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QA & LOCALISATION SPECIAL
Iris Ludolf, Founder, Partnertrans: We were
able not only to maintain our customer base but to expand it. There is a very obvious trend – if not a frenzy – among publishers and developers to look for solutions that are primarily cost driven. It’s only natural that, as budgets shrink, you try to save money where you can and localisation is not exempt from that. ON BUDGET CONSTRAINTS… Randall Mage, General Manager, Localsoft:
With tighter budgets, developers are seeking less expensive ways to produce their games. Cutting costs affects all areas of production. The needs remain more or less the same – it’s the quantities that have changed. We have noticed that companies are outsourcing to the cheapest vendors only to realise that you get what you pay for. Our advice is to outsource to professional vendors.
Along with this goes another change: more games than ever before just receive a localised manual. Also, as a result of the new distribution methods, print manuals seem to go out of fashion and e-manuals are more in demand. Gabriele Vegetti, General Manager, Orange Studios: Our
established clients have localised less products, and they are also more attentive to costs than in the past. This leads to frequent requests of discounts, calls for tenders and so on.
Andrew Day: We have
seen an increase in demand for Japanese to EFIGS translations. This may be explained by the relatively high saturation level of the Japanese market and the drive from Japanese publishers and developers to seek new western markets. Keywords has opened a localisation and testing facility in Tokyo in response to this. Randall Mage: Some of
Alastair Harsant: QA
companies understand the pressures that games firms are under, and in fraught business times having that good relationship is imperative. Some have been seeking to limit localisable content as much as possible, whether via the number of languages or the extent of the localisable content – opting for subtitles instead of localised audio, for example.
Iris Ludolf: New
channels are becoming more important. Titles that were sold as boxed products in the past now find their way into the market as digital downloads on XBLA, PSN, WiiWare or sites like Direct2Drive.
for more different types of testing, from linguistic testing to full functionality and compliance testing.
ON THE RISING DEMAND FOR DIFFERENT LANGUAGES… Richard van der Giessen, Presidentowner, U-Trax: We have
had requests for more languages than ever and
the languages that are receiving more demand correspond to emerging markets where a good game can have a nice impact in terms of market share, so it makes sense to localise for these markets. Keith Russell, VP Sales and Marketing, Babel Media: There is also
much more focus on culturalisation, making sure the game is not just translated but also culturally relevant for its selected launch territory. We have been running quite a few of these evaluations for our clients to help them optimise their offering for a worldwide market.
ON HOW THE SECTOR WILL CHANGE IN 2010… Gabriele Vegetti: We
expect to slowly return to pre-recession levels of business. It is still too early to be overtly optimistic, but we’re starting to see signs of upturn in the last few months. Ben Weedon: I believe
user research and usability testing will increase. We’re hoping to create a special interest group of usability researchers as part of the IGDA, which will be a great step towards improving its visibility in the industry, and differentiating it from focus testing and focus groups, which it’s often confused with. Richard van der Giessen: The QA and localisation sector will grow and the quality will improve. The marketplace is totally ready for it and we are very happy to fulfill these needs. Iris Ludolf: Localisation
is by definition a service industry within the games industry. As with every service business, we have to adapt to our clients’ needs and offer the products and solutions