Game localization and translation for new audiences

Game localization and translation means preparing a video game for a market beyond its original one, often by adapting its name, artwork, packaging, manuals, and cultural or legal details. How can games be reshaped for new audiences while remaining clear and engaging to play? The lessons build an understanding of the choices involved in adapting games across audiences and contexts.

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   game localization and translation · Wikipedia · 20 min read

   In game localization, "Box and documentation localization" translates the manuals and box into the target language, but not the game itself. Game localization can use Sim-ship, producing a localization before the original game is released. This approach is more viable because games are prone to piracy at release, creating a profit incentive to release this way. Localizing the Nintendo DS rhythm game Osu! Ouendan for the western world led to Elite Beat Agents, a new game that reuses Ouendan's gameplay but replaces its Japanese cultural theme with special agents helping people around the world.

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   A Localization Tale: Localization of a Videogame Named Sofia and the Barbarian – A Kid's Tale · ojs.letras.up.pt · 28 min read

   Game localization may convert currencies and units, reformat dates and addresses, adapt idioms or wordplay, modify graphics, and change layouts or domain names. Its translation strategy needs to be customized to the product, theme and platform, taking account of the target audience and each game's purpose. Game localization must make games innovative and exciting while keeping them easy to play and understand for a wide spectrum of players. Translators are often given unusual independence to modify, adapt, or remove cultural references and wordplay that would not work in the target language.

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