The document discusses strategies to minimize human error in video game localization, emphasizing the importance of early identification of localization issues such as font and encoding problems, and consistency in translation. It highlights the efficiency benefits of utilizing tools and practices that improve quality, reduce costs, and enhance compliance. Additionally, it outlines a detailed localization process timeline and the significance of 1st party metadata in the overall localization effort.

1. MINIMIZING HUMAN ERROR
IN LOCALIZATION
Adolfo Gómez-Urda
Montijano

2. GAMES I’VE LOCALIZED
2005 - 2010
2010 - 2013
2013 -

3. WHAT’S LOCALIZATION’S WORST ENEMY?
COPY/PASTE

4. HOW CAN TOOLS AND PRACTICES POSITIVELY
IMPACT THE GAME?
Drastically reduce amount of localization bugs
Reduce chances of broken localization builds
Reduce translation and LQA costs (BAK 3 times more content, only 2.3 times $
more than BAC)
Reduce wasted resources
Reduce dependency from development team
Improve quality of localized builds
Reduce chances of compliance issues and MF bugs by first party

5. INTERNATIONALIZATION PASS
Should be performed on pseudo-localized builds (a couple months before Loc QA)
General idea of the localizability of the game before actual localization starts
Font and encoding conversion issues
Hardcoded strings
Real estate UI issues
Number format issues
Date/Time format issues
Non-localized art
Establish punctuation guidelines for English and other languages before translation starts:
 Curly VS. straight apostrophes and quotation marks
 Long dashes VS. short dash
 1 VS. 2 spaces after periods

6. PSEUDO-LOCALIZATION
30-100% length increase to catch real estate UI issues
Prefix made up of language-specific characters to catch font and
encoding conversion issues
Non-pseudo-localized strings indicate hardcoded strings early in
development

7. Real Estate UI Issues

8. Font glyph issues Hardcoded string

9. FONT VALIDATION
Develop a tool to analyze all the game fonts
 Small alphabet languages (European languages)
 Support ALL potentially necessary characters throughout the project
 Large alphabet languages (Chinese, Japanese, Korean, etc.)
 Support most common + used characters only and update regularly
Always support these special characters:
 Ellipsis (… or Alt + 0133)
 Non-breaking space (Alt + 0160)
 Copyright (©), Trademark (™), and Registered (®) symbols

11. AUDIO VALIDATION
Must also be performed in English assets prior to localization
recordings to avoid re-recordings in other languages
Excellent task for localization testers when builds are not stable
enough or to familiarize themselves with the game
Only possible way of listening and validating all audio in the game
Ensure localized audio files are properly named

13. CONSTANT
VALIDATION
• Sony terms: "DUALSHOCK®3", "DUALSHOCK®4", "PlayStation®Network", "PlayStation™Network",
"PlayStation®Eye", "PlayStation®3", "PlayStation®4", "PlayStation®Store", "PlayStation®Move",
"PlayStation®Vita", "PlayStation®Plus", "PSN", "Sony Entertainment Network", "PS4™", "PS3™", "SIXAXIS™", "PS
Vita", "PlayStation®TV", "PS TV"
• Microsoft terms: "SmartGlass", "Smart Match", "Xbox", "Xbox One", "Xbox Live", "Kinect", "Xbox Live Gold"
• Miscellanea: "%s", "%ls", "%i", "%d", "%hs", "%%"

16. TRANSLATION
CONSISTENCY
CHECK
4600 translation
inconsistencies
(around 460 per language in
a 11500 string database)

17. ACHIEVEMENT & TROPHY LOCALIZATION
Along with metadata updates, #1 source of copy/paste in video
game localization
Merge all assets into one single Excel file for translation:
 Sony *.trp
 Microsoft *.Gameconfig/*.xml
 Steam *.vdf
Ensure English texts match across all platforms (they never do)
Diff, diff, and diff again
Encourage translators to be creative when translating achievement
names!

19. LOC-FRIENDLY STRING DATABASE SOLUTION

20. LOCALIZEDIRECT RUNTIME STRING UPDATE
Usual workflow to fix a localization bug:
1. Notice cutoff in game.
2. Guesstimate available space and shorten translation.
3. Wait for a new build.
4. Regress fix. If still cutoff, go back to step 2.
With runtime string update:
1. Notice cutoff.
2. Fix and ensure translation is no longer cutoff.
1 week
1 minute

21. 2014 2015Nov 2015 Mar May Jul Sep Nov
VO Export for Translation and Recording
1/12/2015
1st UI Export for Translation
2/1/2015
Start of LocQA
3/1/2015
Localized VO Integration
3/2/2015
1st Party
Submission
11/15/2015
1/5/2015 - 1/9/2015
English Audio Validation
1/5/2015 - 1/14/2015Font Analysis
12/1/2014 - 12/30/2014
Internationalization Pass
1/5/2015 - 1/14/2015English text proofreading
2/2/2015 - 11/15/2015Constant Validation
2/2/2015 - 11/15/2015Asian Font Texture Regeneration
3/6/2015 - 3/15/2015Localized VO Validation
11/3/2014 - 12/2/2014
Localization Process & Tools Setup

22. SUMMARY
Font analysis
Constant validation (and translation consistency)
Audio validation
Achievement localization
Efficient and localization-friendly string database solution

23. PLEDGE TO 1ST PARTY
Metadata:
• Represents around 1% of a AAA game’s content
• Takes up around 10% of localization team’s time, involving marketing, loc QA,
translators, legal team, communications, QA, Certification, and development.
• 1st party (Sony, Microsoft, and Steam) need to initiate a conversation to
streamline the format and the process
Provide pre-localized TRC string repository
•Why is this important?
It’s 2015!