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Videogame & Translation Industries

By GeaSpeak Team | 2020-04-09
videogame-and-translation-industries

Are you a developer? A translator? A videogame artist? Or a gamer?

Never mind, it really doesn’t matter. I think everyone knows how much the videogame industry has been thriving.

From the very first video game, Bertie the Brain (1950), to the game of the year (2019) Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice… you can see how far it has come. We even have eSports now!

According to WePC, the videogame market is expected to be worth over USD 90 billion by 2020, from nearly 78.61 billion in 2017.

However, the videogame industry has not grown by itself, the translation industry has tagged along and expanded in a similar way. New translation fields were created in order to cope with the increasing demand and requirements of the gaming industry.

Statista.com claims that over the last ten years the translation market has doubled in size, reaching USD 46.9 billion in 2019.

As you can see, both industries have expanded and will continue to expand together.

Translation range

Today the gaming industry needs translators specialized in many different fields. When you hear someone say “I’m translating a videogame”, they may be talking about software localization, transcreation, legal translation, creative adaptation and many other things.

Why legal translation? Because the Terms and Conditions, the User Agreement as well as several other legal documents need to be localized.

Why creative adaptation? Because many characters use idiomatic expressions, speak dialects and have their own individual expressions that need to be creatively replicated when you localize a videogame.

For example, trolls in World of Warcraft mimic a Jamaican dialect and Mario, from Super Mario Bros., of course, has a marked Italian accent (“It’s-a me Mario!”). A well transcreated trait will certainly make a difference to gamers’ impression.

And last but not least, why software localization? Because one of the most important objectives of a videogame is to provide an amazing experience. To achieve that goal, the user has to know how to play. If you pick a console’s manual or if you access the setting configuration of a videogame, you will see that all of them are localized.

Our team of professional translators (some of them also seasoned gamers) can localize your videogame and help you deliver the best experience.

Let’s grow together!