Setting Up a New Localization Department
Adopting a brand-new system is always a challenge. You already have processes in place, you are probably using a number of legacy systems for various purposes – and, on top of that, work cannot stop as you are expected to perform without interruption. Gameforge has presented a very elegant memoQ rollout that is a good example of a confident and effective adoption of the newest technology on top of legacy processes that have been in place for some time. Let’s see how Gameforge managed to save resources and how they increased quality and turnaround times. Meet Sarah Beuter, the Head of Localization at Gameforge. Sarah was not always a localization expert but her line of work eventually led her to the field – where she was entrusted with a huge and exciting task:
"I started my journey at Gameforge as Community Manager and got involved with translations there – after that, I built the Localization department from scratch.
I love working with people and am very interested in different mentalities and cultures. My goal is to make it possible for a lot of people to enjoy games in their native languages – essentially, they should feel as if the game was written in their language.”
Localization is not translation – and Sarah understood the magnitude of the challenge. And part of that challenge is to understand the environment your localization department exists in. Sarah explained some common pain points localization specialists will be well aware of:
“Since game developers do not understand the needs of translators, localization must be creative – as developers do not necessarily have the time and resources to listen to linguists and to modify processes and to streamline solutions to make things easier for translators.”
When you are setting up a Localization Department it does not mean that localization as such has no history in your organization. Sarah had to face yet another issue that pains many localization experts when they set out to normalize and rationalize the localization workflow: widespread legacy processes and systems.
“We had many tools that had grown over time and thus had a lot of options – but they never performed to 100% satisfaction. Plus, in many cases, they were slow as hell.
For instance, we had a tool that had a wide range of options and worked relatively well – but it was just not as supportive as it could have been for the translators. So we decided to investigate.
We conducted many evaluations and ended up with memoQ as the most fitting solution for us.”
memoQ is a comprehensive environment that is shaped around the needs of the many actors of the language industry – while it caters for project managers, quality assurance staff, management, it still focuses strongly on the single actor that makes things happen: the translator.
Results of a Right Decision
“Translators are really happy as memoQ helps a lot with repetitive strings... and there are a lot of them in some of our games.”
The introduction of the memoQ environment helped Sarah’s team in many ways. She believes these aspects have been the most significant:
“The Translation Memory and Term Base features are the ones making our lives at Gameforge way easier. We are now also faster and have an even higher quality output than before.”
memoQ makes it possible for professionals to free up resources by automating a very wide range of processes. Using these features results in an advanced and streamlined workflow all across the organization. Sarah’s team has started automation too:
“We also automated a lot of things – and there is still a lot of room to improve. Automation helped especially our Project Managers, who can now concentrate much more on the content in their projects and do not need to spend that much time on organizing workflows, as memoQ now takes care of most of these tasks automatically.
memoQ and its processes also helped a lot with all the other administrative stuff, such as invoicing.”
Sarah Beuter and her team have matched their processes to the memoQ environment in a very elegant way: with the least disruption, and with a gradual adoption of more and more processes offered by the environment in order to save resources, increase speed, uphold consistency and quality. Well done Gameforge, your Localization Team is just as amazing as your coolest games!
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