PTI Global

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—Project Manager
Intel Corporation

Annual Game Developers Conference Features Localization Summit - Jeff Williams

I had the pleasure of attending the Annual Game Developers Conference the week of March -12, 2010 in San Francisco. The event brings the most talented and active members of the video game developer and publishers world to the Moscone Convention Center. Approximately 18,000 gamers and other interested parties attended the event and the week was filled with seminars, summits, tutorials, and exhibits. While I expected it to be a wild and freaky crowd, I found the attendees were no stranger or odd appearing than most of the people in San Francisco. Keep in mind that this is someone’s impression who lives in Portland, Oregon, - where we have more than our share of the pierced and tattooed!

I attended an all-day summit on Tuesday where all the relevant facets of game localization were discussed in eight sessions. There were about 200 people at the summit throughout the day, and the organizers at the International Game Developers Localization SIG, Tom Edwards and Miguel Bernal-Merino, did a great job of putting together an informative and wide-ranging program that covered a lot of territory. It was obvious from all the presentations that localization is a very important part of the game industry, with most publishers reporting that 50 percent or more of their revenues come from their localized titles. While many of the elements and processes of traditional translation and localization are present in game localization, there are many aspects that are particular to gaming and require a change in the processes and approaches.

The eight summit sessions covered a variety of subjects:

Session 1: Localizing Large RPG’s (Role Playing Games)

Presenters: Ryan Warden (Localization Project Manager, BioWare)

Christopher Christou, (tool developer, BioWare)

BioWare is a division of EA, the largest video game producer in the world. BioWare produces such game titles as Balders Gate, Dragon Age, and Mass Effect 2. Their presentation focused on how they created a localization project structure that allows them to track, filter, and sort through all the lines of text, voice-over (VO), and character customization through the localization process. They use a model that follows this path:

Export text - Translate – Import Text – Print Scripts – Record VO scripts – Test - Ship – Sell

It’s crucial for BioWare to follow this process as their last localized release of Mass Effect 2 had 2.7 million words, 300 days in VO, and 350 plus actors. The presenters stressed that it was imperative the localized content be developed concurrently with to filter and sort through all the text and character “bibles” so that consistency is preserved and can be published across multiple platforms. When preparing for VO, they recommended providing the English audio files as a reference, along with any contextual information to assist the voice talent. More is always better and many of the presenters stressed this.

Session 2: Standardizing the Localization Process

Presenter: David Kim (Localization Producer from Sony Online Entertainment)

Among Sony Online’s biggest titles is Everquest. Sony Online localizes over 2 million words annually and they have 60 million translated words residing in their Translation Memory (TM).

Sony Online follows the CMMI model (Capability Maturity Model Integration) developed by Carnegie Mellon University. CMMI models provide guidance for developing or improving processes. When Sony Online began localizing there was no engine in place to drive the process and this resulted in not being able to handle dynamic text, poor quality translations, no persistent unique ID’s (meaning they had to look up the translations and essentially the translations were not readily accessible). As a result, they created their own patented engine that addressed all these issues. I guess if you’re the Sony’s of the world, you have that luxury.

Session 3: On the Fly Messaging

Presenters: Aaron Peterson (Assistant Producer at Mythic Entertainment)

Alexander Kochann (CEO of Lingoona GmbH, a German localization company)

Their ultimate goal is that each title has the look and feel of having been developed in the target language and that the translated text looks correct.

This session dealt with grammar issues, as the rules change for each language. The challenges they face involve translating from the original English versions into languages that do not use articles (the, an, a) or where the grammar is dependent on gender or the prefix or suffix. Once again, like Sony, they created their own tool that automatically rearranges the message, based upon the grammar rules of each target language. This includes adding metadata, which gives additional information about the sentence and how it will be used. This allowed them to eliminate the need for engineers to code solutions for the message variations.

Session 4: New Distribution, New Marketing, New Localization

Presenter: Phillipe Juton (Director of Localization for THQ)

In this Keynote presentation, Juton talked about the future of game localization. He was previously in charge of localization at Disney Interactive. His presentation was especially innovative, as it was conducted in a virtual conference room in Second Life, where his far flung global team was assembled. He stated right away that 50 percent of the company’s revenues are derived from their localized titles. His team has a very good success rate with their localization efforts, as 87 percent of the titles submitted are approved on the first submission and the remaining 13 percent have problems with the English master. Overwhelmingly, THQ’s customers prefer localized games, with the exception of Japan, where it’s 50/50. Juton said one of the major obstacles his team faces is the development of the Tutorial, which is always difficult and comes at the end.

One solution currently being explored at THQ is the development of a “Language Pack.” This would enable buyers in other countries to download a free version, in their language, that would overlay the English game. This would allow for 2-3 more weeks in the localization process, as all the target languages would not have to be available at the same time, as with traditional simultaneous release.

Junot also addressed the issue of localizing for smaller territories and more obscure languages and he lamented that it comes down to a matter of finances. On the bright side (at least for us Localization vendors) he doesn’t foresee crowd sourcing for translations for licensed products as it would require a tremendous amount of editing.

