Alex and Flor chat with Renee Gittins in this episode, the Executive Director of the International Game Developers Association. She shares insights on the design and process of creating her new game, Potions: A Curious Tale. Learn about video game design, where game development meets localization and inclusivity in the video game industry.
Localization cannot be an afterthought. In the same way that you wouldn’t wait until the last minute to choose the music for a video game, the localization of a game needs to be planned from the beginning. This idea is key to Miguel Sepulveda’s localization philosophy, Global Localization Manager at King Entertainment. In this episode of Open World, Miguel shares what he considers to be essential elements of video game localization and QA, emphasizing the need to give languages other than English the same degree of effort during video game development. Non-English speaking players shouldn’t feel like second-class citizens, and should still be able to find their online community “tribe” – especially in our increasingly digital world in the Covid-19 era.
As a project manager, it’s essential to have an understanding of different cultures and languages in order to effectively manage your team and resources. Guest Francesca Sorrentino shares her wisdom and experience in video game localization with us in this episode. How has the localization industry evolved in the eyes of Sorrentino? What are her tried and true CAT tools? Which side is more fun to work in: client or LSP? Hosts Loretta Mulberry and Lucio Nicolas Alcaide also discuss Jali Research’s multilingual lip sync animation technology in the 2020 game, Cyberpunk 2077 for this episode’s LocFact.
Get a first-hand perspective of localizing games in the Japanese market from Yuhei Nasu, guest on this episode of Open World. With over 12 years of experience in the localization industry in Japan, Nasu shares details on what brought him to the industry, a day in the life of a localization producer, the challenges of English dialects and the strict video game rating system in Japan. The Open World team also shares a LocFact on how Pokemon character names are transcreated across different languages. At the end of the episode as usual, Nasu and the Open World team share some of their favorite memes.