What is Good Localization? | Yulia Molostova
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Yulia Molostova from Allсorrect presented research on game localization quality in Russia and China. The research involved surveys of over 8,500 respondents total. Key findings included: 1) Over 50% of players will stop playing and tell others about games with poor localization. 2) Around 60% would pay more for better localization. 3) 70-90% of players prefer localized games regardless of English level. Spelling/grammar errors force 16-27% to stop depending on market. Voiceover quality also greatly impacts experience. Developers were advised to allow more time and context for localizers.
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What is Good Localization? | Yulia Molostova
- 1. What’s a good localization? Yulia Molostova Allcorrect Senior Project Manager
- 2. Who is among us?
- 3. Allсorrect at a glance • 11 years on the global market 50 translators, editors, and testers One of the Top 20 localization providers in Eastern Europe (HQ in Russia) We localized 390+ game titles, translated 15.4 million words, and involved 350 translators and editors and 80 QA testers • GALA member spearheading development of ISO standards for the translation industry (ISO 11669) • We work with all languages that can make you money
- 4. Session Outline Presentation • Research background • Overview of survey respondents • Summary of responses • Lessons learned & hypotheses tested Discussion • Questions, comments, suggestions, application scenarios
- 5. Why conduct research? • Understand what users value most • Identify bottlenecks in the localization process • Improve the image of localization vendors among the gaming community • Help you multiply profits, not just push files
- 6. Why Russia and China? • Russia is the 11th most lucrative market in the world according to the NEWZOO portal • China… do I really need to explain?
- 7. Research Timeline Initial Russian survey (1,800 respondents + focus group) Updated Russian survey (4,500+ respondents) Chinese study (3,100 respondents)
- 8. Session Outline Presentation • Research background • Overview of survey respondents • Summary of responses • Lessons learned & hypotheses tested Discussion • Questions, comments, suggestions, application scenarios
- 9. Responses: 3,099 Responses: 4,573
- 10. Session Outline Presentation • Research background • Overview of survey respondents • Summary of responses • Lessons learned & hypotheses tested Discussion • Questions, comments, suggestions, application scenarios
- 11. Why do people play games?
- 15. To localize or not to localize?
- 20. Error Types What?! You’ve made a spelling mistake?! You didn’t stick to the glossary?!
- 21. • There is untranslated text • They find inaccuracies or incomplete translation • Fonts are poorly chosen or illegible • The translation doesn’t match the original stylistically The majority of Russian respondents will stop playing if:
- 22. • They find spelling, grammar, or punctuation mistakes • They encounter different translations of the same term And, finally, Russian respondents have no problem with profanity But it’s not so bad from their perspective if:
- 23. The majority of Chinese respondents will stop playing if: • The translation doesn’t match the original stylistically • There is lack of censorship (profanity is prohibited in China) • There are non-standard abbreviations • Fonts are poorly chosen or illegible (same as for Russian respondents)
- 24. Chinese respondents are more tolerant if • They find spelling, grammar, or punctuation mistakes • They encounter different translations of the same term However, they will get frustrated more quickly than the Russian respondents and either switch to English or stop playing
- 26. Voiceover
- 28. • Speech and intonations are unnatural • There is no way to switch between original VO and Russian VO • The voices don’t match the characters • VO and subtitles don’t match The most critical VO problems for Russian players
- 29. The most critical VO problems for Chinese players Same as for Russian players, but also: • No lip-sync • Overused voice actors However, as before, Chinese players have a much lower tolerance for voiceover issues
- 30. Voting with your wallet “Measuring” the impact of quality
- 35. Great job, translator! Um… what’s your name again?
- 37. Session Outline Presentation • Research background • Overview of survey respondents • Summary of responses • Lessons learned & hypotheses tested Discussion • Questions, comments, suggestions, application scenarios
- 38. A Few Tested Hypotheses • Players who play less are more tolerant of errors – FALSE. All players are equally annoyed • Younger people are more tolerant of errors – FALSE. Players of all ages are equally annoyed • Players with better English prefer the original version – TRUE.
- 39. A Few Tested Hypotheses • Females are more sensitive to gender-neutral address – FALSE. Both men and women dislike it • RPG players are less sensitive to abbreviations – FALSE. Players of most genres dislike abbreviations and truncations – Most sensitive: simulation/tycoon players – Least sensitive: arcade & puzzle players
- 40. Session Outline Presentation • Research background • Overview of survey respondents • Summary of responses • Lessons learned & hypotheses tested Discussion • Questions, comments, suggestions, application scenarios
- 41. Summary 1. Players are ready to vote for good localizations with their wallets a) 52-62% will stop playing and tell their friends about bad localizations b) ~60% would pay more for better localizations and will play older games in the same series with good localizations 2. 70-90% of players prefer localized games regardless of their level of English proficiency
- 42. Summary 3. ~80% of players think that game content should NOT be culturally adapted for target markets 4. Spelling/grammar/punctuation errors force ~16% of Russian players and ~27% of Chinese players to stop playing the game or switch to the original version 5. Voiceover quality plays a major role in the user experience
- 43. What should we do? • Fill out your LSP’s technical requirements doc (style guide) • Give your localization partner more time (experts need time) • Give your localization partner more context (builds, please :)) • Answer your localization partner’s questions • Devs, go deep with localization engineering: language switching, fonts, text resizing, and grammatical tokens
- 44. Let’s continue the conversation! Yulia Molostova To email me: yusadovnik@allcorrectgames.com To work with us: order@allcorrectgames.com To get involved in research (provide input, stay informed, etc.): send an empty email to order@allcorrectgames.com with the subject line “loc. quality research” or give me your card
Editor's Notes
- Who’s from game dev and game publishing? Who develops software? Who buys loc? Who’s LSP?
