What languages are worth localizing your game into for 2023?
The gaming industry is flourishing day by day, the community is growing and expanding by the minute.
The gaming world is showing no signs of slowing down its progress in the upcoming duration.
Games are entertaining and are a great way of connecting the world together.
With that in mind, more and more developers are looking to expand their reach by localizing their games into different languages. But what languages are worth the effort?
We’re going to discuss what game localization is, why you should localize your game, and the top 5 languages used in localizing your game.
What is Game Localization?
Game localization is the process of translating a game from the original language to other languages to be sold in foreign markets.
Of course, it is not simply translating word by word, it is a very big process, of translating instructions, in-game text, dialogues, etc…
When you localize a game, it has to be done in a way that fits your target audience as you have to fit their culture and dialects.
Localizing a game is more complex and requires many steps from the initial translation to the quality check till it reaches being set in the final version of the game.
Why Localize Your Game?
1. Reach a bigger audience
Once your game gains popularity you have to start localizing your game to get a wider fan base.
The better the translation for your game the better it will spread around the gaming community and will reach more and more gamers.
2. Increase your sales
By the time your game starts to get famous, it will need to be localized to be able to make more sales in global markets.
More and more international will want to get your game and that will boost your sale. If you choose not to localize your game, English games tend to only reach 30% of the international market.
You need to spread your fit your different gamer personas as not everyone speaks English but they do want to experience your amazing game.
3. Connect with your customers
Connecting with your audience is quite essential when you design a game.
When the game is first designed the gamer persona is put in mind. It is the first step to being able to communicate your ideas with the players.
Having a game in one language will not allow you to reach all the gamers in the world. Thus the connection to other global players won’t be possible if you don’t get your game localized.
4. Control your players’ experience
When your game starts to get popular, the demand for it will increase. If your game is in only one language, the risk of people pirating it and using language packs will increase.
People will download it and it will cost you lots of lost effort and money.
For this very reason, localizing your game will help save you from all unwanted piracy will assist you in better control over your game, and will assure a perfect connection with the players.
Top 5 Languages to Localize Your Game into:
You need to do proper market research for the best genres that are popular for your target audience for these languages.
This list is done basically on general types of games from the English language.
1. Simplified Chinese:
Chinese is the second spoken language in the world after English. It is used by 1.35 billion people.
It is a great language to use in your game as it has many speakers and will be greatly beneficial.
2. Spanish:
The Spanish language is part of the list as the number of Spanish speakers around the world is 592 million in total.
This makes it a great target language to select for your game.
3. French:
The French language is used by 321 million people in total.
Being a romance language, it is a great option to be used in your game to gain a wider audience.
4. German:
The German language is considered a great choice for you to use in localizing your game. German is a widely spoken language. It is used by more than 130 million people.
It is a great language to use in your game to gain a bigger fan base.
5. Japanese:
Japan is the heart of the greatest video game companies, like Nintendo, Sega, Bandai Namco, and Konami.
It has 125.6 million people speaking the language.
It started a great revolution in the gaming industry and will be a great market to target via localization in order to spread the popularity of your game.
Other Languages to Consider:
Of course, the mentioned languages aren’t the only ones to be considered, they’re the top ones but there are other languages on the rise in the market that would be a great part of your future game like:
- Arabic
- Hindi
- Thai
- Italian
- Portuguese
- Korean
Conclusion:
Games are a great way to help everyone communicate together all over the world.
To help gain the correct audience, you need to make sure that you get video game translation to spread your game around the world.
Look through the market and consider carefully which languages you will choose to localize your game into as it is a huge part of a game’s success.
