Xseed Talks What It Takes To Localize A Game
Wired.com: For starters, could you tell me a little bit about the process that goes into localization at Xseed?
Jessica Chavez: Localization at Xseed is something like a game of hot potato. A game is found, evaluated by all in the company and, if good enough and deemed sellable, we go after the rights and then toss it to the localization department in a manner that burns the skin off one’s fingertips. Sizzling and new, it’s lobbed at Kenji (localization manager) who maps out a hopeful schedule … which is inevitably never followed because something always goes wrong (text is late, QA manages to catastrophically crash the game, master submission fails, people don’t take turns having nervous breakdowns and instead decide to both go for it at the same time, etc.).
Hypothetically speaking, however, if nothing went wrong the game would then be passed to Tom (translator), who would wrap it lovingly in tinfoil and chuck it at the editor (me), who would then proceed to add cheese, chives and/or bacon before it’s passed back to Kenji to be grilled over hot coals for QA (quality assurance, aka bug hunt). Following a successful QA run, the spud would then be submitted for final approval (the aforementioned master submission) and soon after we’d all get to eat it. Needless to say, this process is chaotic, can last for up to a year (Trails in the Sky!) and tends to leave bits of potato all over the walls.
For a simplified, food-free explanation, here’s a quick and dirty breakdown:
Cool game! -> Staff evaluation -> License -> Game text to localization -> Translation -> Editing -> QA -> Master submission -> Finale!*
*ESRB (game-rating organization), PEGI (European game-rating organization), programming disasters and human failings may be inserted anywhere in this equation.
