Game Publishing/Business

Re: Localization - is it worth it?

Social Loner Studios — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 03:28:03 GMT

Thanks for those numbers Matt.

I was hoping some other developers would post some of their stats. For the developers that have localized their apps, how are their sales in France, Italy, or Spain (whichever language you localized into)?

I am really curious, along with Harald, if localization pays off. My impression so far is 'no', it isn't worth it.

Re: Localization - is it worth it?

MattSimpson — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 10:21:53 GMT

According to VGChartz (*) the numbers of XBox 360 sales are as follows;

Total 30.75 M

Total broken down by region as follows;

America 17.53 M

Others 12.14 M

Japan 01.08 M

'Others' region broken down by country as follows;

UK 3,478,505

France 1,385,670

Germany 1,005,745

Spain 745,077

Italy 898,248

Scandinavia 713,759

Other Europe 1,222,955

Australia 711,739

Other 1,974,438

The numbers might not be 100% accurate but could be useful as "ball-park" figures.

*http://vgchartz.com/

Re: Localization - is it worth it?

Social Loner Studios — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 05:40:01 GMT

Pheel:
I'm not sure pointing to the sales in non-english speaking countries for english only games means a lot

I agree, but there isn't much information to go on. There are very few community games that are even made for different regions, and only two that I can find that have box art / game titles in a foreign language (Arriba! & Cuadro).

I can't find any information on the number of XBoxes sold in a country either, or number of XBoxes set to a particular language. Maybe only 10 XBoxes have been sold in France, I'm sure it is more, but I don't have any information on the actual number.

Re: Localization - is it worth it?

Pheel — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 05:06:03 GMT

I'm not sure pointing to the sales in non-english speaking countries for english only games means a lot

Re: Localization - is it worth it?

Social Loner Studios — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 03:33:19 GMT

Localization has a major flaw. You can't localize your box art, thumbnail, or screen shots. Everybody says time and time again that box art is the most important item in selling your game, and I agree. Our box art says 'What The?!' in English across it, that tells French, Spanish & Italians that it is an English game. I can't fit 4 or 5 languages on one box, there isn't enough room. (Our game also has tons of spoken dialog in it to complicate matters, we never planned on doing a localized version of it, we don't have French/Spanish/Italian voice talent)

As you pointed out Harald, the actual trial downloads / purchases from these other countries is pathetic. Add to that the difficulty in development, translation, getting reviewers in other languages, it doesn't seem to be worth it.

Our non-English sales to date:

France 1 sale

Spain 2 sales

Italy 3 sales (Wahoo! 3 sales)

Even considering games that have done well, like ZP2K9 (I hate that name) only sold 2% of their games in non-English countries (according to a Gamasutra article).

I suppose we could release multiple copies of our game, each copy to only one country, that way we could have localized box art (but we are not going to do this).

Localization - is it worth it?

Harald Maassen — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 23:01:28 GMT

So far I've sold 0 copies in France, Spain or Italy (out of 70 total). Trial downloads in those countries are also pitifully low.

What is the experience of other, more succesful games? How are those who did localize their game doing?