affected by the process were reviewed, insisting on the challenges such a transmedial product entails and on the importance of knowing the target market, particularly in terms of needs and sensitivity. Furthermore, in the current context, while gaming companies develop ever-more refined strategies in order to attract more players and maximise their revenues, it is important to adopt the consumer’s position to get an insight about how the localisation strategies put in place are perceived by their primary target, gamers. To that end, we shall have a look at the varied academic research on games before moving on to more consumer-oriented studies and describing our approach.

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