A Thriving Industry
A report by Price Waterhouse Coopers found that, based on current estimates, by 2014 income from sales of videogames will be three times that of CDs. The barely 30 year old electronic entertainment industry has experienced tremendous changes, from the first rudimentary products played on expensive, slow machines to the development of today’s impressive consoles and the revolution, both in content and reality emulation resulting from the DVD format. According to the market analysts and consultancy NewZoo, in 2009 the videogame industry had turnover of 25.3 billion dollars in the USA alone, which is more than sales of cinema tickets according to the European Federation of Interactive Software.
Localisation: the key to success
Capturing new markets like China, Russia and South America is the key to sustained growth. Efficient localisation and translation processes of software products are essential to this effort. Content is a crucial factor as far as sales are concerned. During a recent lecture, an industry guru stressed that “we need games with better stories, more interesting and complex characters, games that keep you up in the middle of the night wrestling with whether you made the right ethical or moral choices, games that stay with you when you’re done with them, games that make you happy when you play them, and afterwards” (Dan Hewitt, “E3Expo 2005 State of the Industry Address”, May 18, 2005). The efficient translation of this content to the player's own language and the technically sound integration of this translated content back into the software product (localisation as such), cannot be overlooked as vital steps to deliver better games to further users worldwide.
Requirements of the Videogame Industry
The main companies in the videogame industry need to:
- Cut development costs
- Reduce time-to-market
- AStreamline and accelerate development and programming processes
- Reach worldwide audiences without overlooking local market issues
- Have the support of expert teams of engineers, localizers and programmers who know their product inside out
- Meet deadlines and launch schedules
- Broaden the market by reaching new audiences with appealing content in all major languages and markets