The Top 7 Game Translation Tools

Video game translation is an essential part of game development. It can help you massively expand your reach and, more importantly, your revenue. But unlike other forms of translation, gaming translation can be very challenging. After all, video games include video, text, dialogues, sound effects, and images. On top of that, the type of text, video, and audio a gaming company deals with can vary a lot. A triple-A game includes hundreds, if not thousands, of lines of dialogue. This type of text is like a movie script or a comic. They come with a unique tone and delivery style. Games also come with a laundry list of names. From characters to cities, each name needs to be “translated” consistently. You’ll have to also translate menus, skill trees, and all the UI. Then, of course, you have audio. Dubbing costs are higher, and can need many different actors to cover all your characters. Finally, you may also need to deal with graphic design and video editing. After all, you may need to change your character design to fit your target markets. It’s a daunting task.

Game translation tools to the rescue

Due to the many moving parts of a game translation project, relying on a manual approach is not a good idea. Excel files and human translation alone are slow and inefficient.

This method results in many small tasks that create translation bottlenecks. Especially when updating frequent content like new items or side-quests.

Thankfully, nowadays, we can rely on video game translation tools to match the pace of the gaming industry. These tools help us reduce costs, improve our output, and maintain quality with the right tool.

In this article, we will compare the top 5 gaming translation tools. Our goal is to equip you with the knowledge to pick the one that fits you best. Whether you need them for internal use or to understand your partners’ workflow.

1. Efficiency: The old-school method is to rely on email. You’d send the strings in an Excel file to a PM, which then emails it to a translator, etc. The entire process is manual, time-consuming, and often susceptible to human error. With game translation software, teams can translate and update the game almost instantly. This automates the localization process, saving everyone time and effort.
2. Consistency: A translation tool can store translated terms in a translation memory (TMs). As a result, we can translate repeated terms and phrases consistently. It helps create a consistent and cohesive gaming experience.
3. Centralization: With a translation tool, everything is centralized in one location. It allows us to track and manage the translation process seamlessly. As such, we can catch mistakes early on.
4. Collaboration: Large teams can work on a project at the same time. They improve collaboration without dealing with long email chains. You can assign tasks and oversee them from the platform.
5. Cost-effective: These tools reduce the amount of manual work needed. By doing so, they can reduce your costs. In other words, you can now consider translating your game into more languages, which leads to higher potential revenue.
6. Flexibility and adaptability: Even after you launch your game, you can still make changes. As you roll out new patches, translators have access to the strings and can translate them.
7. Accuracy: These tools come equipped with AIs, MTs, style guides, and glossaries. All these solutions can help improve accuracy.

How will we compare the 7 game translation tools?

To compare them, we will translate a game called “Tanks of Freedom.” It’s an open-source strategy game. We will translate it from English to Simplified Chinese.

We picked these platforms based on popularity, ease of use, and features. Whether you are in the localization industry or intend to translate your own game, these 7 platforms are the ones you’ll run into—Trados, Phrase, Lokalise, Starling, Weblate, Gridly, and Crowdin.

The game translation service begins!

The pre-localization phase

In this stage, we need to change the code and game content to simplify the translation process. This stage usually has 5 sub-stages.

1. Internationalization

Internationalization means making a game that we can easily change to fit different languages and cultures. The most important aspect of internationalization is externalizing hard-coded strings.

If you’d like to learn more about internationalization, check out this article. It’s a step-by-step dive into the process.

2. Remote repository hosting

One of the key elements that make localization easy is a centralized location for the game’s code. Although there are other options, we will rely on GitHub to host the code for a few reasons:

• It allows for version control. In other words, we can track changes made during the localization easily.
• It’s a safe and organized platform for sharing code, assets, and documentation.
• It facilitates collaboration between the development and localization teams.

By using GitHub, implementing continuous localization in your workflow is easier.

3. A localization kit

A video game localization kit is a document that you need to prepare and give to the localization team.

Its purpose is to help them understand the project, your game, and its context. Equipped with that document, the localization team can adapt your video game effectively. The translation kit should include the following:

You need to provide a list of game-specific words and platform-specific standards. For example, a “tank” in your game may mean a character that soaks up damage for his team. But without a glossary, a translator may assume you refer to the actual “war vehicle.”

A good example you can look at is the Microsoft Terminology for the Xbox. You can find it in the Microsoft Language Portal.

You need to list and explain which tools you expect the translators to use. Whether your company relies on translation management systems, CAT tools, or simple Excel files.

By providing the code and setup files required, the localization team can put the translated strings into the game directly.

Include all the text, images, scripts, audio, and other assets the team needs to work on. By giving the team this complete package of resources, you can make their job easier. They will be able to maintain consistency across all their work. And by supporting them well, the team’s output will improve.

Ideally, translators should play the game a bit. By playing, they can think like gamers and understand the game. As a result, they can create the best possible translation. If that’s not possible, watching and reading game-related content can be an alternative.

You can make the localization process easier by following these steps before starting. It helps the localization teams adapt the game’s content and code effectively. It also ensures smooth teamwork and project management.

The video game translation phase

This is where the actual translation starts. We can start using the game translation tools and test them out. In this phase, we will use Lokalise.