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AppGameKit Classic Chat / Marketing Your App : Localization worth the effort?

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erebusman
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Posted: 25th Aug 2012 22:20
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So as I approach the release of Pirates Treasure WIP here (hopefully in September) I am working on the Localization portion of the game.

My first market is planned for iOS and Apple has a pretty strong presence in a lot of different language markets.

So my question is: What localization languages are most worth my time as an indie developer?

It seems to make sense if Apple has shipped several million devices in a particular language area that I might benefit however here are some additional layer of concerns:


English: Well its my language so no brainer.

Spanish: Seems like a great choice, spanish is spoken in many countries in the world.

French: Also a decent choice spoken in quite a few countries as well.

German: Unclear - is this used much beyond Germany?

Chinese: Not sure of Apple's presence here yet (though I know it should be growing soon) but also not sure its worth the time because they have a huge reputation for piracy? Why offer my product here at all?

Japanese: Very tech market with lots of customer but again piracy concerns ...


So has anyone thoughts to share?

Has anyone shipped a product with one or more localizations and did they net you extra sales?

What portion of my sales should I expect to come from localizations?

Any experiences, thoughts, articles etc are welcome as part of the discussion!

Thanks!
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Digital Awakening
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Posted: 25th Aug 2012 22:56
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Depending on the amount of text in the game, English might be sufficient. Among the countries/languages you mention Japan do teach their students English. I also think that a lot of younger people in Germany know some English. As you say, Spanish and then French are probably the best choices. But I do speak without any experience so I might be completely off here.

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Cyborg ART
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Posted: 26th Aug 2012 08:41
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Swedish would also be good to integrate as language. Sine swedes only learn swedish and the old viking language (which Skyrim uses alot) and the fact that there are 16 000 000 cell phones (probably 25-50% of these are smartphones) divided upon Sweden's 9 000 000 citiziens. Not counting iPads etc.
Around 95% of Swedens population got acces to internet, giving us the second place in Europe next after Iceland.

The languages you have stated should be a good start. Nothing prevents you from adding more languages later on in updates.
And english should get you quite far, depending on how complicated the texts in your game are. If its a text-rpg I guess you may want to translate to some mire countries. But uf the ingame text only gives instructions you should probably be able to get away with any language as long as its simple enough to play.

I have no experience of this, just thinking loud

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Digital Awakening
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Posted: 26th Aug 2012 10:52
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I hate it when I can only get programs and games in Swedish because it always sounds lame and becomes confusing. I find it shocking when young Swedes don't understand English since we learn it from first grade and are bombarded with English daily. Anyone who considers themselves a gamer should have no problems though as pretty much all games are in English. It is kind of funny when you look at the instruction manual for say Mass Effect and it is in the Nordic languages. But the entire game is in English, so you better understand it to enjoy the game.

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The Zoq2
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Posted: 26th Aug 2012 10:55
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Swedish is unnecesairy IMO everyone speaks english in sweden and personaly, seeing a game in swedish makes the game worse for me. Simply because it sounds so weird. I would recomend tra.slating to french, a lot of french people dont want to speak english. Russian and other eastern languages may be good to since almost noone speaks english there. (I was in ukraine with my school. And I couldnt even order food at mc donalds)
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JimHawkins
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Posted: 26th Aug 2012 11:00
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I learnt quite a lot of German a while ago by playing a BlueByte demo of Settlers! In fact games are being used a lot these days in language teaching.

-- Jim DO IT FASTER, EASIER AND BETTER WITH AppGameKit FOR PASCAL
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Cyborg ART
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Posted: 26th Aug 2012 11:16
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I agree with that swedish in games sounds quite weird. Not as cool as english.
But it would also depend on what kind of game it is, a game like battlefield would not really sound well with swedish voices (even if it would be awesome due to DICE beeing swedish), but games for kids could probably not last long without at least swedish text.

And yes, I may not have told the truth in my previous post. Swedish kids actually learns english from first grade, and a third language (often german, french or spanish) from the sixth grade.

But about the phones is true, I would also bet that at least half, or a third, of all families with an age under 55 owns an iPad or similiar in sweden.

As I am only a swede I cant say how other countries feel about language in games.

