Game localization testing is vital in today’s age of multicultural and diverse gaming. Making a game that is so unique to just one country or language is setting huge limits for your product, yet it is something that is often overlooked. This article will cover what localization testing is, its importance, the kinds of testing that takes place, and how to manage the cost of testing.
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What Is Game Localization Testing?
Game localization testing ensures that the language, dialogues, and cultural references in a game are accurate and supportive. Usually, it refers to the accuracy of translations and flow of dialogue, but, more recently, there has been a greater effort on whether or not something is culturally sensitive or politically correct.
Why Is Game Localization Testing Essential?
Since gaming has become such a universally loved and inclusive activity, it is principal to ensure the quality of the game and make a clear and well-flowing story, to get enjoyed by everyone who plays it (no matter their language or where they come from). Problems arise when language is broken and jarring, which can alienate a huge part of your potential player base. Having good localization testing is vital for the financial success of the game. Localization testing is essential for bug testing as developers and designers are not fluent in the local languages and can have some of the more nuanced errors.
Linguistic Quality Testing (LQT)
Linguistic quality testing is the first step in the game localization testing process. During this process, testers will check that interfaces and other UX displays are correct and make sense both contextually and grammatically. An example of an error that usually crops up is snippets of texts that are either completely untranslated from the base language or have been miscommunicated. Linguistic quality testing assumes that everything has already been translated, and translated correctly, and is almost seen as proofreading. Even the best translators can have mistakes due to a lack of context. And only during LQT they may find them and correct them. Translating the game as it’s built and then testing it as you go is far more efficient for both time and cost.
Linguistic Quality Assurance (LQA)
Linguistic quality assurance is almost checking the checker’s work. Assuring that the final product is as accurate as possible. It is essential to outline a clear path and methodology for the assurance testing not to miss anything. This quality assurance is the last line between development and testing which means any errors that are glossed over here will make it into the live product with potential ramifications. By outlining a clear methodology of bug testing, semantics and grammar testing, as well as proper documentation, you will find that you are much more successful and efficient with your LQA team’s time.
Many companies try to automate the LQT and LQA stages of game localization testing, which is fine to a point. But you will find almost everything will benefit from proper LQA testing by an actual human being who has a better understanding of context and tones, like sarcasm, for example. If you have any experience with using a translator, such as Google Translate, it will make errors with even the most basic translations. These are errors an actual person would never make because they are nonsensical with the correct context and understanding that computer programs tend to lack. An English example of this is the word table. It could be referring to the table at which you would eat your lunch, or the table of NBA teams going into the playoffs. The same word – different meaning.
Linguistic Quality Evaluation (LQE)
While LQA is indeed the last stage before the game ships, LQE is an ongoing process determined to fix any bugs that were missed and change any linguistic errors that are revealed once the game goes live. Don’t get too caught up in the idea of catching every bug and error before the LQE stage. It’s impossible. There will be tiny errors, the gaming community is rigorous, and they WILL find them. You just have to ensure that you do your best to amend them quickly. LQE should be performed after no more than 2-3 weeks after the game’s launch and then periodically again preceding that. With greater gaps between each testing period deemed as acceptable.
Cost Management
Linguistic quality testing, assurance, and evaluation are all vital to a successful game. But these processes can be expensive. To guarantee they will be worth your while. It’s best to plan how the game can be tested and simplify the testing process as much as possible. If you pay testers by the hour and then forcing them to grind through complicated levels just to get to a dialogue screen to check it’s grammatically correct, you will run out of funding very quickly.
Building in temporary cheats or shortcuts to allow testers to live test at a faster pace is not only encouraged, it’s perhaps vital. Checking that strings in the game’s code are correct isn’t a guarantee they will be reproduced in-game correctly. It is often the case that linguistic testing is more time-intensive and far more costly than the initial translation. If it isn’t budgeted correctly, your accountant will be in for a shock. Make the process as simple as you can for the translators by creating text documents or pictures of all text that has been translated rather than expecting them to sift through endless code. Not all translators are proficient coders, so this process needs to be simplified, or it will become drawn out and expensive.
Summary
Hopefully, this article has given you some insight into ways in which you can improve your game localization testing, as well as make it more affordable and easier/faster to get through. It may be tempting to use software or AI to do the bulk of the work, but every mistake must be remedied, and every translation needs to be checked. The risk-reward of trimming down the hourly wages in favor of a less accurate bit of software is something that should be given full consideration for any sized game development team.