- We’re all here paid to do loc – probably makes sense to understand what loc quality is from the perspective of our end clients, not us? We want to really help, not just push files
- Russia is big. There are stigmas about Russian market, but we actually pay. If you’re not localizing into Russian, you’re losing money. China is 1.4 billion people, which is 40 Canadas and 4 USA
- This project is almost 2 yrs old now and started as a small survey of 2K Russian players. After it was presented to GameQA&Loc Forum, people got interested and we decided to proceed (Nintendo, Ubisoft, EA, Wooga, Sony, Zynga, Bigpoint) 1st stab at Chinese market just finished and is presented today
- In China 48% female, in Russia about 50%, but it’s harder to attract females to participate in studies Age distribution similar, other than in Russia dominant group is under 18
- This is interesting! I used to play to create and have fun. I loved building cities or kick my bro’s asses in NHL… but only 20% of people are motivated by it Most prevalent for Chi and Rus is overcoming challenges by becoming fully immersed. FULL IMMERSION can not be achieved without high-quality loc. So if you want to invest in loc, you need to do it right, or it’s money to waste.
- One of the main hypotheses is the better your English, the more likely you’re to play original. It’s mostly supported by the fact that Americans play eng versions all the time ;) About 30% of Chi respondents speak Eng very well, and about 30% don’t really speak it About 10% of Rus speak Eng well, and about 60% don’t speak it. Keep that in mind for future slides
- Do you prefer original or loc version? This graph follows previous almost exactly. 30% of proficient Chi prefer English version, and only 5% of Russians. Around 30% and 74% want fully localized, which corresponds to # of people who don’t speak Eng well
- This is dramatically different for 2 markets. I used to think nobody cares about texts. But they do. 90% of Russians read most of texts!!! 50% all texts!!! Remember: fully immersted. WE’re also a reading nation. About 40% of Chi read texts. But Chi – LEARNING NEW THINGS and play different roles. So playing itself is more important
- Talk about culturalization. People ask me “can you do culturalization?” Can you fully adapt and rewrite and do all that? Yeah, we can do it all. We’ve redrawn 500 avatars to make them look less Asian, when one of our clients ported a successful biz simulator game from China. BUT: do you need it? 80% of both markets say you don’t. Remember: immerse and try on new roles! Do you need to do culturalization? Yes, Chinese like to see Tibet as part of their country; so be aware. And don’t sell Hamburger Restaurant simulation in muslim countries and you’ll be ok. Just engage your LSP soon
- Error type – consequences Spelling, grammar, punctuation – you need to fire your LSP, but players don’t care as much Various translations of 1 term – super bad. But not really. Incomplete, inaccurate translation, untranslated text – bad Style doesn’t match – a biggie. But harder to measure! Fonts – something you may not think about right away when you think about quality of loc Censorship – Russian gamers like a good f@ word
- Chi – similar, but different. Firstly, they lose temper quite fast and either switch or drop. Non-standard abbreviations affect understanding. As English terms unlocalized. As unlocalized graphics. Slang and memes are a biggie too. Lack of censorship is a big and surprising one. Again, various translation of 1 term – not so much…
- Chi – similar, but different. Firstly, they lose temper quite fast and either switch or drop. Non-standard abbreviations affect understanding. As English terms unlocalized. As unlocalized graphics. Slang and memes are a biggie too. Lack of censorship is a big and surprising one. Again, various translation of 1 term – not so much…
- About 60% of Chi would like to provide feedback, half don’t know how. About 70% of Russians would like too
- It is likely that there’s not a lot of good quality voiceover, but it needs further research
- Speech unnatural, Voices don’t fit, Subtitles don’t match Anything that jerks you out of your immersive experience Therefore it’s a problem you can’t switch
- Chinese much more radical in their reaction to voiceover flaws
- Aaron from Facebook asked me “can you measure impact of bad loc”? Yes, you can.
- 7-13% stop buying your games. Not just this one!!! All of your games! Think LTV 52% of Chi and 62% of Rus will take action
- Again, users will take action. Russians are more radical in their behavior than Chi. But again, they like a good loc
- If you want fast and cheap, perhaps you should spend on loc at all Do we address the player formal/ informal? Are we directive or suggestive? Do we neutralize gender? Do we use strong language / soften it / mask it / rephrase it?