Assessing Multilingual Game Localization Quality
Article Contents
Client
Our client is an international holding company specializing in developing mobile games in genres such as RPG, strategy, farm simulator, and match-3. Quality is a priority for the client — the developers work hard to ensure the gameplay is engaging and the design and graphics are beautiful, bright and original. They require multilingual localization that helps players from different countries easily engage with the game and understand all the nuances of the plot, game mechanics, and controls.
Task
When the client started receiving negative feedback from players about the quality of localization, they decided to contact Logrus IT for an expert assessment. This assessment involved analyzing the work of the localization contractor, identifying weaknesses, and providing recommendations for improvement. English, French, German, Spanish, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, and Brazilian Portuguese localizations were evaluated.
Solution
Approach
To comprehensively analyze localization quality, Logrus IT uses its proprietary “Quality Triangle” methodology. This allows experts to assess the translation from various aspects:
1) fidelity to the source text;
2) readability and clarity of the text as a whole;
3) quantity and types of individual (atomic) errors.
For each of these aspects, metrics are formed. These metrics are unique for each assessment because they are based on the client’s needs and project goals. This approach covers all the necessary parameters, gives structure to the work of reviewers, and results in a comprehensive translation assessment in which various aspects of the text are considered independently. We conduct quality assessments on Logrus IT’s proprietary QE portal, which allows flexible and easy process setup and automatically calculates quality indicators based on selected metrics.
Work stages
First stage: selecting quality parameters and creating metrics.
At this stage, we clarify the client’s wishes and needs, then select the necessary metric parameters based on them. Examples of selected parameters for this project:
- Adequacy — translation accuracy
- Consistency — uniformity of terms
- Intelligibility — how easily the text is understood by the target audience
- Technical issues — technical text errors (e.g., tag errors).
Second stage: translation assessment by native linguists.
For this project, we selected reviewers who are native speakers of the localization languages. Logrus IT has offices and permanent partners all over the world, allowing us to quickly find the right specialists for such tasks. The reviewers swiftly conducted a thorough analysis of the in-game texts provided by the client and gave detailed comments.
Third stage: arbitration.
Objectivity in assessment is very important to us. Using the QE portal and detailed standardized assessment criteria, we not only minimize the influence of the reviewer’s personal preferences on the assessment but also include the opinions of the translators who performed the localization. The contracting company received a detailed description of all the localization shortcomings identified by our experts and could contest the comments they disagreed with. Our experts considered the responses from the translators and adjusted the assessment where necessary.
Outcome
The expert assessment helped the client identify weaknesses in the localization. With the necessary information, the client was able to restructure their internal processes to pay more attention to localization quality control. Our work impressed them greatly, and they subsequently turned to Logrus IT repeatedly, not only for quality assessments but also to localize their games.
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