Why culturalisation matters as much as localisation

Kate Edwards discusses how to approach culturalisation, and how to navigate sensitive themes so your game can reach wider markets

Localization presents interesting challenges, but cultural differences run much deeper than language. It’s easy to think of any changes as censorship, but market realities are far more complex than that. Here, Kate Edwards provides a fascinating look at how to handle the trade-offs and pitfalls that can needlessly render games unsaleable in particular countries.

Localization and Censorship

In this article, we analyze public misunderstanding of censorship as it occurs in the video game localization process.

Censorship is a hot-button issue in games and particularly in localization, but the term is often defined too loosely for productive discussion. Bagoum looks at a few varieties of censorship to break down what makes them different and where the problems come from - and the cases where censorship might actually be a good thing.

Q&A: Translating the humor & tone of Yakuza games for the West

"The humor of a Yakuza game is a fine line to walk," says localization producer Scott Strichart in this in-depth chat about localization, the Yakuza games, and the ins and outs of Japanese humor.

A look at the challenges of localizing the Yakuza series of games for the West and the strategies Atlus has developed to overcome them (in particular working with both editors and translators together). I was intrigued by how important it is to have editors with strong understanding of the characters.