Top 5 Video Game Localization Trends in COVID-19

According to a whitepaper on the Impact on the video game industry during the COVID-19 pandemic, “the video game industry, when linked to the world of entertainment and influenced by these changes, has increased its demand and has become a domestic activity within a normal day at home, presenting a record in sales and a predominant positioning in the world market” (Revista Athenea en Ciencias de la Ingeniería vol. 1, Nº 1 Septiembre 2020 (pp. 05-13)).

This notable ascending trend in terms of video games sales expansion can be justified by the imposed lockdown restrictions, which made people turn to video games as a form of entertainment and relief, thus incurring a growing demand for game diversity and localization to different locales.

Moreover, the Gaming Market – Growth, Trends, Covid-19 Impact and Forecasts (2021 – 2026) report mentions that “The global gaming market was valued at USD 162.32 billion in 2020 and is expected to reach a value of USD 295.63 billion by 2026”, while worldwide growth trends suggest game consumption rose by 45% in the US, followed steadily by France with 38%, UK with 29% and Germany with 20%.

2021 is very assertive when it comes to Video Game content localization and the underlying need to strike a “delicate balance between foreignization and domestication, in terms” (Taming the Stranger: Domestication vs Foreignization in Literary Translation, by Zsuzsanna Ajtony).

In another article, Found in Translation: Evolving Approaches for the Localization of Japanese Video Games, Carme Mangiron highlights that, in the context of Foreignization, “preserving most of the original sociocultural content of the game” helps “target players become acquainted with the source culture” (Fernández-Costales 2012; O’Hagan and Mangiron 2013).

Alternatively, Domestication or “mukokuseki” (literally “nationless”) as attributed to the Japanese Gaming market (one, if not, the largest Video Game market contender in Covid 19) points to the process of adapting the source content as required, giving it a local flavour and closeness to the target audience.

A relevant example is a Video Game Localization project following a thorough foreignizing strategy applied to the visuals, storyline, and overall socio-cultural content, while the humour, cultural innuendos and cross-cultural references are domesticated. Mangiron states that Japanese games can often contain a certain degree of sexual innuendo, which, in Europe and North America would be deemed inappropriate for a younger audience.

SEGA’s American branch is a noteworthy example, which usually adapts Japanese game content to the target audience within the Localization process, in order to achieve the level of content appropriation and comfort the target audience desires and expects, within the limits of not completely altering it, thus being viewed as censorship.

Gaming-as-a-service or ‘cloud gaming’ as it is often referred to, refers to a type of online gaming on remote servers through direct streams to a user's device, contrasting with traditional forms of gaming performed locally. Virtual reality (VR) and social streaming has experienced a meteoric rise in recent years, amplified by the Covid-19 pandemic, largely due to lack of physical gatherings or events.

The metaverse refers to a collective virtual space created by the convergence of virtually augmented reality and virtual spaces. Author Apurva Shah defines ‘metaverse’ in his blog article What is the metaverse? (duality.ai) as being accurately modelled to match the real world, with possible ramifications across the virtual and physical divide that generate augmented and mixed reality experiences (AR & XR).

According to Newzoo’s Games Trends to Watch in 2021, these two intertwining concepts are significant trends in the second wave of Covid-19, defining a new dimension for Video Game Content Localization methods due to the higher complexity, from textual content (UIs, captions, subtitles, in-video game text) to audio content (voice-overs, dubbing) and holistic creative and marketing content (graphics, artwork assets, digital advertising, landing pages, social media pages) all the way to labels and policies.

A 2020 Nimdzi Research highlights that “9 out of 10 global users ignore a product if it's not in their native language, while currently most organizations building their localization programs know what their core (traditional) markets for localization are. These often include: English; French, Italian, German, Spanish (referred to as FIGS); Portuguese & Brazilian Portuguese, Russian; Chinese, Japanese, Korean (CCJK); and local variants thereof”.

A European rising star in the Video Game Localization top list is Polish, with its growing popularity explained by many video game development companies, studios, and exporters located in Poland. According to a very interesting statistic from Reuters, nearly half of Poland's population consists of avid gamers, and Poland's growing video game industry is expected to further increase to be worth approximately $850 million over the next four years.