Common Problems When Translating Games into Chinese

The gaming world is skyrocketing these days. There is a great demand for it. Be these are teenagers who want to unburden themselves with school and homework stress or adults with work problems, everyone loves to play video games. Games have become everyone’s top priority. All these reasons have made the developers and makers for localization and globalization of games.

Where the quality translation helps the game to boom in the market, a poorly translated game can affect in reverse. A poor translation can turn off the players, and it can kill the enjoyment factor for them. Such things lead to the consequences where without localization and desktop publishing is next to impossible for all the languages.

Gaming Market of China

Chinese is one of the most important and most spoken languages of the world. It has billions of speakers. Many owners of gaming and developers intend to invade the Chinese market as their first business destination. The worth of the gaming industry of China is $152 billion, and it is growing at the rate of 10.2% per year.

The only industry that has taken leverage of the pandemic is the gaming industry. Do you want to know why? This is because due to Covid-19, people are restricted to people to mitigate the spread of the lethal pandemic. While restricted at homes, the only entertainment with which people are left is playing video games.

To take advantage of this situation, many gaming industries started to translate their games. People tend to play those games that are in their native language. The purpose of games is to entertain people. If it is not in the customer’s native language, it will rather frustrate them than entertain them. Translating the games into the Chinese language is very challenging. You can overcome these challenges if you know them beforehand. Let’s dive into these problems.

Lack of Required Talent

Many translation companies want to translate their games to Chinese and other languages so that they can approach the global avid gamers. Chinese people are good at translation services, but do you know that localization is a new profession in China. Therefore, the number of proficient translators that can translate games to languages other than English is very limited. The translators that are capable of translating it in multiple languages are already hired by a leading language service provider. This compelled many gaming industries to develop their in-house translation teams. Thus, this lack of talent hinders the translation of a large volume of games into the Chinese language

Large Volume of Work

The other problem is, language service providers that are working in China are overburdened with translation work and strict deadlines. On average, one translator can translate 1500-1800 words and risk cannot be taken by allocating your gaming translation project to another translator. It will deteriorate the quality and consistency of the game. Moreover, you will not be able to release your game in the global world on time. Thus, a large volume will restrict your local and global growth. On a local level, you will not be able to translate your game into different dialects of the Chinese language.

Translating Games into Chinese

Sometimes you are not aware of who has translated the game. Some gaming industries take the assistance of leading translation agencies. Translation of games in the Chinese language is different because you also need to consider culturalization. Games having offensive material like blood is banned in China. If you want to translate your game from English to Chinese, then you will have to accommodate plenty of space. English is a lengthier language than Chinese. 8 English characters are equal to 2 Chinese characters. Therefore, you will face a problem with the user interface of the game. For this, you need to make the graphic of the game user-friendly by adding more material to it. 

Culture Nuances

Localization is the extended part of translation. In this process, translation is done while keeping cultural and regional nuance in view. There is a great cultural difference between Western World and China. This difference causes great difficulties when you try to translate your game into Chinese cultural settings. A foreign translator that is unfamiliar with the history that shapes China’s culture will not understand the fact why Chinese games are heavily monitored in regard to myths, shooting, and legends. Moreover, why do Chinese avatars look tranquil as compared to Western realistic-looking graphics? While having the game in English and then translating in the Chinese language will require a proficient team of translators that can complete this task.

Budget Constraint

Budget is another problem for developers when they want to translate their games into the Chinese language. Initially, Chinese games were translated by hiring local university students that have done majors in English instead of professional translators. They translate the games into the Chinese language at cheap rates. It resulted in the bad quality of translation. Moreover, translating games into the Chinese language also faces problems due to the complexity of the Chinese language.

Taking Assistance of Localization Managers

The job of the localization manager is not as easy as it seems. They need to translate, dub, subtitle, and test each game before releasing it in the foreign market. Furthermore, they need to make sure that each word of the game is accurately translated, considering regional and cultural nuances to provide the best user experience to the gamers. Sometimes, it becomes very hectic for the localization manager to complete all the tasks in the given period provided by the gaming industry. Many translation companies simply do not provide all these services. Therefore, it becomes very difficult to look for a reliable translation agency. Therefore, a one-stop-shop is also a great problem for companies looking for Chinese translations.

The Objective of Game Translation

The objective of game translation is to provide an equivalent pleasant gaming experience depending upon your target market. It also requires an extended level of creativity and decision-making in translation services. If localization associated with games fails, then it will not entertain the gamers because they will be unable to associate it with their culture. Therefore, the localization industry needs to include both cultural differences and cultural convergence.  

Cross-cultural communication provides a great challenge for the localization process. You need to remove the cross-cultural problems so that your game does not become boring. Sometimes, it takes away the original theme of the game in which it is designed. Therefore, many game localizers make games relevant to the culture.

Who Will Localize Your Video Game?

Whether you develop the internal team or hire a professional translation agency, your ultimate goal is to provide impeccable localization services to the gamers. To make sure that your game has the same local touch in another language, you must hire a proficient translator or localization expert.

Finding a trustworthy translation partner is another problem for mobile game developers. Explore the market to find a reliable translation agency. The translation agency will make sure that the tone and voice of the game remain the same in another language while keeping cultural and regional intricacies in view.

Wrapping Up

So, as a game developer, how will you overcome the problems when translating games into Chinese? Remember that translation and localization of games go side by side. Finding a professional translation agency that is not over-burden with translation work will provide you with robust Chinese game translation services while keeping cultural and regional nuances in view.