Translating games into national languages ​​Is localization really worth doing?

ByTamahikari Tammas

Adjust to language environment to release software and games, such as translating English used in game when selling American-made game in JapaneseLocalizationIs one of the reasons for delaying release in Japan from overseas. RPG style tower defense game "Defender's Quest: Valley of the ForgottenDevelopers ofLars DoucetMr. Mr. analyzes whether the budget and time-consuming localization really is contributing to sales, using sales number data, and publishes the result.

Was Localizing Defender's Quest Worth It?
http://www.fortressofdoors.com/was-localizing-defenders-quest-worth-it/

"Defender's Quest: Valley of the ForgottenTo download sales of gamesSteamThe total sales from the launch to July 2014 is $ 656,000 (about 67.3 million yen), and the total number of sales is 195,000.


The graph below shows a graph of the monthly sales figures of Defender's Quest in Steam. The light blue part is much larger than the sales number of other months because we carried out a discount sale on that month. In January 2014, when we made 90% discount sale, the number of sales has increased greatly. The reason why the vertical axis does not indicate the exact number of sales is because Steam seems to have shown difficulty in disclosing accurate figures.


Defender's Quest is writing an article Currently English, German, Czech, Russian, Korean, Japanese version has been officially released, German and Japanese outsourced to professional translators, but Czech · Russian · Korean is an avid fan who made a translation.

This is a graph of the proportion of each country in the number sold per month. Countries with blue as the first language, red for Germany, orange for Russia, green for Korean, purple for Czech, and light blue for Japan. The point that Mr. Doucet should pay attention to is that the percentage of non-countries with English as the first language is on an increasing trend and that the proportion of each country has a time when the proportion rises at a stretch for each country. For example, if you look closely at light blue Japan, you can see a big increase from February to March 2014.


The graph that explains why there is a difference in the big growth that occurred in the number of sales in each country at a time and the reason is explained by the color of each country's proportion of the number of sales figures below for each month. The figures at the top of the graph show the discount rate at the discount sale time and the alphabet shows the time when the national language version was released. Looking at the graph, in January 2014, when June and August of 2013 where a 67% discount sale was carried out, and 90% off sale was done, the proportion of Russia, which is orange, It is understood that it is many compared with it.


According to Mr. Doucet, Russia's share of Russia's sales in the first five months from the launch was 2.48% on average, but recorded 5.1% in June 2013 and 9.8% in August. As the number of sales increased before June 2014 when the Russian version was released, it is irrelevant whether the Russian market will have its own national language, and also because of the weakness of Russian currency value against the dollar Or that the price cuts will have a big impact on the number of sales.

Steam sometimes carries out a one-day sale called Daily Deal, and Defender's Quest is also held in May 2013 and January 2014. Looking at the graph showing the ratio of the number of selling in each country only for the month when Daily Deal was done, the price was 90% off in the second Daily Deal, so a large growth was confirmed, and the promotion The importance is conveyed.


However, in Korea and Japan, the biggest monthly growth rate was confirmed in February and March 2014. This month's growth is not comparable to when we did discount sale. Both versions were released in June 2014. As for what happened in February and March, in February 2014 the beta version of Defender's Quest informally started Korean font support. Doucet says, "There is a possibility of being wrong, but if Korean users who noticed that the beta version corresponded to Korean fonts got hacked and acquired, the number of sales in South Korea increased at once I guess it is not. However, "Because it was a big growth in February 2014, we were able to take the official release of Korean version".


In March 2013, when the number of sales in Japan greatly increased, another game download sales site different from SteamPlayismThe Japanese version of Defender 's Quest has started selling. After 90 days, Steam released Japanese version. According to Mr. Doucet, Defender's Quest on sale at Playism and Steam uses the same engine, and in addition, because Defism's Quest of Playism contained all the files related to localization, we got only the translation To put it in the English version of Defender's Quest which is sold in Steam was not a very difficult work, so it is said that the number of sales in Japan increased.

Below is a table showing the market share and increase rate before and after the national language version of each country. Market share increased in all countries. Among them, Korea and Japan are particularly noticeable. In Korea and Japan, localization has a big influence on the number of sales.


Based on all the above data, Mr. Doucet says, "Since Germany is a big market next to the US, even if the market share by localization is slightly increased, the invested amount can be recovered.In Russia it is discounted than the national language release Promotion is the most important thing because sale is effective.Japan and Korea have great effect on the release of their own languages.However, it is best to release the national language version at the same time as the English version, considering promotion. " And I summarize.

However, it is also true that localization takes time and budget. In fact, Defender's Quest has as many as 45,000 words, it seems that localization took quite a while. However, designing it on the premise of localizing the system and UI from the beginning can save time, and considering the number of sales, the value of localization is much ant.