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BatVink
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Posted: 26th Aug 2012 12:52
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Quote: "Swedish would also be good to integrate as language"


I'm English but work with a lot of Swedes. Most of them speak better English than I do! In fact, when we have meeting, the English people are the problem. The Swedish people speak clearly, but we English speak too fast, with too many localisms and too much mumbling

If you are talking about text, then extract the text from the game and put it in language files. Then you can easily switch between languages in one distribution of the game, and other people can translate for you by simply editing a text file.

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The Zoq2
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Posted: 26th Aug 2012 14:08
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Quote: "a game like battlefield would not really sound well with swedish voices (even if it would be awesome due to DICE beeing swedish)"


The swedish text in BF2 was awesome .

But like you said, it all depends on the type of game, a game for kids may benefit from localisation while other games may get worse from it
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Digital Awakening
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Posted: 26th Aug 2012 15:08
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Quote: "I'm English but work with a lot of Swedes. Most of them speak better English than I do! In fact, when we have meeting, the English people are the problem. The Swedish people speak clearly, but we English speak too fast, with too many localisms and too much mumbling

If you are talking about text, then extract the text from the game and put it in language files. Then you can easily switch between languages in one distribution of the game, and other people can translate for you by simply editing a text file."


I always find it funny when I can spell better and use better grammar on forums than those who use English natively

Language files are a great idea. Only problem is to figure out a good way to implement them into your game.

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BatVink
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Posted: 26th Aug 2012 17:09
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Quote: "Only problem is to figure out a good way to implement them into your game."


The way I do it is this:

1. Convert all text references to IDs. Your IDs can add a little more meaning, such as OPT0001 for a menu option, or HLP0123 for help text

2. Create a lookup text file:
OPT0001=Main Menu
OPT0002=Play Game
....

3. Write a small routine to read the file to an array, or something more suitable if the language has better structures (e.g .NET has a dictionary structure)

4. Create separate folders for each language. The folders can be read as language options in your game. Set a variable to the language folder, and use this when opening the text file.

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erebusman
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Posted: 26th Aug 2012 17:48
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Great discussion guys!

My current game is very light on the text; probably about 20+/- strings of text.

But this is a good opportunity for me to learn how to do translation and localization. Also once the game is out a chance to see if I get sales from those efforts?

That way if I make a an RPG (which I would love to do some day) I'll have a few clues how to proceed and perhaps an idea of which language markets are worth spending time on as well.
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Greenster
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Posted: 27th Aug 2012 09:02
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Spanish, English, French are the most distributed active languages.

All the slavic, russian and asian languages should hold off till demand. That Swedish theory is interesting, like other euro countries brittish english is taught in the first years of primary..
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galteser
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Posted: 30th Aug 2012 10:12
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Games are traditionally translated into EFIGS first, that is English+French+Italian+German+Spanish.

This is done for a reason. These are the biggest markets (Germany is not that large compared with the US, but Switzerland and Austria speak German too AND it is not only the amount of citizens, it is the size of the MARKET) and traditionally these countries are mich more used to localized products.

Yes, many young people around here speak a decent English, but the question is if they want to do it while gaming. We are used to localized stuff, all our TV is dubbed, where in other countries the level of English is much higher (thinking Scandinavia here) and people are more used to English.

If you need more help, feel free to contact me. I work as a freelance game translatore from English into German and have lots of contacts in the industry. (horst.h.horstmann@gmail.com)
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erebusman
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Posted: 3rd Sep 2012 22:43
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@ galteser thanks thats very useful!

My app is not very text heavy; it is a puzzle "match 3" style game. There are a very few text strings that I may translate, or when possible I am subbing out 'universal' style icons rather than text.

For instance on the settings Menu I had thought to put "Sound" and "Music" settings but instead I have made icons to represent these settings instead as I think this will work in all countries and no need to translate.

What is your thought about buttons for things like

"New" <- new game
"Quit" <- quit game
"Settings" <- game settings
"High Scores" <- high scores menu

Should I localize those buttons? I can easily change them to graphical icons instead. Quit could be an "X" for instance?

thanks again!
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erebusman
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Posted: 3rd Sep 2012 23:00
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Here's an example of the settings menu so far; note the speaker icon and the music bar icon rather than localized text saying sound & music:




Also though note the title "Pirate Treasure" is not translated nor would I think I should translate it as names are supposed to be the same proper name in all languages right?

And the wooden plaque for settings that has carved text; "Settings" this is not localized nor had I intended to -- but if it seems as though it has to be done I was willing to tackle it?

Thoughts?
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