Game Development Reference
In-Depth Information
8L
OCALIZATION
Localization is the process of preparing a game for distribution in different locales or re-
gions,itisanimportantpartofagame'sdevelopmentcycleandissomethingthatuserinter-
faceprogrammersmustbefamiliarwith.Localizingagamemeansenablingthereplacement
of text, audio, video and images to a version prepared for the target locale. This section is
an introduction to many localization concepts and strategies used to bring games into many
locales.
Thelocalizationfortheuserinterfaceissomethingthatshouldnotbeleftasanafterthought,
it is far easier and more cost efficient to design and develop user interfaces with localization
in mind than it is to retrofit a user interface to support localization when the game is nearing
completion. Itcannot bestressed enoughhowimportant itistobecertain that theuserinter-
face is using the localization pipeline from the start.
Unfortunately, there is no universal way to perform localization, each team develops their
own localization pipeline to best utilize its resources, from very simple approach that uses
either a large text file, possibly generated from a spreadsheet to complete localization pack-
ages that run as a service, an application or as ideally, as an internal web application.
