The video game Translation industry is flourishing in the world more than ever. Do you want to know why because in the unprecedented time of COVID-19 when people are restricted at homes? The only entertainment left with them is to play video games. This situation gives great leverage to video games companies.
The people opt to buy products and services that are in their language. In the same way, people prefer to play video games that are in their native language.
For this, you have to go for gaming translation services. These services will double the revenue as people enjoy playing games that they understand.
The Translation of Video Game is Not Easy
Video games is not an easy task. It requires the translation team to look at different dimensions of games like characters, levels, graphics, and the intended message of the game.
All this requires extensive market research. People speak different languages according to their culture. Like languages, the cultures of the different countries also vary.
Therefore, to make video game translation resonate with the target market, you also have to go for game localization.
Deciding the Best languages to Translate Video Games into
There are a whopping 7139 languages spoken around the globe. Here, the question is in which language you need to translate your game into.
For this, you have to check the top manufacturing companies and the top consuming markets. Statistics have revealed that you can divide the influential markets into two groups
CJK: Chinese, Japanese and Korean
EFIGS: English, French, Italian, German, and Spanish
You can translate your games in these languages depending upon how much profit they will give.
English
English is a universal language with approximately 1.132 speakers. Usually, most games are developed in English but if your game is not developed in English, then, you must translate your game into English first.
Moreover, you need to translate video games into two versions: US English and UK English. Do you know that the gaming industry in the UK is ranked sixth in the gaming industry of the world?
Approximately 32 million people in the UK love to play games. Therefore, to cater to such a lucrative market, you must translate your game into the English language.
Simplified Chinese
To your surprise, around 41 percent of the revenue in China comes from video games. This is because, from the population of 1439 million people, 637 million people are gamer. These gamer spend 278 billion yuan on video games.
Thus, to cater to 637 million players, you must translate your game into the Chinese language. There are different dialects of the Chinese language spoken in China.
Therefore, to take leverage of such a lucrative gaming market, you also have to localize your video games.
Korean
Do you know that the Korean language comes at fourth rank among the best languages to translate your game into? 32 million people in Korea play video games. Therefore, to compel video gamer of Korea to download and play your video games, you must go for Professional Korean translation services.
In South Korea, video games are considered a major social activity. Therefore, different games in South Korea hold great significance. Different competition gaming tournaments are held and broadcaster on television with large prizes in KOREA.
German
In Germany, approximately 45 million people play video games. The important thing to know about the German gaming market is that this market is flourishing more than the film industry.
People of Germany spend EUR 1.8 billion on in-game purchases. Moreover, top gaming companies in the world are also from Germany.
If you are a game developer and want to release your game in Germany, then do opt for professional German translation services for your games. In this way, you can cater to 45 million gamer and reap high profits.
Japanese
The Japanese gaming market is ranked third largest in the world, after the US and China. Moreover, it is known as the birthplace of modern video games such as SEGA, Sony, and Nintendo.
The gaming industry in Japan is growing at the rate of 15.1% and its worth is $19.2 billion. The important thing to note about Japanese gamers is that they prefer mobile games more than any other game.
The average player in Japan spends 1.5 times more than North America and 2.5 times higher than Western Europe. For such a large population with a love of games, you must translate and localize your games for the Japanese market.
Best Practices for Video Game Translation
For robust video game translation, you must hire a professional translation agency. The professional translation agency assigns a project manager for your video game translation. Let’s have a look at the five steps for a successful video translation project.
Game Analysis
Game analysis is about giving attention to details to the components of the game like dialogues, objects, graphics, and references. Moreover, viewing the dialects of the language used in the dialogues.
Managing the Content of the Game
At this step, you need to involve all the stakeholders, manage the content of the game, organize the content sound files and game codes systematically. After that, you need to import the project into the translation tool and then assign the respective project manager to the video gaming translation project.
Video Translation
Video translation is about identifying the appropriate use of terminologies. Translating and editing the content. Finally, testing the game before releasing it in a foreign market.
Conversion and Submission of Games
After the testing and quality analysis of the game. The files of the games are converted into original format. For example, the files are changed into codes. Moreover, speech language is altered into mp4, WMA and WAV.
Wrapping Up
Do market research before deciding to translate your video game. Make a list of countries where video games are more in demand. After identifying the countries, translate the video game into the native languages of these countries. It is recommended to hire a professional translation agency. They will provide you with robust video game translation services at a fast turnaround time and economical rates.