Session 5: Localization for the Spanish Speaking Community

Presenters: Diana Diaz Monton (WordLab)

Victor Alonso Lion (Pink Noise)

WordLab and Pink Noise are both localization providers in Spain. There are 300 million speakers of Spanish in 22 countries and it is the 4^th most spoken language in the world. The Spanish Royal Academy sets the linguistic standards for the language. Differences in Spanish include grammar, jargon, vocabulary, and accents.

Spanish-speaking gamers are not 100 percent comfortable with English, so they demand that titles be localized into their Spanish. You have to analyze the genre of the game – sports, action, and adventure – and create metadata that reflects the race, country of origin, dialect, voices, signature phrases, and personality traits. When you target the country or region you have to take into account whether the gamer is hardcore or casual. Hardcore Spanish gamers will organize petitions and submit their own translations if they feel the localization of a particular title fall short.

The presenters also touched on the subject of Neutral Spanish, which is supposed to suffice for all Spanish speakers. Their opinion was that it represents the lowest common denominator and an absence of idioms. If you use Neutral Spanish, it is apparent that it has not been adapted to the individual player’s market and the character specificity is diluted. This type of localization inevitably leads to bad press reviews and a perception of bad quality.

Session 6: Make your Game Appeal to the Asian Market

Presenters: Charles Chang (Sony Computer Entertainment Asia)

Robert Song (Electronic Arts Korea)

Taiyoung Ryu (University of Southern California)

This session began with a discussion about the growth and demographics in the Asian market for video games. The last statistics available from 2008 revealed the following data about sales in Asia:

· South Korea - $4.6 billion

· China - $3.8 billion

· Taiwan - $353 million

· India - $91 million

· Thailand - $73.4 million

· Vietnam - $34.9 million

For comparison, the US market is valued at $19.7 billion

The Asian gaming market is growing at a steady rate of 20-30 percent per year. In China and South Korea, no games are allowed into the marketplace until they have been vetted and censored by the government. Apparently, updates are easy to accomplish after the title has been approved by the government. A local partner is essential to capture the local fads and nuances, and it’s wise to offer the local publisher an incentive of at least 2.5 -5 percent. It’s also imperative to have a bi-lingual communications manager on site in Asia. The market is predominately male and the speakers indicated that when console-based games are localized, their sales increase by 30-50 percent.

The panel recommended allocating a minimum of 1.5 years for development in Asia, and a minimum of $2 million to invest.

Session 7: Advanced Localization Methods for Japanese Games

Presenters: Fabio Minazzi (Binari Sonori – an Italian Localization provider)

Peter Fabiano (CapCom)

Saeko Inoue (Game Arts)

Yeonkyung Kim (Sony Computer Entertainment)

The panel stressed that communication is very important in the Japanese market. Respect and trust are paramount, as is the ability to work within the “after 5 PM” culture that permeates Japanese business. Japanese companies use an in-house model, with key translators/localizers being given as much information as possible. More is better. Time and language differences always have to be taken into account and conversion tools can help with these issues.

Session 8: Behind the Curtains of BUZZ! The Multi-million Seller of SCEE Franchise

Presenters: Fabio Ravetto (Binari Sonori – an Italian Localization provider)

Sophie Krauss (Relentless Software)

Vanessa Wood (Sony Computer Entertainment Europe)

This wildly successful casual game franchise has 8 million copies in 15 territories and their challenge is to create a large, fresh pool of new questions for each release, creating a unique product for localization. The developers use “transcreation” - new content that is adapted for a given target audience rather than being translated from the original content. BUZZ! Uses nine localization vendors worldwide and they produce 15 European titles, as well as for Australia. There are 6,000 questions spread over 25 categories, for a total of over 100,000 words and 4,000 lines of commentary. It typically takes 4 months for the localization process to be completed for each new release.

One of the more intriguing sessions I attended, outside the Localization summit, was presented by Vili Lehdonvirta of the Helsinki Institute for Information Technology, “Why people Spend Real Money on Virtual Goods.” Lehdonvirta, who specializes in the virtual economy (forecast to be a $12 billion industry by 2014), is a social economist at the University of Helsinki and Tokyo. He said a game is just like life and people want the same things in a virtual world they want in the real world. Power, status, self-expression, and competitive advantage are some of the psychological reasons why people are willing to spend real money on virtual items that give them increased standing and luxuries in the virtual world. Most games are looking to the “Fremium” model, where the actual game and access are free, while the virtual goods are the real revenue producers for the publishers.

There were lots of bright lights, bells, and whistles in the expo hall. All of the big players – Nintendo, Microsoft, etc. - had elaborate displays and some new games were rolled out right on the expo floor. Among the cooler things I saw was an exhibit by Mixamo, which featured people wired with detection points all over their bodies, and when they moved or danced it transferred to the characters on the video screen. Another really cool exhibit featured the AR Drone, which is a Quadricopter that flies in every direction and the on-board camera gives you the feeling you’re flying. This is the first device of its kind that can be used with an iPhone!

A large portion of the expo floor at GDC is devoted to recruiting within the industry and this is an activity not taken lightly. All the major publishers and developers had secure, fully enclosed “buildings” on the floor where they could interview prospects in complete confidentiality. It was quite obvious that this is an industry very concerned with security and their intellectual property. Given the massive amounts of revenue a new game can generate, it’s not a surprise.

Jeff Williams is the Director of Marketing and Sales at PTIGlobal.

Posted: April 13, 2010