Culturalization is as important as localization. What points should to be considered?
The reason why game culturalization is important.
Game localization is a key part for the global release. But the localization only focused on translating texts without considering target market’s culture could disturb users’ immersion while playing the game. In this regard, you need a further step into culturalization.
Culturalization is a process of works that reflects cultural aspects understandable by your users in targeted markets. This means that clear understanding of their everyday life, history, religion and behavior pattern and it even includes their facial expression and gestures.
If this culturalization goes without precise understanding of cultures, it could lead to decrease of profit, losing reputation and, in the worst case, your game could be suspended by government censorship.
Culturalization is an essential process before getting into a certain game market given that 50% of global market revenue comes from non-English speaking counties.
Cultural factors that could be potential problems when culturalizing a game
1. History
In some cultures where historical stories are of high importance, you need to pay more attention in culturalization. Incorrect description and portrayal in your game about historically important events could trigger negative and emotional reaction from users.
2. Religion and belief
Religions and beliefs could be an interesting in-game topic but they should be treated cautiously. Mentioning or implying a religion is not a good idea because it could hurt feelings of its religious society.
3. Racial stereotypes
If racial stereotypes are described in a game carelessly, they could be unpleasant for users no matter what they imply. For instance, describing chinky eyes for East Asians, big nose for Caucasians, nigger for African-Americans are really insulting expressions.
Respecting other people’s beliefs and experiences is a key point in good culturalization. Careless release of a game without considering cultural sensitivity increases the risk of collapse in main game markets. Culturalizing your game in early stage could be a great help to a successful global release.
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