1. Free-to-PlayLocalization
How to reach your quality goals despite small budgets
and other limitations

2. VideoGames-GlobalMarketSizeByRegion

3. GlobalMarketSizeByPlatform-Volumes&Trends

4. Free-to-Play=Mobile?
F2P
Mobile
PC
Web
Console

5. ComparisonandChallengesForFree-to-Play
Fremium Web, PC, Console & Mobile
(Free-to-Play)
• Free to try out, purchases only by engaged
players, feeling compelled by the game
• Small/mid-sized dev budgets
• Marketing = User Acquisition
• Very high # of competitor titles
• Outsourcing, crowd-sourcing & machine-
translation (a.k.a.
‘The Good, the Bad and the Ugly’)
Classic PC, Console & Mobile
(Pay-to-Play)
• Purchased up-front, at one-time fee
• Big development budgets, high quality assets
(quality as USP)
• Marketing = PR
• Low # of competitor titles per genre
• Polished-decent localization (outsourcing)

6. ElevatorPitchforF2PHigh-QualityLocalization &LQA
➔ unless players decide to invest (time and money) in your and not the next game, there is
no revenue for devs+publishers
➔ goal needs to be to: hook players, lower barriers to spend money, avoid pitfalls to lose
players early on (crashes, bad UX, unclear instructions…)
➔ annoyed players quickly move on to the next title, won’t wait for fixes or later updates -
they are essentially ‘burned’, possibly not just for this but also your future games
➔ Good loca helps players enjoy a (hopefully good) game - and needs to be recognized and
supported accordingly
Loca head’s experience + clout with MGMT often deciding factor on a publisher’s
approach to loca (‘enlightened leadership’ needed)

7. Localization Management=ProjectManagement?
Project Management
● Proactive
● Responsive
Crisis Management
● Reactive
● Mitigating
Disaster Triage
● Best effort
● Prioritizing
UPSTREAM
HIGH involvement in schedules,
GREAT access to stakeholders
DOWNSTREAM
NO involvement in schedules,
NO access to stakeholders

8. How’dYouLikeYourLocalization? (YouMayPickOnly2)

9. (F2P)GameIndustry’sMainChallengesforLocalization
Challenge #1
Pervasive “Localization as afterthought, LQA as unnecessary luxury” mindset
Challenge #2
Perpetually young, inexperienced game development teams that re-discover
localization best-practices only through own experience
Challenge #3
Release cycles, peak times & headcount concerns

10. BestPractices:ProactiveLocalizationManagement

11. PlanAhead
● Select, groom and regularly evaluate preferred vendors (localization and LQA agencies,
freelance translators and reviewers, script doctors).
● Prepare for contingencies and have screened backups in place for peak and worst-case
scenarios.
● If you can justify the internal headcount, use SLV & freelancers over MLV and manage
workflows internally, for better control and scaling

12. IdentifyBottlenecks
● Look for resource and capacity bottlenecks like insufficient number and specialisation of
vendors or internal team members.
● Look for time bottlenecks like short lead times.
● Look for external constraints like being less attractive as a client (and getting less
experienced resources), compared to other publishers.
● Identify the parts in your localization workflow of a specific title that CAN be sped up with the
right interventions.

13. ResolveBottlenecks
● Increase number of available and screened resources (people, hardware ...)
● Make advance bookings for critical periods (esp. LQA); the additional costs are often well
outweighed by the benefits, and it can even be possible to negotiate lower rates.
● Work with producing and/or developers to establish early visibility on project milestones like
Alpha, Beta, Code-Freeze and Text-Freeze as well as communicate minimum time
requirements for localization.
● Make sure developers provide localizable assets as text (not bitmaps), with as much context
information as possible, and recording script lines sorted in dialog flow (not alphabetically).
● Reshape the economic conditions and create incentives for vendors.
● Make sure developers provide developer console/debug access or cheats in test builds.

14. Prioritize
● Focus money, time and people on mission-critical components of each localization project
(ex.: submission relevant tasks).
● Conduct early text reviews looking for terminology violations (ahead of LQA).
● Prioritize translation of recording scripts (also in text-freeze decisions), to have time for pick-
ups.

15. AchieveVendorBuy-in
● Start discussing workload expectations for the peak season(s) with internal Producing and
localization vendors as early as possible, including them in your planning.
● Identify differences in client/vendor agendas, and utilise them creatively to incentivise
vendors and build mutually beneficial trust relationships.
● Provide vendors with all available reference material (and, if possible, test builds) ahead of
translation hand-offs.
● Maintain and monitor a Q&A database between translators and developers/Producing with
quick turnaround times to provide missing translation context.

16. IntroduceCorrectiveMeasuresINTIME
● In case of late hand-offs, increase the number of translators (quality trade-off).
● Shorten test passes while booking additional testers per language.
● Have developers provide savegames and screenshots when cheats or developer console
commands are unavailable.

17. UseTheRIGHTTools
● Make use of latest developments in text analyzing tools, for instance create, use and
iteratively fine-tune blacklists to screen for profanity, culturally sensitive translations or
expressions that would not be in line with a targeted age rating.
● Maintain localizable text assets in online databases that are actually MADE for translations,
allowing text updates with change highlighting and notifications, on-the-fly text exports into
test builds by developers and translation-friendly interfaces, including glossary support.
● Use such online text databases also to have LQA testers trigger and check localized voice
recordings, or make changes and corrections directly to the in-game text, while giving the
game’s translators final approval of any such changes online.
(If you don’t have or find these tools, don’t be afraid to create them.)

18. ThankYou!
For(more)Questions&feedback:
MichaelK.Schmidt
SeniorLocalizationManager
GREEIntl.Entertainment
www.linkedin.com/in/michaelkschmidt