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HOW CAN TOOLS AND PRACTICES POSITIVELY IMPACT THE GAME?
Drastically reduce amount of localization bugs
Reduce chances of broken localization builds
Reduce translation and LQA costs (BAK 3 times more content, only 2.3 times $ more than BAC)
Reduce wasted resources
Reduce dependency from development team
Improve quality of localized builds
Reduce chances of compliance issues and MF bugs by first party
INTERNATIONALIZATION PASS
Should be performed on pseudo-localized builds (a couple months before Loc QA)
General idea of the localizability of the game before actual localization starts
Font and encoding conversion issues
Hardcoded strings
Real estate UI issues
Number format issues
Date/Time format issues
Non-localized art
Establish punctuation guidelines for English and other languages before translation starts: Curly VS. straight apostrophes and quotation marks
Long dashes VS. short dash
1 VS. 2 spaces after periods
PSEUDO-LOCALIZATION
30-100% length increase to catch real estate UI issues
Prefix made up of language-specific characters to catch font and encoding conversion issues
Non-pseudo-localized strings indicate hardcoded strings early in development
FONT VALIDATION
Develop a tool to analyze all the game fonts
Small alphabet languages (European languages)
Support ALL potentially necessary characters throughout the project
Large alphabet languages (Chinese, Japanese, Korean, etc.)
Support most common + used characters only and update regularly
Always support these special characters:
Ellipsis (… or Alt + 0133)
Non-breaking space (Alt + 0160)
Copyright (©), Trademark (™), and Registered (®) symbols
AUDIO VALIDATION
Must also be performed in English assets prior to localization recordings to avoid re-recordings in other languages
Excellent task for localization testers when builds are not stable enough or to familiarize themselves with the game
Only possible way of listening and validating all audio in the game
Ensure localized audio files are properly named
CONSTANTVALIDATION
• Sony terms: "DUALSHOCK®3", "DUALSHOCK®4", "PlayStation®Network", "PlayStation™Network",
"PlayStation®Eye", "PlayStation®3", "PlayStation®4", "PlayStation®Store", "PlayStation®Move",
"PlayStation®Vita", "PlayStation®Plus", "PSN", "Sony Entertainment Network", "PS4™", "PS3™", "SIXAXIS™", "PS
Vita", "PlayStation®TV", "PS TV"
• Microsoft terms: "SmartGlass", "Smart Match", "Xbox", "Xbox One", "Xbox Live", "Kinect", "Xbox Live Gold"
• Miscellanea: "%s", "%ls", "%i", "%d", "%hs", "%%"
TRANSLATIONCONSISTENCYCHECK
4600 translation
inconsistencies
(around 460 per language in
a 11500 string database)
ACHIEVEMENT & TROPHY LOCALIZATION
Along with metadata updates, #1 source of copy/paste in video game localization
Merge all assets into one single Excel file for translation:
Sony *.trp
Microsoft *.Gameconfig/*.xml
Steam *.vdf
Ensure English texts match across all platforms (they never do)
Diff, diff, and diff again
Encourage translators to be creative when translating achievement names!
LOCALIZEDIRECT RUNTIME STRING UPDATE
Usual workflow to fix a localization bug:1. Notice cutoff in game.
2. Guesstimate available space and shorten translation.
3. Wait for a new build.
4. Regress fix. If still cutoff, go back to step 2.
With runtime string update:1. Notice cutoff.
2. Fix and ensure translation is no longer cutoff.
1 week
1 minute
2014 2015Nov 2015 Mar May Jul Sep Nov
VO Export for Translation and Recording1/12/2015
1st UI Export for Translation2/1/2015
Start of LocQA3/1/2015
Localized VO Integration3/2/2015
1st Party Submission11/15/2015
1/5/2015 - 1/9/2015
English Audio Validation
1/5/2015 - 1/14/2015Font Analysis
12/1/2014 - 12/30/2014
Internationalization Pass
1/5/2015 - 1/14/2015English text proofreading
2/2/2015 - 11/15/2015Constant Validation
2/2/2015 - 11/15/2015Asian Font Texture Regeneration
3/6/2015 - 3/15/2015Localized VO Validation
11/3/2014 - 12/2/2014
Localization Process & Tools Setup
SUMMARY
Font analysis
Constant validation (and translation consistency)
Audio validation
Achievement localization
Efficient and localization-friendly string database solution
PLEDGE TO 1ST PARTY
Metadata:• Represents around 1% of a AAA game’s content
• Takes up around 10% of localization team’s time, involving marketing, loc QA, translators, legal team, communications, QA, Certification, and development.
• 1st party (Sony, Microsoft, and Steam) need to initiate a conversation to streamline the format and the process
Provide pre-localized TRC string repository
•Why is this important?
It’s 2015!
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